Lucedale
Lucedale Mayor Doug Lee said the city is seeking $1.2 million from the state to fund key projects, including road expansions and new sports facilities.
The city and George County have already raised about $1.5 million to begin construction on a children’s sports complex. However, Lee said maintaining the facility will require an interlocal tax agreement with the county.

Despite these plans, Lucedale faces significant challenges with its aging water infrastructure.
“Lucedale is a very old town… 1901, 1950, early 60s is when a lot of your water lines went down. Here, we’ve still got asbestos lines, and we’ve had our problem with water. To fix it, it would take several million dollars – to fix it,” Lee said.
Lee described the difficulty of funding even small water projects.
“We just opened bids on a water line — 600 yards trying to put down an eight-inch line — come in $1.3 million. There’s no way that we can do what needs to be done,” Lee said. “It just isn’t going to happen. I don’t want to be negative, but I mean, all you do is keep stirring the pot and see what you can get, and what you do get, try to put it to the area of town that’s most needed.”
Lee also called for the restoration of the community work center program, which previously allowed Lucedale to use inmate labor for city maintenance in return for renting a building to the state prison system for $1 a year.
“They haven’t held up their end of the bargain this term. They came in here about a year ago and leased a building but haven’t been back,” Lee said.
He estimates the city previously relied on work from 25 to 30 inmates a day in addition to 12 city employees. Now, the city employs around 23 people without extra support.
“You take that number of employees and give them their salaries and their benefits, the whole nine yards for about $11 an hour a person. With PERS, life insurance — you’re talking $32,000 – $36,000 a year. So, when the inmate program went away, it was costing the city over $150,000 -$200,000 just to keep doing what they were doing, having to pay the extra labor,” Lee said.
Lee expressed concern about potential increases in the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) of Mississippi contribution rates, which could further strain the city’s finances, and shared skepticism about how the state would support municipalities if the sales tax on groceries is reduced.
“Unless they do the right thing, it’s gonna kill all municipalities, not just Lucedale,” Lee said. “Cities will come out on the short end of the stick when it’s all said and done.”
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