NATCHEZ — Adams County officials could ratify an agreement next week that will help the Natchez-Adams County Port fund itself through a newly purchased county property.

Adams County Board of Supervisors Attorney Scott Slover said he will present a previously agreed-upon contract to the supervisors for final approval that will allow the Natchez-Adams County Port Commission to lease and operate the large warehouse the county purchased in July for $2.5 million.

The lease stipulates that the port commission will pay the supervisors $340,000 annually to operate the warehouse.

“That money will cover the cost of the bond we took out to buy the warehouse, what we were receiving in taxes for it and a little more,” Supervisors Vice President Mike Lazarus said.

Under the agreement, the rest of the profits would be directed into the port’s budget.

Port Director Anthony Hauer said the warehouse — which the port has operated for its previous owners, Valley National Bank, since February 2012 when the bank foreclosed on the property — has been profitable since last year.

Slover said that as of July the warehouse’s year-to-date gross revenues were approximately $500,000.

“We have set them a baseline of what they have to produce, and then after that it will go into the port budget, and at the end where they have done their costs and do their improvements to the port, they will give it back to the county,” he said. “The port commission operates the port and any money they can with good business sense give back to the county they do.”

The goal of having the port operate the warehouse was never to generate revenue for the county, Slover said.

“We want to give them the freedom to keep the port running as well as they run it,” he said.

“Sometimes at the port it hasn’t been self funded, but this will help with their costs.”

The purchase of the property was made in part so the county could make available a portion of the land acreage that was associated with the warehouse to Genesis Energy, which announced in May it would be expanding its railcar capacity at its terminal in the port, a move that would create 20 new jobs.