NATCHEZ — The Adams County Board of Supervisors plans to have a public hearing to discuss the possibility of dedicating a millage toward sanitation costs.

The move — which was discussed at the board’s meeting Monday — will help cut down on the problem of unpaid fines or bills, Supervisors President Mike Lazarus said.

Paying for sanitation services with millage would also ultimately help to eliminate a county department — the two-person sanitation office — and save nearly $2,500 a month on mailing costs alone, he said.

Currently, the county bills residents outside the Natchez city limits $13 a month for garbage pickup, which is picked up through a contract with WastePro.

“This is the only way to guarantee you get your money,” Lazarus said. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s one of the best I can think of.”

Collecting on unpaid sanitation bills has proven problematic in the past, board attorney Scott Slover said, because the laws currently in place don’t encourage collection.

For example, the county can flag someone with an unpaid sanitation bill so that they can’t get a new vehicle license tag until it’s paid, but “that just jeopardizes another ad valorem (tax) that we also need,” Slover said.

If the county moves forward with the proposal, it would only affect county residents outside the Natchez city limits, Slover said.

The dedicated millage would be no more than six mills, and homestead exemptions would still apply, he said.

“Some (residents) may not have a garbage bill,” he said.

Approximately half the counties in the state have something similar, Lazarus said, and when it comes to unpaid sanitation bills, “We have talked about it and talked about it for years, and it is time to pull the trigger.”

The board voted unanimously to advertise a future public hearing about the matter.

Lazarus also suggested that as the board starts planning for the next budget year, it consider setting aside a specific millage just for road work.

Lazarus said he doesn’t like for the county to have to keep taking out and paying off bonds for road repairs, which is one of the supervisors’ basic functions.

“We need to get to a plan where we are doing a certain, set number of roads every year,” he said. “I don’t want to raise millage, but maybe we could set something to do it every year.”

In other news:

4Vice President Calvin Butler said the supervisors might need to work with a group of Morgantown Road residents to host a meeting to explain plans for a resurfacing project on Morgantown Road.

The county is in the process of acquiring rights-of-way to widen the road, but Butler said some residents are resistant.

“They are not understanding why we need to widen the road,” Butler said.

Lazarus said the project qualifies for state-aid funding, but to receive state-aid the road has to be widened.

“You can overlay it, but it won’t qualify for state aid,” he said.

4The supervisors had a public hearing for the abandonment of a portion of Mount Airy Plantation Road at the request of road resident John Seyfarth, who said he is willing to work with other landowners beyond his property — which the road traverses — to allow them access.

Seyfarth said having the road stay a public road encourages people who have no business there to illegally hunt and dump deer waste there.

Though no residents were present to object, the supervisors decided to take no action to give the property owners beyond Seyfarth a chance to speak.