Property taxes main focus of county meeting

Last updated: July 13, 2026

VICKSBURG, Miss. (VDN) — What was initially intended as a working meeting of the Warren County Board of Supervisors turned into a community event Monday, July 13, as citizens addressed higher property taxes.

The meeting was moved the second floor Circuit Courtroom to hold all the community members who wanted to voice their opinions about the increase on their property taxes.

Warren County Tax Assessor Ben Luckett was on hand to answer questions and explain the increase was due to statewide regulations requiring him to be within 10 percent of the statewide valuation ratio.

Several community members had both questions and comments. Warren County native Nick Blake was on hand to address the crowd.

“Can we please have a revenue neutral budget?” asked Blake.

Revenue neutral is when a taxing jurisdiction budgets the exact same amount of property tax revenue, in dollars, for the upcoming budget year as they did for the current year.

As the conversation progressed, Warren County District 1 Supervisor Edward Herring stepped forward to address the crowd.

Herring explained a clarification to the crowd. He specified the Board of Supervisors doesn’t function as a spend first entity.

“I think a lot of people think we get this large amount of money and decide how to spend it,” said Herring. “But that’s not what it is. We get the budget and then decide on what we can afford.”

Several of those in attendance asked where their money was being spent. They questioned how they could pay so much in taxes with poor road conditions, grass growth and trash prolific throughout the county.

Herring specified a majority of the millage collected goes to the Vicksburg Warren County School District. He said concerning millage spent in the county, 70.51 mils out of 119.91 goes toward the school district, school debt, Hinds Community College and the county vocational-technical school.

The county has the remaining 49.4 mils to fund all county functions not school related. These obligations include the Warren County Sheriff’s Office, jail, road department, ferry, courthouse functions, health department, courts, library and more.

The remark drew several comments from the crowd. One attendee suggested they take their complaints to the school board.

“The school board is being audited this year. Can we all agree to take this to them at the next meeting,” said one of the attendees.

Another community member thanked the Board of Supervisors for listening to them.

“I just want to say thank you for listening to us. You can’t get anywhere with the school board. They don’t listen,” he said.

Another resident commented, “You know the President of the school board is a banker, you’d think he could handle money.”

The Vicksburg-Warren School District Board of Trustees meets on the last Thursday of each month at the central office located at 1500 Mission 66 in Vicksburg beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Herring ended the meeting by telling residents, “I think if you came and looked at how much we, the Board of Supervisors, have cut costs over the past five years, you’d be surprised. Please feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to speak with you.”