Vicksburg residents may favor consolidating city and county government, but city and county officials are mixed over whether combining the governments is a good move, and some are against it.

“I can never support consolidating county and city government, because I understand the statutory requirements from the municipal side versus the constitutional requirements for the board of supervisors,” Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said. “Even when you litigate, what’s constitutional serves as a precedent over what is statutory.”

District 2 Supervisor William Banks also opposes consolidation.

“What purpose would it serve?” he asked. “You’ll have to come to me and show me what purpose it would serve, what’s going to be changed and what’s going to be the outcome of it. I’d have to have some facts on that. You’re going to have to show me the cards on the table: Once we do this, what is going to happen and what it’s going to say.”

According to the results from the Oct. 22 Vicksburg Planning Forum, 74 percent of people attending the forum said they would support a unified county/city government, with 79 percent saying all city and county departments should be consolidated.

Flaggs, who supports consolidating some city/county functions to eliminate duplication, said consolidation is wrong because the county and the board of supervisors were established by the state Constitution.

“We are a statutory body,” he said. “The Constitution says you shall have five supervisors. We can have as many as we want. You can’t mix it like that.”

“The city is a corporation,” Board of Supervisors President Bill Lauderdale said.

The supervisors need to understand that Vicksburg, Flaggs said, “is the hub. They don’t say, ‘I’m from Warren County, Miss.’ They say, ‘I’m from Vicksburg.’

“We don’t compete with the county, no matter what they say,” he continued, adding the city has two revenue sources — sales and property taxes — and operates water and gas service. “They have a $15 million budget (compared with the city’s $29 million budget). We’re more business. The only one who can impact their budget is the school board.”

North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield added the county does not deal with utilities, adding the rural water districts are private organizations.

“Their road department is over county roads, they don’t have to deal with the Interstate,” Mayfield, a former county supervisor, said. “The state is over the bridges. And you have the courthouse and they collect our (property) taxes.”

South Ward Alderman Willis Thompson said the response to the forum question of consolidation indicates the residents don’t understand the way local government is set up.

“We can’t consolidate because of the way we are each set up,” he said.

Like Flaggs, he believes the city and county can consolidate some activities to eliminate duplication.

“The city and the county share the cost of 911, and we hope we can get the county involved with sharing recreation,” he said. “We need to see what we can do to give the taxpayers a bigger bang for their tax dollars.”

Banks isn’t sure what services the city and county can combine.

“What duplication of services is he (Flaggs) talking about? What is the same thing both of us have?” he asked, pointing out that the county’s park and recreation program has a $320,000 budget as opposed to more than a million for the city’s program.

“And the only thing we really maintain is the golf course and the boat landing,” he said. “I don’t know what else they could consolidate.

And while the city provides ambulance service to the county, “ we pay them for the services they render to the county. They charge us a fee, they do all the calculation of what they charge to do a run and we pay them for that,” he said.

Lauderdale and District 1 Supervisor John Arnold both said they would be willing to consider consolidating governments, and both favor consolidating services if possible.

“I think anytime we can consolidate something and give a better service at a better price to the people, I think it’s great,” Lauderdale said. “We ought to do that.”

He said consolidation hasn’t been examined close enough.

“I’d be willing personally to examine different aspects, recreation, or whatever, even government, for that matter. If it is something that will help the taxpayers in the long run,” he said. “To consolidate just to consolidate, to change just for change’s sake is not good as far as I’m concerned.

“It’s got to be something of benefit for the people who are paying the tab, that’s the main thing. If it’s not beneficial, it’s no use in changing,” he said. “We have merged some services through interlocal agreements. To me, it would be a whole lot easier to do a permanent fix on them, to where you didn’t have the worry coming up on budget time. As far as finances go. To me it would be a whole lot better to do it one time and be done with it.

Lauderdale said no cities and counties have consolidated in Mississippi, adding, “There’s some pros and there’s some cons to it. It’s not something you just jump into, you really need to look into it and have some good people involved who study it and come up with something.”

“I ‘d have to look at the details and everything,” Arnold said. “It is possible; I’ve talked to a couple counties at our conventions that did it. I’d be willing to sit down and listen to it and see what we would work out. I’m open to the idea.”

Concerning consolidating programs, he said, “If you can cut expenses for the citizens of Warren County, I’m always open to that.”