WOODVILLE &045; At their regular meeting on Monday, Wilkinson County supervisors voted to begin charging county customers for bank fees the county incurs when customer checks are returned for insufficient funds.

The issue arose recently when a local bank charged the county’s Solid Waste Department a $2 fee for a customer check that bounced.

&uot;I know it’s not much, but I hate to see the county out that much when it’s not our fault,&uot; said Solid Waste Department Head Mona Whitaker.

Whitaker said on average her department receives one or two bad checks per month.

Still, Chancery Clerk Thomas Tolliver said such fees can cause auditing problems if there is no mechanism in place to recover the expense.

&uot;When we do an audit on her (department), and she’s got a minus two dollars, we won’t know where it is &045; and the auditors won’t know where it is,&uot; Tolliver said.

Tolliver asked the board to make it a county-wide policy to recover bank fees from customers who write bad checks.

&uot;We have several different departments that could happen in,&uot; he said.

The board approved the policy by a 4-0 vote with District 5 Supervisor W. G. Johnson absent.

The board also passed a resolution supporting an application by state officials to have U. S. 61 throughout Mississippi included in the federal scenic byways program.

The National Scenic Byways Program was established in 1991.

Under the program, the U. S. Department of Transportation currently recognizes 96 scenic byways in 39 states for their cultural, historic and scenic qualities.

Programs to support and enhance scenic byways are funded through the Federal Highway Administration’s Discretionary Grants Program.

In other action, the board:

4Approved travel for county officials to attend the Mississippi Association of Supervisors Mid-Winter Conference to be held Jan. 12-15 in Jackson. The board also approved travel Dec. 1-4 for members of the county civil defense team to attend a training seminar sponsored by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security in Jackson.

4Authorized the Mississippi Department of Transportation to install a culvert under the driveway of the Department of Human Services building on U. S. 61.