Ron Johnson, candidate for the chairmanship of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners, demonstrated a lack of understanding about the county’s water and sewerage authority in a forum last week.
The candidate insists that the authority should be making money for the county as an “enterprise fund” and should be operating like a business.
What Johnson chooses to ignore is that the county commissioners forced the authority into the money-losing sewerage business.
There is no “profit” in waste treatment in a growing county, but there is a lot of debt. Under the current protocol, the authority takes on the debt and the county takes in the taxes. The added value of land and development made possible by sewerage goes to the board of commissioners and the school system, while the authority is stuck with the debt.
The authority will never make money on its sewerage system, but the county and county schools certainly profit from the development it enables. Someone aspiring to the county’s highest elected office should have a better understanding of how the county operates before telling the voters he can make it operate more efficiently.
