Counties and municipalities throughout the state are struggling to collect overdue garbage fees, and Newton County is no exception. In a Board of Supervisors meeting Thursday, Tax Assessor May Bender told the board the county is making little headway in collecting on the almost $50,000 in outstanding debt.
“We can’t make any headway with what we’re doing,” Bender said.
Collecting garbage fees has been an ongoing issue for the county, and the Board of Supervisors had previously tasked Bender’s office with collecting past due amounts, freeing up Newton County Solid Waste to focus on collecting current amounts due. The two departments’ billing software, however, are not compatible and cannot share data.
“Their two computer systems won’t talk to each other,” Supervisor Joe Alexander said.
Bender said her office is working with the Solid Waste department to collect what it can, but the county is limited in what it can do.
“We can hold car tags, and we’re doing that,” she said.
However, Bender said, residents are good at coming up with ways to avoid paying.
Supervisor Kenneth Harris said garbage fees are an issue that pop up frequently in Mississippi Association of Supervisors meetings. The problem is state-wide, he said, and many local governments are struggling with the same issues.
Steve Gray, Director of Government Affairs for MAS, said millions of dollars in unpaid garbage fees are on the books throughout the state. Collecting on garbage fees is an issue MAS has been working on for several years, he said.
“We’ve spent years trying to find ways to collect on garbage fees,” he said.
Counties and municipalities are prohibited from forgiving or writing off that debt, Gray explained. With each passing year, the debt carried by local governments grows, which hurts the economic standing of the state, he said.
Additionally, Gray said, garbage fees are needed to support government services; they’re factored into the budget. When residents don’t pay, the county, town or city has to make that money up somewhere else.
“That’s money they have to make up,” he said. “At the county level, they have to make it up through property taxes.”
In the 2019 Legislative session, Gray said MAS lobbied support for HB981, which would allow local governments to collect unpaid fees from residents’ income tax returns. The bill was signed into law but has yet to be implemented, he said.
“It’s not limited to garbage, but garbage is the biggest,” he said.
Once HB981 is organized and implemented throughout the state, Gray said he hopes counties and cities will be able to use it as “another tool in the toolbox” to help collect unpaid debts.
