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An Open Letter to the Simpson County Board of Supervisors
Anno Domini 2026, 8th Month, 27th Day
Gentlemen:
I was disappointed when I learned the news of your proposed tax increase, and I am praying you will reconsider.
First of all, I want to commend you for the good things you have done. I want to especially thank you for standing up to the school board in 2024 and refusing to rubber stamp their request for an increase in local funding (this was before I was seated on the school board). You showed yourself to be men of integrity and courage by this action and you are to be highly commended for this action since the school boards have continued to increase budgets in spite of steady decline in public school enrollment. Sadly that school board (of which I was not a member) chose to sue you in Circuit Court which necessitated you having to spend tax money to defend the County in Court. Thankfully, the Circuit Judge ruled in your favour and that should have been an end to the school board’s challenge. However, the school board then voted to appeal the Circuit Judge’s decision to the Mississippi Supreme Court. By this time I was a member of the school board and I voted against an appeal. In opposing an appeal I told the other four board members that I was opposed to an appeal, first because I agreed with the Circuit Judge’s decision, and secondly because I was (and am still) pretty sure the High Court will uphold the Circuit Court’s decision, and thirdly because the school board has already spent too much money on legal fees. Nevertheless, I was outvoted 4-1 so the appeal was made. I am praying the Supreme Court will uphold the Circuit Judge’s ruling and end this school board tyranny in Mississippi forever. So again, I commend you for asserting your Constitutional authority as the sole tax levying authority for the County and rightly interpreting statue 37-57-104 which says a school board may request an increase in funding, but not demand. The school board has caused the taxpayers of Simpson County to have to spend much money paying for a lawsuit in which we are the both the appellant and appellee! Again, I was not a member of the board that originally brought the suit, and I voted against the appeal. For the record, I have voted against increasing the school budgets in these almost two years I have been on the board, and I have also voted against the school board’s continued borrowing of money.
In spite of the good you have done, I must oppose your consideration of a tax increase. Admittedly, your proposal will result in a very small increase, but the fact is Simpson Countians are already over-taxed. In I Samuel 8:15-16, Samuel warned the people of Israel that when they had a king he would take the tenth for himself. It is tyrannical when civil governments take a tenth and more of the people’s increase. Simpson Countians are already paying far more than a tithe of their increase to local, state, and federal governments. So I contend that we are already over-taxed and it is wrong for you increase taxes by even a small amount on a people who are already over-taxed.
In your advertisement in this week’s papers you tell us you need to increase our taxes because the County’s costs have gone up. But the fact is our costs have also gone up. Our groceries, utilities, fuel, insurance, etc. has gone up just as much as the County’s and it is wrong for you to even add another straw to our burdens. Our employers and clients are not going to give us a raise because our expenses have increased and we cannot give you a raise just because your expenses have increased. The County, including the government schools is going to have to live within its means just as the taxpayers have to do.
I must particularly protest the nearly one mill increase you are proposing for the government schools. The fact is the public schools are already over-funded and spend about twice as much as the private schools. The school budgets for the past several years have been well over forty million dollars which has worked out to be over $16,000 per year per student. One reason for this is that we still have too much administrative cost. The public school establishment will tell you that Simpson County’s administration costs are within the state average, but the fact is public school administration costs in Mississippi are the highest of the Southern States. I can tell you for a fact that the public schools have moral and spiritual problems that more money will not fix. As Ronald Reagan astutely observed, the only way to keep government entities from spending more money is to give them less of it.
It is also very significant that two years after you started a new bureaucracy in Simpson County you now propose a tax increase. I protested the creation of the Community Development Department when you started it and I am protesting stronger now. This department started with one employee, then you added another, and now you are adding a third. I fear you are trying to take Simpson County down a road which we do not wish to travel. I foresee a never-ending cycle of more bureaucrats and more taxes. Besides, we do not need a county department to approve what we build on our own property. I foresee a day when Simpson Countians will have to go to Mendenhall to get a permit to build a fence or cut a tree or build a tool shed. I see the Community Development Department as a threat to liberty and I urge you to abolish it immediately.
I find it distressing that while we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence you are starting new bureaucracies and proposing to raise taxes. If you will do a little study you will see the taxes which stirred our forefathers to secede from Great Britain were a pittance compared to what their descendants now pay. If our forefathers could come back alive in Simpson County I am sure they would be dismayed at the regulation and taxation they would behold.
Please know I am praying for you all. May the Lord give you wisdom.
Your fellow Citizen,
Thomas Ray Floyd
601-862-3919
brickfloyd@bellsouth.net
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