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NATCHEZ — Adams County employees will likely have a very merry Christmas, thanks to the supervisors.

Pending legal review, the supervisors voted Monday to provide every non-elected county employee with a one-time payment of $1,000, which will amount to about $220,000. The payment will come from remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds granted to the county to help recover from the hardships created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supervisors have until Dec. 31 to earmark all unspent ARPA funds, which amounted to about $1 million at the beginning of Monday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. Monday’s meeting was to be the board’s only meeting in December, but Board President Kevin Wilson said at least one more meeting would be necessary to complete the process of earmarking the ARPA funds.

“We have employees we haven’t been able to give a raise, and I’m going to ask this board to consider giving our employees some kind of donation or bonus or check,” said District 4 Supervisor Warren Gaines.

District 1 Supervisor Wes Middleton seconded Gaines’ motion, saying that the issue was on his list to discuss.

County Attorney Scott Slover said supervisors could not pay any bonus to county employees. “It would have to be a payment for future work. We can’t pay them retroactively.”

Several supervisors said other counties have found a way to make such payments to their employees. Gaines restated his motion to read that it would be pending legal review.

In addition, Gaines asked that the county use ARPA funds to double the amount of money the county is paying for its joint law enforcement effort with the City of Natchez, which is known as Operation Safe Neighborhood.

According to that agreement, the city and county are contributing $40,000. Gaines moved that the county’s portion be increased to $80,000, which will pay overtime for Adams County Sheriff’s deputies involved in the operation.

Both measures passed unanimously.

After the meeting, Slover said the one-time payments are meant for full-time county employees but that all the details have yet to be resolved.