NATCHEZ &045; The assessed value of the county’s sample tax roll has decreased by more than $2 million in the last year, Tax Assessor Reynolds Atkins told county supervisors Tuesday.

&uot;All of that’s due to the plant closings we’ve had,&uot; Atkins said following the meeting. &uot;If we hadn’t had an increase in real property &045; people’s houses and businesses &045; of about $6,500,000, Š we’d have really been in a fix.&uot;

The county now only has a sample tax roll &045; an unofficial roll that has not yet been examined by the public. But as of that roll, the assessed value of property in the county is $19,716,913.

That’s down $2,045,038 from last year.

Last month, county officials announced the county will be $700,000 to $800,000 short of its budget for the coming year due to a loss of tax revenue.

They foresaw that loss due to the closing of Titan Tire in April 2001, Johns Manville in September 2002 and International Paper in July 2003. The budgets of every county department will have to be cut, County Administrator Charles Brown has said.

Supervisors voted to open the tax rolls to the public July 12-23.

Also during Tuesday’s meeting, supervisors heard a presentation Catina Allen of Specialized Management Services, a Meridian-based collection agency.

Allen said that agency can collect many different types of funds, from justice court fines to mobile home and personal property taxes to garbage collection fees.

The county’s collection contact with the Kinard Agency is up soon, Allen said, although a specific date the contract would end and Kinard’s collection rates were not available as of Tuesday.

By law, a 25 percent collection fee is added to fines collected from in-state residents, and a 50 percent fee from out-of-state resident, Allen said. SMS, in turn, would charge the county a 23 percent fee for in-state collections and a 40 percent fee for out-of-state collections.

The agency does collections for several counties, including Pearl River, Lauderdale, Clark, Noxubee and Neshoba counties.

Brown said he has received proposals from several collection agencies. &uot;It will take some evaluating&uot; in order to recommend a course of action to the board, Brown said.