The city of Vicksburg needs to stop handling infrastructure and capital improvement projects on a pay-as-you-go, basis and develop a 10-year plan to address the city’s needs and pay for them, Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said.

“What I want to do is make sure we have a snapshot of where we are and where we absolutely have to go. I plan to present a plan to the board in about three to four weeks,” Flaggs said after a Monday Board of Mayor and Aldermen work session. If Aldermen Michael Mayfield and Willis Thompson agree, he said, “we’ll need to hire someone to do it. We’re not able to do it in house. None of us have the time to do it.”

The board met Monday to discuss a list of prospective and ongoing infrastructure improvements and the demolition of Kuhn Hospital.

Several projects, like repairs to the water treatment plant on Haining Road, the city’s auxiliary waterline project, work at the wastewater treatment plant on Rifle Range Road and the city’s compliance with a 2013 Environmental Protection Agency consent decree are considered major issues that have to be resolved immediately.

All of the projects, with the exception of the waterline project and the consent decree, are proposed. The waterline project is estimated at $3.2 million, with 75 percent covered by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 529 grant. The city’s share is estimated at $800,000.

The problems needing attention include:

• Replacing the electrical system at the water treatment plant, $4 million.

Electrical failures at the plant in 2013 and twice in 2015, have shut the plant down and forced city officials to issue boil water notices.

“When that plant was built in the late 60s, the electrical system was the state of the art,” Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said. “Now, no one uses that amount of voltage.” He said putting in a new system would require a new building to handle the transfer.”

• A new clarifier for the wastewater treatment plant. The replacement cost is estimated at up to $5 million.

• Paving city streets (all streets) $6.3 million. The city has already spent more than $2 million in paving under a capital improvements program.

• A gas system loop connection linking Mississippi 27 and U.S. 61 North, $200,000.

• Kuhn Memorial Hospital asbestos abatement and demolition, $852,065.83.

Flaggs called the consent decree “big elephant in the room,” and said it provides a good opportunity for the board to consider a long-term plan.

“I think it’s a great time in our administration to assess where we are and where we want to go. I believe it’s absolutely imperative that I recommend to the board a pathway forward on infrastructure.

“What this will do is stop us from paying as we go for making future preparations,” he said.

“It’s all a part of making certain that we leave future administrations with a guide for the operation of the city of Vicksburg, whether it’s through the structure of government, or whether it’s through providing services.”

The city entered into the consent decree after the EPA determined raw sewage was being dumped into local streams, including the Mississippi River. Under the terms of the consent decree, the city is required to assess, map and replace or upgrade its 109-year-old sewer system.

“Right now, we’re mapping and assessing the sewer system,” Van Norman said. “It will be a constant process over the next 10 years. The repair cost is the unknown and the most expensive. It just depends on what they get (find) and how bad it is.”

He said the preliminary estimate to map, assess and repair the system is $3 to $4 million, based on what it is costing Memphis, Tenn. to do the same project. Memphis, he said, has a similar aging sewer system to Vicksburg.

He said some money has already been spent on other items in the consent decree, such as buying and connecting generators to sewer lift station, and some work was done on lines on Martin Luther King Boulevard and Mission 66 before those streets were repaved.

The board in April 2015 approved an $8 per month EPA fee to help cover the cost of meeting the consent decree, but Flaggs said some of those funds had been used to help cover sewer system operating costs and meeting the consent decree.

“We are continuously running the sewer department at a deficit, (because of the consent decree),” he said.

He said the board will look at funding options to meet the cost of compliance, “but first of all, we’ve got to nail it down and be able to project a better cost, so that we won’t just be putting numbers on paper. What we want to do is put a plan of action in place so that future administrations can just pick up where we leave off or we can continue on it.

“We’ll come up with a structure,” he said. “We’ll come up with some resolution where we can pay for it. If we have to pay for it with our own means — and that does not include raising any taxes or any assessment, any more — it simply means prioritizing what we’ve got and also having a strategy where we can be able to tap into the state and federal resources and working with them.

“If it comes to us planning, I don’t think we should look at borrowing money. We ought to look at restructuring what we’ve got and reach out to state and federal government for the resources, and there are ways to do that through grants.”