Adams County supervisors have set aside leftover funds to determine later how to spend what county board president Kevin Wilson said could total as much as $700,000 or so.
The funds are from $6 million the county received from the American Rescue Plan Act enacted in 2021. The U.S. Congress passed ARPA to help local governments recover economically from the COVID pandemic. Facing an end-of-the-year deadline to obligate the money, Adams County supervisors on Monday used a bookkeeping mechanism to spend what’s left by reimbursing itself for county payroll expenses.
The county board and staffers did not specify an exact amount of this budgetary transfer, but Wilson estimated it’s in the $500,00-$700,000 range. The money can be used for a variety of purposes as allowed by law, said board attorney Scott Slover. They include salaries, road improvements, E911 emergency-dispatching operations, crime-fighting initiatives and recreation facilities. A special county account will be created for the money.
From the $6 million the county got in ARPA funds beginning in 2021, money has already been earmarked for road projects, such as for Morgantown, Kingston and South Palestine, according to a report by Adams County Administrator Stephanie Washington. Allocations also went to enhancing the Natchez-Adams County Airport, the Chester Willis baseball venue, the new E911 operations center and other projects, such as home-improvement grants and a study for building a new county jail.
The Board of Supervisors earlier this month also allocated ARPA money to award $1,000 bonuses to 220 or so county government employees.
In addition, the county board allocated $80,000 for Natchez-Adams County’s new crime-fighting initiative. “Operation Safe Neighborhoods” has Natchez police officers and Adams County sheriff’s deputies engaged in “saturation” patrols throughout the city and county to curb and investigate crimes.
In discussing the process for paying Adams County sheriff’s deputies for this extra work, Chief Deputy Shane Daugherty told supervisors Monday that 286 man-hours have been accrued in the past four weeks at $30 an hour.
In other discussions Monday, the board was asked to use $50,000 in ARPA funds to pay for soil-testing expenses on land donated to the county to build a jail. Supervisors said they’ll wait until January to decide on that allocation. The property on U.S. 61 north – donated by the owners of Jordan Carriers – is being considered by supervisors as the site to build a county detention center to replace the old jail on State and Wall streets downtown.
A meeting with jail consultants has been scheduled Jan. 29 for county supervisors and the public, said Debbie Germany, who’s helping to facilitate the various assessments and options for a new jail.
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