A heated discussion on what to do with old county road equipment stopped just short of name-calling at Thursday’s board of supervisors meeting.

The topic of replacing heavy equipment like backhoes and bulldozers was addressed in several recent supervisor meetings, but time was getting short, Maintenance Supervisor Paul Bourke said Thursday.

By state law, the county has until May to sell its old equipment or wait until next fiscal year, he said.

And with some pieces pushing 17-years-old and hefty replacement costs, it would be cheaper in the long run to replace most of the equipment, Bourke said.

“They’re eating our lunch money,” Bourke said. “The maintenance on them is just too high.”

Auctioning off the equipment or entering into guaranteed buyback contracts, where the dealer promises to buy back the equipment after it’s used, were among the options on the table.

Supervisor S.E. “Spanky” Felter wanted the county to keep a number of pieces of equipment, and those that they sold, he wanted to get a better price than previous quotes had indicated.

Supervisor Sammy Cauthen said if the county bought new equipment at government discounts, they could sell it several years later and, nine times out of 10, get their money back or even make a profit.

Cauthen said out of his years on the board, he almost always saw pieces of equipment sell at auction for more than the minimum the county put on them.

Felter said he thought the board should know what the replacement costs were before they set minimum bid prices.

Supervisor Thomas “Boo” Campbell said he felt most of the equipment should be replaced, especially the equipment for which the county no longer has a use.

“We cannot keep equipment from 1990,” Campbell said. “It’s 2007, man.”

Supervisor President Darryl Grennell said he was concerned about getting equipment replaced soon before a potential storm caused damage for which they might need heavy equipment.

“We don’t want to put this off too long,” Grennell said. “We don’t want to a bunch of junk out there that’s not going to work. If we have another Katrina experience, we’re going to be stuck like Chuck with equipment that doesn’t work.”

Cauthen motioned the county sell the equipment except for one piece Felter had expressed interest in keeping, but he withdrew it after more arguments.

The final decision was to discuss the issue again at the next supervisors meeting after getting more cost estimates.

On a motion from Felter, the board voted to require the road department to keep a computerized record of heavy equipment maintenance costs in the future.

“If we’re spending that kind of money on equipment, we need to keep up with it,” Felter said.

In other business:

4The board gave the go-ahead for Natchez Regional Medical Center to use money that would otherwise go toward the hospital’s operating expenses to pay for capitol improvements. The hospital is applying for bonds that would pay for those improvements in the future. If and when the hospital receives the bonds, they will reimburse themselves for those costs, board attorney Bob Latham said.

4The board approved the use of roughly $52,000 from NRMC’s right of way to go toward resurfacing the hospital’s parking lot.

The hospital will also contribute toward the cost of paving, roughly $80,000, attorney Walter Brown said.

4The board granted Civil Defense Director George Souderes the autonomy to decide where in the county to locate the next tornado siren in the series of sirens being installed over a number of years.

4The board approved advertising for a security X-ray machine to be installed in the Adams County Courthouse, to be paid for through an Office of Homeland Security grant.