NATCHEZ — Adams County’s legislators say they’ll push for improvement to the state’s infrastructure — and that may mean asking for fewer tax breaks for economic development.

“There are a lot of places where they don’t start working on infrastructure until a bridge falls in,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez.

“We have failed to maintain our infrastructure, and that costs us jobs.”

Johnson’s comments were made Monday morning at the Natchez-Adams Chamber of Commerce’s legislative breakfast, where he, Rep. Sam Mims, R-McComb, and Sen. Bob Dearing, D-Natchez, addressed what they plan to do during the session.

Dearing had first raised the issue of infrastructure, saying he planned to introduce a bill to take out bonds to finance the four-laning of Mississippi 24 between Liberty and McComb.

While Johnson said he did not think the project should be done by borrowing — he maintains the state should have a built in fund — he said not having better highways was an economic development drawback, citing the commitment of Continental Tire to locate in Hinds County off Interstate-20.

“One of the biggest issues there was easy ingress and egress, and Hinds County had not attracted industry in 20 years,” he said. “With highway 24, it’s a chokehold on southwest Mississippi.”

Johnson said the state should look at the $1.8 billion the state is giving in economic development packages each year — noting where the state will pay 3.5 percent of payroll taxes its employees pay back to Continental Tire — and devote some of those funds to roads and bridges.

“If you took 20 percent of the $1.8 billion we are giving in tax breaks, you’d have $360 million to use,” he said. “You’d still give rebates and incentives, but they won’t be as much.”

Johnson said that for every dollar spent on transportation, the state sees a $3 return.

“I’ve read a study of Colorado, and why the companies that have located there have, and they go there because they have the best roads, the best water infrastructure and the best schools,” he said.

“There are a whole lot of talk about the cuts we can make to improve. You have got to invest money to make money. It’s like if you have a leak on your house and you don’t patch it.”

When the forum moderator asked a submitted question about why —as the nation’s poorest state — Mississippi is required to give large tax incentive bundles to businesses locating in the area, Mims said the easy answer was, “Louisiana will, Arkansas will, Alabama will and Tennessee will.”

“That is the type of world we are living in,” he said. Companies are looking for the best incentives they can get. If we don’t give them, the others will.”

Another questioner asked if the legislators would support a push to move the Natchez-Adams School District to an elected rather than appointed board. Dearing said he supported leaving the situation as it is.

“If they stay appointed, they are answerable to the board of aldermen or board of supervisors who appointed them,” he said.

Mims and Johnson both said they would support a move to elected school boards across the state that then appoint their superintendents.

“Of the elected superintendents, 60 percent of them nationwide are in Mississippi,” Mims said, estimating that the issue will come up in the next year.

“In small districts and some rural areas, they do not necessarily have the people qualified to run for superintendent,” Johnson sad. “The more important thing is to have a uniform system around the state, and the one that makes the most sense is an elected school board with appointed superintendents.”

When asked if the Legislature would take the lead on a move to redesign the state flag so it no longer contains the Confederate battle emblem, Dearing said he did not think a move would come through the Legislature, especially since the governor and lieutenant governor have said they are happy with the 2001 referendum that affirmed the flag.

Mims said in the 12 years he has been in the Legislature, the flag issue did not come up before last year, when a mass shooting in a historically black church started the conversation nationally.

“I think the national media wants it addressed, but in the 12 years I have not heard it,” he said, saying he was comfortable with the referendum vote from 2001.

Johnson said he has always thought the flag should be changed.

“We are the only state left with the Confederate flag that is part of our flag,” he said. “When people start looking at all that is going on in Mississippi, and they see that flag, that’s bad. It’s got a negative connotation for 38 percent of the state, and that looks bad. As an official representation of the state of Mississippi, it has a negative impact.”

Johnson said he is not casting aspersions on anybody’s history, “but sometimes it matters what other people think.”

Johnson also said he thought the Legislature would have to take the lead, because “it’s not going to happen on a public referendum.”

In addition to the other discussion during the morning, Dearing said he plans to file a bill that will allow the Adams County Board of Supervisors to make the final payment to the state retirement system to release the retirement benefits of former Natchez Regional Medical Center employees from bureaucratic limbo.

When the county-owned hospital filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2014, one of the unsecured creditors in the filing was the Public Employees Retirement System.

After the filing, employees of the hospital learned that even though they had continued to make employee contributions to the PERS system, the hospital had not remitted the required 15 percent employer portion from November 2013 forward. While the pre-filing discrepancy has been paid, the post-filing balances remain.

PERS officials have said the employee payments could not be posted without the employer portion, so those months are not reflected in total accrued work.

Dearing also said he plans to introduce a bill that would require someone who files an election challenge and loses to pay the costs of the challenge and legal fees for the winner.

The Legislature was delayed this year hearing three election challenges, including one Dearing ultimately won.