NATCHEZ — The Adams County Board of Supervisors adopted Tues-day an approximately $25 million budget for the coming fiscal year.

County Administrator Joe Murray said the tax levy the county is seek-ing, 116.51 mills, is the same as was levied for the 2015 fiscal year. Tax-payers would pay the same rate unless their property has been assessed at a higher value in the last year.

For the 2016 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, the budget has a pro-jected revenue of $25,584,570. A total of $15,087,775 of those reve-nues — or 58.96 percent — is ex-pected to come from the county’s levy of ad valorem taxes.

That represents an approximately $2 million increase in ad valorem revenue over the current fiscal year, which has a projected total revenue of $23,848,086, of which $13,707,748 — or 57.48 percent — is generated by ad valorem taxes.

Expenditures will be approxi-mately the same as revenues, Mur-ray said.

Murray said the biggest expendi-ture increases in the projected budg-et are related to the cost of health care, which will cost the county approximately $285,000 more.

The county is projecting a decline of approximately $70,000 in gaming revenue, and likewise expects a loss of approximately $75,000 in oil and gas severance taxes, he said.

Another big expenditure the coun-ty will take on in the 2016 year is the bond payments for capital im-provement, Murray said.

The approximately $250,000 bond the county took out last year included improvements to the sher-iff’s office and courthouse roof, repairs to an elevator in the sheriff’s office, re-mortaring of brick at the sheriff’s office and a road project.

New safety requirements for ele-vators may mean the county has to replace the sheriff’s office elevator, Murray said, which could cost $100,000. Murray is hopeful the county can finish the repairs with money left over for a new elevator if it is needed.

The budget also includes 5-percent raises for members of the county road department and a 9-percent raise for Murray, which will bump his pay from $80,000 to $87,500.

The county is in talks to sell or lease a portion of the International Paper Co. property it previously purchased. The revenue from that sale, Supervisor Mike Lazarus said, would be used to pay off the bond taken out to purchase the property, which would free up the approxi-mately $900,000 annual payment the county pays on the land acquisi-tion bond.

That money, Lazarus said, could be used for recreation, if some kind of recreation deal can be reached between the City of Natchez and the county.

The county has not budgeted for the approximately $500,000 needed to wrap up the issue of payments for former Natchez Regional Medical Center employees into the Public Employee Retirement System.

The former county-owned hospi-tal did not make the payments, while employees were paying into PERS. The county has said it could make up the difference needed to close out the matter but that would require legislative approval because the hospital operated independently of the county.

“If the Legislature says we can, we will have to find the money,” Lazarus said.

The county, Lazarus said, has also made a concerted effort to build up its general fund cash balances, Laz-arus said, because those balances affect the county’s bond rating.