David A. Farrell At-Large

PICAYUNE, Miss. — I work in a small South Mississippi city, Picayune, with a population of about 25,000 persons. The city is located in the extreme southern end of Pearl River Co., which is the fourth largest county by square miles in Mississippi.

We are only about 50 minutes commuting  time from Canal Street in New Orleans, down I-59 and I-10.

I have lived here all my life. I am 64 years old today. The county has a population of about 50,000 to 60,000, I think.

I work for a newspaper, the “Picayune Item,” a small daily that publishes five days a week. I am a reporter.

As a reporter, I see a lot of, and report on,  public officials in the county and the city. I am aware of what they are dealing with and about how they are handling their jobs.

Now I was thinking the other day: In this one little county, which would be considered by national standards, a poor county when compared with others throughout the U.S., there are –

Three school boards, each school board consisting of five members and a superintendent of education. That right there is 18 public officials. I think the school board members get paid a stipend, maybe $100 a month, but each superintendent makes about $100,000 a year. I don’t dispute their salaries; they earn it.

There are two city boards in the county, Picayune’s, made up of five councilmen, a mayor and a city manager. The city manager does not vote; he manages the city, answering to the councilmen. Picayune operates under the city manager form of government, different from the traditional mayor-alderman form. Each councilman gets about $1,200 a month, the mayor $1,700 and the city manager about $60,000 a year.

On up the road is Poplarville, about 25 miles north of Picayune, which has a five-man board of aldermen and a mayor. I don’t know what they get paid, but I would imagine that it is a little bit less than Picayune.

Then there is the board of supervisors, made up of five supervisors, each elected from one of five beats or districts that cover the county. They each make about $44,000 a year, but that is not all. They each get a brand new truck and all expenses paid, including gas, for the use of that truck. There districts overlap the boundaries of the two cities. The traditional board of supervisors in Mississippi has a long and historic tradition. They go way back and they have the most powerful lobby in the state, the State Supervisors Association. In Louisiana it’s called a police jury.

The derivation of furnishing them transportation was once valid, but many believe they no longer need a truck. They used to take an active part in the maintenance and upkeep of their roads in their district, but now, all counties in Mississippi have been forced to go to the unit system. There road work is now handled by the road manager. They perform only an administrative roll. Nice benefit, though, huh?

And then on top of this we have a total of  five state legislators representing this one county. There’s state House representatives Mark Formby and Herb Frierson, and State Senators Sid Albritton and Ezell Lee, and another representative, I don’t know his name, whose district covers mainly Hancock County but it shoves up into a small portion of southeastern Pearl River Co. I think legislators make about as much as supervisors about $44,000 a year, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. I don’t know.

Now count it up, that’s approximately 36 public officials, mostly elected, to represent a county and run a county with about 60,000 persons. And oh yes, don’t forget the police protection: we have three police departments in this one little county, Picayune, Poplarville and the sheriff’s department. I don’t know how many they employ all together. That’s two police chiefs and one sheriff; the sheriff is elected. The two police chiefs in the two cities are appointed.

We also have what are called constables, and we have I believe two or three of them. They are elected.

That is about 40 officials who run the county, mostly elected, some paid a decent wage, others a pittance.

Now this is my take on this: We could combine the three school districts into one, we could eliminate the two cities, and let the supervisors run the whole county show, we couldfold the two city police departments into the sheriff department and let the sheriff administer the whole county law enforcement show; I mean we could really do some damage here on some budgets, some savings, by merging. Private enterprise does it all the time; why not government?

But no, government does a little cutting; rattles the pots and pans; and then comes back to taxpayers for another injection of cash in the form of higher taxes.

I have no doubt that if it were done right there would be a tremendous savings. However, I know this is a complicated matter and would have to be phased in by experts who know what they are doing, or we could have a disaster on our hands. I know that there are some government services that are direly needed and residents must have, but my suggestion is just that we should recognize what we have and see if there is a better way, and cheaper way, of doing things. Earlier generations did that, mostly because they were forced economically to do it.

And oh yes, the State Legislators. We could do away with the House and have what is called a unicameral system and have one Senator representing each of the state’s 82 counties. In other words, PRC would have one state legislator not five. That would cut the State Legislature from about 400 members to 82. Now that would be a great savings and we would eliminate a lot of dead representatives, oops!, I mean dead wood.

Now if the poor people of Mississippi and Pearl River County want to continue to pay for all these layers of government, then let them do it, and the ones on the public payroll will be glad to let us continue. But if we ever get serious about running our government efficiently and want to save taxpayer money, there is a way to save. But don’t look for it; I don’t believe it will ever happen, and if it ever does, it will be because the economy, after Obama gets through with us, will force us to do so.

Ask yourself, though, how much government do we really need. And just multiply what I have said by 82 times because that is how many counties Mississippi has. And by the way, why not look at consolidating some of the smaller counties?

So the ideal situation here would be one county school district, one board of supervisors, one police department and one legislator. Do you think that would work? I believe it could if we wanted it to.

I have visited New Hampshire. I understand they have done this. I believe they are the only state in the union that has a unicameral system.

What do you think?

If we, Pearl River County, successfully did it, one thing is for sure: We would be a great example to the rest of the U.S., and to Mississippi.