Mississippi’s statewide infrastructure crisis has hit home in Marion County. The Board of Supervisors faces an astounding 51 wooden-pile bridges that will need to be fixed in the next decade, yet it only figures to get enough funding through its normal local, state and federal programs to repair or replace half that number at best. The solution, proposed by Engineer Jeff Dungan, is to borrow money to do the work. The idea is that bonds can be repaid in 20 years, yet concrete piles will last 50 years.
That investment makes sense, even though no one wants to have to go $3 million in debt, which is the estimated amount of the bond issue, to just maintain the infrastructure we have.
Yet there’s no other option, other than to continue to limp along with closed bridges and long detours. That problem will only get worse the longer a solution is delayed.
Supervisors, which are waiting on an analysis of how much they will have to raise property taxes to fix the bridges, should go ahead and do it now if at all possible; the costs are only going to continue to rise as time passes and the crunch worsens.
Citizens are well aware of the need, and although no one likes paying more in taxes, on a per person basis it won’t be that much extra and it’s necessary to maintain the quality of life and businesses in the region. We predict no public officials will lose elections over this; although there are always going to be some cantankerous, anti-tax zealots, the majority of people realize now that the road and bridge emergency requires immediate attention.
Maybe if more counties take that kind of action, it will prove to the legislature that it should finally do something about the problem by raising the state’s 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax.
It hasn’t increased since 1987, yet road construction costs have risen dramatically, leading to a $375 million or more annual shortfall in what is needed to keep everything up to par. An increase of 10 cents per gallon or more is needed.
For years, conservative groups like the Mississippi Economic Council, the state’s chamber of commerce that represents some of our largest businesses, have issued the clarion call to legislators regarding transportation system needs.
Yet time and time again, the Republican majority, led in this case by Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, has ignored the pleas. It’s frequent dodge has been that the Mississippi Department of Transportation needs to spend more wisely. Yet the real reason has always been that Reeves and his ilk are afraid a tax increase will hurt their political careers.
But perhaps we’ve reached the turning point where continuing to do nothing about an obvious problem will cost them more votes than raising taxes.
— Charlie Smith
