Jackson Free Press

Jackson is about to go on a diet, and not of the South Beach variety.

The city council voted Monday, Aug. 5, to approve a claims docket that included a $125,072.02 payment to WEI/AJA, the company that is overseeing Jackson's compliance with a consent decree from the Environmental Protection Agency. It made up just 6 percent of the total amount of payments for last week, but a similar item is in each and every claims docket that has been put before this council.

The consent decree is going to cost Jackson more than $350 million over the course of 17 years. That number is big enough to heavily impact every budget the city passes from now until then, and maybe further.

That's one reason Ward 6 Councilman Tony Yarber said last week he's excited that he and his colleagues will have early input on the budget the mayor will eventually submit to the council.

"We want to have a seat at the table as the budget is being set," Yarber said. "Usually, the budget is prepared and submitted to the City Council for approval, and I think by bringing us in early, we can come up with a budget that we can all have input on, and we can all be accountable for."

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba is doing just that. He's invited both Yarber and Budget Committee Vice Chairman DeKeither Stamps, Ward 4, to sit in on budget meetings. On Monday, Stamps described the mayor's office as "more than inviting."

"It's been great," Stamps said. "I've sent (a staffer) to sit in on the meetings to keep me up on what the issues are, and I know Mr. (Charles) Tillman (Ward 5) has sat in on some meetings. We're going to be very involved going forward."

At Monday's special meeting of the council, Melvin Priester Jr., Ward 2, asked for a full schedule for past and future payments that have gone toward the consent decree. Yarber seconded that request, saying it would go a long way in helping him make decisions as Budget Committee chairman.

Lumumba said he'd be glad to provide that list as soon as he can get it together.

"We have two years to come up with the plan for how we are going to pay for it," Lumumba said. "Obviously, we want to take care of (forming a plan) long before that deadline, and (this year's) budget is going to be a big part of that."

Last year's budget of $277.3 million represented a $10.3 million, or 3.9 percent, increase over 2011's budget of $267 million. At the time, former-Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. called Jackson's financial outlook "very sound" and praised departments heads for keeping an eye on their budgets.

But many of those department heads left with the Johnson administration, and some haven't been replaced, yet. Some won't be replaced before the start of the new fiscal year, on Oct. 1—the deadline for the city council to approve Lumumba's proposed budget.

"I've been through the process with different administrations, and it's been handled several different ways," Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon, Ward 7, said Monday.

"It certainly eases the process when the council, or at least the budget chairman, is involved early on. I see no indication that won't occur this time. Mayor Lumumba has said that he wants transparency and to involve the council. Plus, he's coming into a new job, and I would imagine he would welcome any help he can get."

The city faces other financial hurdles as well. In the same claims docket that showed the consent decree payment, the city had listed a $446,738.65 payment to Rankin County-based Hemphill Construction for work on the Fortification Street renovation project. A week ago, the city council denied the Department of Public Works' request for an additional $151,000 to fix complications director Dan Gaillet said Hemphill Construction found after starting work.

Stamps said his vote against the project was based on partially on his worry over how the city will make consent-decree payments.

Lumumba said after his election that he did not want to raise taxes, but with the consent decree payments, ongoing city projects such as Fortification Street and the school bond issue, cuts or tax raises may be the only way to balance the budget.

"It's a challenge," Barrett-Simon said of balancing this year's budget. "We'll have to do the best we can to comply with the decree. We won't know how big of an impact this is going to have until we get the actual numbers, but it will be significant."