Jackson Free Press

Hinds County's emergency-communications system is in a state of financial emergency.

Mark Young, director of the county Officer of Emergency Management, said the county's E-911 fund, which pays for the equipment and personnel related to 911, is going broke.

"Our expenditures are more than our revenues are," Young told Hinds supervisors this morning.

In a presentation to the Hinds County Board of Supervisors, Young said that after the agency pays a yearly $723,000 maintenance fee, only about $377,000 will be left in the fund. The fund also generates about $240,000 per month, Young said.

In addition, the county owes approximately $3 million to pay off its current, aging system. Young estimated the cost of installing a new system to be between $8 million and $12 million, bringing the total cost of a new system to around $15 million.

"We're talking about putting all of Hinds County's citizens' lives in jeopardy," said District 3 Supervisor Peggy Hobson-Calhoun.

Problems with the emergency-communication system fund have been a source of longstanding tension on the board. Supervisors routinely borrow from the fund to pay other county bills and then pay it back later. Last summer, the board voted to fire then-Emergency Operations Center Director Jimmie Lewis, claiming Lewis was incompetent in the role.

Supervisors agreed with Calhoun on the need to address the problems sooner rather than later, but District 1 Supervisor Robert Graham wants to commission a needs assessment to be performed at an unspecified future date.

Hobson-Calhoun offered a motion to direct Young to ask the state for assistance in performing a needs assessment, but that motion failed to receive the majority of votes needed to pass. The vote was 2-2; District 2 Supervisor Doug Anderson was not present at the meeting.

Hobson-Calhoun called the board's inaction "fiscally irresponsible."

Fisher was more forthright. "The Board of Supervisors has failed its constituents by blocking this action," he said.