NATCHEZ — This year’s county budget will require no property tax increase, county supervisors said Tuesday.

The Adams County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 at Tuesday’s meeting to advertise for public hearings on the millage rate for next year’s budget. Millage is a percentage of a property value, a small portion of a penny. The millage rate for a $100,000 house would be approximately $810.

The board addressed the budget after an executive session. They set hearing dates for 5:30 p.m. Sept. 12 and 9 a.m. Sept. 14.

The roughly $20 million budget is still subject to change, Supervisor Thomas “Boo” Campbell said.

“We could make some changes between now and the deadline,” Campbell said.

The board will not officially adopt the budget until after the public hearings, Supervisors President Darryl Grennell said.

The county did not raise the millage but neither did they grant money for requested raises, Supervisor Sammy Cauthen said. Nearly every department asked for raises for their employees, he said.

“I think next year, when CCA (a private prison) and other people go on the tax rolls, we’ll be able to maybe have some increases in salaries,” Cauthen said. “At this particular point, we couldn’t do it without raising taxes.”

Supervisor Henry Watts was the sole vote against advertising the budget, he said.

Watts said he thought the board had not spent enough time on the budget.

“In my mind, we did not finish scrutinizing each department and making cuts where we could have made cuts,” Watts said. “It had items in the budget we hadn’t discussed.”

The board spent four days examining the budget, he said.

Grennell said the board went through large departments but did not look at smaller departments as deeply.

“There are some departments that are just so small that the only thing in those budgets are employees’ salaries,” Grennell said.

Watts also made a motion to lower millage rates, but the motion died for lack of a second.

S.E. “Spanky” Felter, who said he had to leave the meeting early for an appointment, said he, too, would have liked to have lowered millage rates.

Watts said he was afraid that even though the proposed budget would keep the millage the same, property taxes would increase because of increased assessments.

Tax Assessor Reynolds Atkins said that wasn’t the case. He said his office had not assessed properties higher — there were just new properties to assess.

“We have had new houses and new commercial properties built, too,” Atkins said.

New properties meant new tax money for the county, he said.

The average property owner’s taxes wouldn’t increase this year, he said.

“As long as the millage does not change, the taxes will not change,” Atkins said. “People should not expect any kind of increase.”