Warren County received only $328.80 more during the fiscal year just ended than it did during the previous year from casinos in Vicksburg despite the opening of a fifth casino.

Figures tallied by County Administrator John Smith and released Monday indicate government borrowing might be necessary to pave roads, pay employee health benefits and pay down other debts since the new fiscal year began Oct. 1.

Through August, Vicksburg had collected $6,509,974.32 in revenue- and population-based taxes for 2008-09, or $14,761.50 more than in 2007-08. Twelve payments on the gaming taxes collected by Warren County show $2,910,136.22 for the year.

The totals do not include September’s casino activity, a report on which is expected from the state gaming commission later this month. Adjustments in the county’s figures reflect when checks are actually received.

Riverwalk casino opened in October 2008, joining four other gaming establishments operating here since 1993 and 1994.

In the county, the gaming fund ran more than $544,000 short in 2008-09, thanks to an extra round of anti-erosion projects that totaled $2.8 million and major health insurance claims rocketing from nine to 22. Net spending to cover out-of-pocket claims equaled more than $670,000 this year, far beyond the $200,000 budgeted.

Most road improvement projects in 2009 involved small bridges, where state funds help pay to replace pile supports and other infrastructure, rather than routine road paving. Unusually high spending on anti-erosion projects, which require local matches to federal USDA money and skyrocketing health insurance claims from county employees may make a fact of life out of local government borrowing for the foreseeable future, Smith said. 

“It’s going to be like this until our cash reserves are up again,” Smith said.

Tax collections from property tax payments begin to arrive in March, but payments on outstanding bonds come due in December. A 5.9 percent jump in revenue because of high-end construction completed in 2008 — Riverwalk Casino and three hotels, two on East Clay Street and one on South Frontage Road — headed off a millage rate increase for 2010, but that is seen by supervisors as temporary and they expect growth in land values to drop next year.

At the start of 2008-09, supervisors borrowed $3.3 million to plug holes left by transfers out of the general fund for county-owned infrastructure in emergency dispatch and at the Port of Vicksburg. Smith said funds likely to receive the funds from the loan, called a “tax anticipation note,” would be sources that were cut during budgeting to preserve the property tax millage — the road fund and the port bond and interest fund. Fuel price spikes of 2008 left the road fund reserve at $300,000 to start the new fiscal year.

Two projects in the past six years for which bonds were issued remain outstanding — the $3.4 million replacement of the T-dock crane support platform at the port and those issued to refinance the annex building near the courthouse and jail.

This year’s loan may be smaller, but could still surpass $2.7 million to keep outstanding bond payments current. The estimate is 25 percent of what the county anticipates from taxes on real property this year, a percentage set in state law. Supervisors are expected to approve pursuing the loan, then set a public hearing date. Funds are to be repaid during the fiscal year.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com