WOODVILLE &045; No tax millage increase will be needed to fund a proposed $12.7 million budget for the Wilkinson County School District in the next fiscal year, trustees learned at a public hearing on Monday.

Bookkeeper Audrey Veal said higher property values are generating more tax dollars for the district, thus eliminating the need for an ad valorem tax millage hike.

&uot;We are not advertising for a millage increase, but we are advertising for the new dollars those same mills will bring in,&uot; Veal said.

The district’s current tax levy of 30.03 mills is expected to generate about $70,000 more in the coming fiscal year.

Ad valorem taxes are projected to fund 20.53 percent, or $1.4 million of the district’s maintenance budget.

A majority of the proposed overall budget, $8.7 million, is dedicated to pay teacher salaries and social security and retirement insurance.

But with construction completed at William Winans Middle School in Centreville, proposed budget expenditures for the 2004 fiscal year are actually lower than last year.

Veal said the district also managed its interest-bearing funds well in the 2003 fiscal year, which ended Monday.

&uot;We did not transfer one penny to operate the district from interest funds.

We operated strictly on what we had generated from state and federal tax money,&uot; she said.

Board members are expected to adopt the new budget at their next meeting on July 9.

Prior to the budget hearing, the board opened bids for timber sales on three sections of school land.

J&N Timber Company of Centreville submitted the high bids on an 80-acre tract located south of Mississippi 563 near the Buffalo Community, and a 65-acre parcel on the Sam Leake Road northeast of Woodville. The board voted 3-0 with members Stella Andrews and Cleveland Spencer absent to accept J&N’s offer of $135,647 for the Section 15 timber. Afterward, Andrews arrived at the meeting, and the board then voted 4-0 to accept J&N’s bid of $108,640 on the Section 16 tract.