Maybe it's time for Blytheville to secede from Mississippi County.
After all, it is Blytheville's fault that the county is in its worst financial shape in years, to the degree justices are asking the legality of a 30-90-day loan for operational expenses.
They made that crystal clear in a report of Tuesday's Quorum Court Finance Committee meeting.
Justices blamed the city of Blytheville's failure to pay hundreds of thousands in jail fees and landfill fees as the cause of the county's current financial condition.
"If we had what the city owes us, we wouldn't have this problem; but we don't, so now we have this problem," Justice Bill Nelson said. "I don't know any other way around it. Somebody has got to let us have a line of credit or else we're going to have some bills that are 30 to 90 days out."
Nelson also said: "We're supporting the city, they're using us like a bank."
Only 10 other counties in the state have a higher sales tax rate than Mississippi County's 2 percent, and the justices raised millage late last year so the county should be able to thrive without Blytheville.
Imagine the other towns in the county finally not having to pay Blytheville citizens' portion of the county jail costs. That's more funding for ART, the hospital system and the old buildings the county seems fond of maintaining.
Blytheville could keep the quarter-cent jail tax money -- and the rest of the 2-cent sales tax -- and build its own criminal justice facility.
The county would do just fine without all that sales tax money generated at Blytheville businesses. Osceola would be the lone county seat so the county could slash operating costs by closing the Blytheville courthouse.
Since the biggest portion of the sales tax revenue is generated in Blytheville, the city could use that money for the court system, its own landfill, economic development and other functions of the county.
Then again, maybe, the city of Blytheville and the county need each other.
Indeed, neither could survive without one another.
Both are barely breathing, financially, as it is.
The county should want Blytheville to succeed, and vice versa. The two should be working together to solve their problems. What affects one, affects the other.
Yes, Blytheville needs to pay its jail fees. It entered into a two-year agreement early in 2011 and the city should honor that obligation. When Blytheville Mayor James Sanders brags about the city taking in more than it spent last year and the 2012 budget increasing during the budget process, it's a slap in the face to the city's debtors, including the county and that little federal agency that recently put liens on the city's property.
But the jail would not have been built without tax money generated in Blytheville.
The county would not have a place for its prisoners -- every felon there -- without Blytheville citizens' jail tax dollars.
I still believe Blytheville residents are paying twice for the jail. They pay the jail tax to maintain it and the county fees to house their prisoners, when they are actually paid.
It seems unfair, especially considering the burdens already placed on Blythevillians' backs.
Both the city and county governments need to get their acts together for the citizens' sake.
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com