Mayor Diane Delaware is looking for answers after a check for the city’s tax collections from Yazoo County bounced, and the city was informed that the new check would be for a significantly lower amount.
Delaware said the city received a check for $831,000 for August tax collections that did not clear the bank. She said that the city was later informed that the county would be paying $680,000 for August collections. Delaware said the city had already started the process of paying levies owed to the city school district, Parks & Recreation and other entities.
“You can’t just issue a check and the recalculate what you are going to pay,” Delaware said. “We need an explanation of what happened and how the county arrived at these figures.”
Cobie Collins, president of the Yazoo County Board of Supervisors, said the county overpaid the city for ad valorem tax collections during the months of July and August. Collins said the overpayments occurred during the transition following the retirement of former Tax Collector Travis Crimm Jr.
“Ashley Saxton agreed to take this job to help out the county, and to be honest, we couldn’t have paid her enough to do it,” Collins said. “She had to take on the tax sales right away, which is a very complicated process, and she did a good job with it. She didn’t know about process of entering the 2.5 percent that the county charges the city for tax collection into the computer program. If she had received some training in this area before she began work, we probably wouldn’t have had this problem.”
Yazoo County and Yazoo City have an interlocal agreement where the county collects taxes for the city for a fee. Delaware said that she believes the city deserves better communication from the county when issues arise.
“They owe us an explanation,” Delaware said. “We want them to explain their methodology. We still haven’t even been told why the check bounced.”
Collins said that he is confident that the problems have been corrected, and he doesn’t expect any more issues going forward.
