Jones Co. Board of Supervisors approves FY 22 budget

JONES COUNTY, Miss. (WDAM) - The Jones County Board of Supervisors approved its budget for the 2022 fiscal year during its meeting Tuesday.

Jones County taxpayers may soon pay fewer taxes on things like their homes, automobile tags and rental properties, among other things in the next fiscal year. That’s if the assessed value of their properties and vehicles remains the same.

We’re told during the 2022 fiscal year, the county plans to reduce its tax rate by 2.3 mills. In simple terms, a mill is one one-thousandth of a dollar. In property tax terms, we’re told this is equal to $1 of tax for each $1,000 of assessment.

Officials say the county is able to reduce the millage rate because of county growth.

“It’s really amazing that Jones County has always been fairly stable, and we’ve been able to withstand this and have growth even during COVID,” said Charles Miller, CFO, Jones Co. Board of Supervisors. “And you can see a lot of the growth in downtown Laurel with the ‘Hometown’ effect and that’s helped a lot. And the housing market is very strong in the county as well.”

Aside from lower taxes for citizens, the over $49 million approved budget details in which sectors of the economy the county spends the most funds.

“On the budget, the biggest expense the county has of course is going to be in the sheriff’s department, the jail, maintaining roads and bridges, garbage collection, that kind of thing. Courts, you know all these functions of government,” Miller said.

Moving forward, board officials say they hope to continue decreasing tax rates for Jones County residents.

“This is actually the second year in a row we’ve been able to cut the millage rate due to the growth in the county, and so the board certainly hopes they’ll be able to do it again next year as well,” Miller said.

The new rates go into effect on Oct. 1.

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