NATCHEZ, Miss. – The Adams County Board of Supervisors began the first meeting of its new four-year term Tuesday selecting Kevin Wilson as its president and appointing a former Sunflower County accounting clerk as county administrator.
Wilson, the five-member board’s only Republican, will preside over meetings in 2024 while Stephanie Washington will coordinate and direct county government’s day-to-day operations and manage the budget.
Washington is filling a position that’s been occupied on an interim basis for a year by Adams County Chancery Clerk Brandi Lewis, who took over the administrator’s job in January 2022 after the board voted out Angie King.
Wilson said the board and Washington face tough decisions this year. “Our biggest issue is we’re very short on money. We’re going to continue to make cuts this year,” he said. Budgetary measures could include not replacing county government employees who quit or retire.
The Board of Supervisors is in a fiscal year that began October with a $46 million budget that included property and garbage tax increases along with the elimination of at least 16 county government jobs – mostly at the Adams County jail.
The tax increases and budget cuts were largely prompted by the growing expenses of county government employees’ health insurance and retirement pensions combined with the higher costs of collecting garbage.
“We’ve made some cuts, but we’re not done,” said county Supervisor Wes Middleton. “We need more.”
Washington, who previously served as Sunflower County’s comptroller, was selected by the Adams County board last month from a list of about 25 applicants for the county administrator job, which offered a $100,000-a-year salary. She has bachelor’s and master ‘s degrees in business and accounting from Mississippi Valley State University and Delta State University. She’s pursuing a doctorate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Supervisors noted how impressed they are with her experience and credentials for a difficult job serving at the will and pleasure of the board as she manages a multimillion-dollar budget with about 200 county government employees. “They’re going to be coming at you in every direction,” county Supervisor Ricky Gray told Washington.
While the five-member board unanimously agreed to appoint Washington as county administrator, the vote to pick Wilson as board president was not. Gray was the lone dissenter. He said his vote opposing Wilson “wasn’t personal.” However, Gray and Wilson have exchanged sharp words in recent months as Wilson alleged wrongdoings related to supervisors contracting a New Orleans-based company to pick up county residents’ trash.
With the garbage contract costing about $900,000-a-year more than before, Wilson has been outspokenly against the deal he’s said is “suspect” and “done in the dark.”
Comments