Meridian set to receive $10 million for consent decree

Mar. 12—Meridian residents will have less of a burden from the city's federal consent decree as the city is set to receive a $10 million appropriation through recent federal appropriations bills.

The city agreed to a consent decree in 2019 after being sued by the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality for repeated sanitary sewer overflows, which violate the Clean Water Act.

In a council of governments meeting Monday, Charlie Ballou, a constituent support coordinator for U.S. Rep. Michael Guest, who represents Meridian as part of Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District, said the appropriations bill passed the House and is not expected to face much opposition in the Senate.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is one of Mississippi's two senators, said in a news release Friday that the funding is part of an Energy and Water Funding bill, which was one of six appropriations bills sent to President Joe Biden for his signature. Also among the earmarks was $3.1 million for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for maintenance work at Okatibbee Lake.

"Mississippians rely on Army Corps works for flood protection, economic activities, and recreation, which makes the Energy and Water Development bill critical to our state. I believe the final negotiated bill will enable the Corps to improve harbors, ports, levees, and water and wastewater infrastructure in our state," Hyde-Smith said.

Meridian City Councilman George Thomas said the current estimates put the cost of the consent decree at roughly $136 million, and any funding that can be used to lessen the burden on residents is welcome.

"That'll help tremendously," he said.

As local officials receive good news from its federal delegation, they are also keeping a close eye on Jackson, where the state Legislature is meeting to pass new laws and allocate funding for the upcoming year. One item of business receiving close scrutiny is the Legislature's plan to fix the Public Employee Retirement System, more commonly called PERS.

PERS is the retirement program for most government employees in the state, including city and county workers, school teachers, college professors, transportation workers and more. The program currently has enough money to pay around 61% of its liabilities, which is significantly lower than the recommended 80% benchmark.

To help shore up the program, the board of trustees governing the PERS system voted in December 2022 to increase the amount employers contribute from 17.4% to 22.4% but postponed the increase after backlash from schools, county and municipal governments throughout the state. The increase is set to go into effect in July, with the additional contributions adding approximately $2 million in salary costs to the city of Meridian alone.

Legislators are expected to take steps to ease the burden on local employers through reductions in benefits for incoming PERS employees, changing or removing an automatic 3% cost of living increase, giving PERS a direct cash infusion or some other method to bolster the system's finances.

Lauderdale County Sheriff Ward Calhoun said employers who deal with the PERS system need to know what the Legislature plans to do. One of the incentives for government service is the retirement package, he said, and changes to that have the potential to hurt employee recruitment and retention.

Thomas said the state's grocery tax is another item of business the Legislature is expected to discuss. Mississippi has one of the highest taxes on groceries in the nation, at 7%, and recent efforts by Gov. Tate Reeves and other leadership to eliminate the state's income tax have sparked discussions about whether eliminating the grocery tax would be of greater benefit to Mississippians instead.

While lowering or eliminating the grocery tax would benefit the state's poorest residents, Thomas said it could also be devastating to some small towns. For cities like Meridian, where the tax base is spread across a number of industries, the loss of the grocery tax would hurt but not be fatal, he said. In some municipalities, however, the grocery store is one of the only businesses in town, he said.

Contact Thomas Howard at thoward@themeridianstar.com