During a meeting of the Mississippi County Quorum Court's Planning and Development Committee last week, justices decided to bring a motion to the full Court proposing the shift of $2.5 million in economic development tax funds into county general. If approved during their meeting tonight (Tuesday), the fund transfer will provide much needed relief to the struggling county general fund.
The reasoning behind this move, according to Justice Bill Nelson and county consultant Eddie Jones, was that over the past several years, the county has dumped approximately $6 million into the hospital from county general, and that the preservation of a hospital could be considered economic development. Therefore, the shift from economic development would reimburse the county's general fund and still be considered a rightful use of those tax dollars.
According to documentation from the county financial management office, while the majority of those funds did technically come from county general, a portion of them came from the longstanding hospital millage tax's accumulated fund.
Over the course of 2009, the county gave $3,980,884.18 to the hospital out of county general. Of that total, approximately $2.4 million came from a lease termination fund that the county had been holding since the departure of Baptist from the hospital system. While the money did not come from normal county general sources of revenue, it was a line item in the county general budget, and could have been used to fund any county general expenditures.
The remaining $2,479,115.82, which was poured into the struggling hospital in 2009, was hospital millage tax funds, which had been accumulating for many years. The total of funds from county general and the hospital tax fund spent on maintaining the hospital system after the pullout of Ameris in 2009 was $6,460,000.
Justice Michael White, chairman of the Quorum Court's Finance Committee, along with Justice Bill Nelson, said if the hospital had not gone into crisis in 2009, the county would still have that approximately $4 million, including the lease termination fund, meaning that county general would be flush.
"We just held on to that lease termination fund, and kept the hospital tax in place over the years," said White, "just in case something like this happened. And then when it did, we had those funds available. We would definitely be in good shape right now if we hadn't had to spend them."
The move was set to be on the Quorum Court's agenda for tonight if approval of its legality could be obtained from a constitutional attorney in enough time. As of press time today, it is not on the agenda, but justices have said that if and when the approval letter is obtained, a special meeting of the Court can be called.
sharris@blythevillecourier.com