An advisory board that will help determine how the state spends millions of dollars in new infrastructure money in Jackson could begin meeting by the end of the summer.
The panel will advise the Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) on how to use funds set aside for the new “capitol complex improvement district,” or CCID.
The district and a mechanism to begin funding improvements within it, were approved by state lawmakers earlier this year.
Last week DFA Executive Director Laura Jackson began reaching out to local and state leaders to urge them to begin appointing members to the board, said Chuck McIntosh, the agency’s director of communications.
The nine-member panel will include two members appointed by the governor, and one member each tapped by the mayor of Jackson, the city’s public works director, the lieutenant governor, speaker of the House, president of Jackson State University and vice chancellor of health affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC).
“She plans to hold the first meeting in the fourth quarter,” McIntosh said.
Lawmakers approved legislation allowing the district during the 2017 session.
The law set boundaries for the CCID and mandated the state set aside a portion of Jackson’s sales tax revenues to fund road, water and sewer upgrades within in it.
In the first year about $3.2 million will be allocated for district improvements. In year two, the state will allocate $7 million for improvements, and from year three onward, $11 million will be set aside annually for improvements.
The allocations will be in addition to the sales tax diversions the city already receives from the state.
DFA will be charged with drawing up a master plan on how to use the monies, with the input of the nine-member advisory panel.
Funds can be used for street, bridge and drainage work, replacing and installing street lights and traffic signals, adding or rehabilitating water and sewer lines serving state buildings, rebuilding and repairing parks, public rights-of-way and sidewalks, improving landscaping, and relocating utilities.
The CCID was created, in part, to help offset Jackson’s losses from tax-exempt properties.
According to a 2009 study conducted by JSU and Downtown Jackson Partners, more than a quarter of properties in the capital city were tax-exempt. Of those, 30 percent were owned by the state. A current figure was unavailable at press time, but the number of tax-exempt parcels has likely grown.
Jackson receives no property taxes revenues from tax-exempt properties, but still must provide fire and police protection and maintain the roads, water and sewer lines serving them.
The CCID takes in a large number of state-owned sites, including UMMC, JSU, the Mississippi Research and Development Center, most of LeFleur’s Bluff State Park, and the Mississippi Capitol Building.
The district itself runs from Meadowbrook Road in the north to Hooker Street in the south, and from Jackson State University in the west to the Pearl River and Ridgewood Road in the east.
DFA is not required to obtain approval from Jackson before doing work, but must coordinate with the city of Jackson and its separate one-percent commission “to the greatest extent possible,” according to a copy of the legislation.
