In an effort to look at cuts within the city budget, emissaries from the Selma City Council took a meeting last month with the Dallas County Commission.

The two sides spoke on several issues, however the county rebuffed each of the city’s proposals except one: Ad Valorem taxes.

The county is required, by state law, to collect the taxes for the city.

However, Selma has been collecting their own for years.

Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. proposed handing those duties back to the county as a cost cutting measure.

County officials said yes.

That’s were the trouble came in.

In Tuesday’s City Council workshop, Perkins recommended the city delay going forward on the process until perhaps as late as 2009.

“I need to be cautious about turning over a fourth of the city’s budget to an agency that has not aided our cost cutting measures,” Perkins said. “I’m suggesting that we defer this process until a later date.”

“Don’t they have to do that by law?” Councilman Cecil Williamson asked while fellow councilman Reid Cain asked for the estimated savings for the city if the collection duties were handed over.

The estimated savings would be about $10,000, according to Perkins.

“My position is not that we don’t do it,” Perkins said. “My position is that we defer until the time and climate is right to do it.”

Perkins added he’d like to see the city and county iron out some other issues, like the Animal Shelter, before moving forward with the Ad Valorem taxes.

“I really am not suggesting anything about the county,” Perkins said. “With where we are right now to take a process that represents a fourth of our revenue and shift it… I think a fourth of the revenue of the city it too much to put on the line.”

Councilman Johnnie Leashore backed the mayor’s suggestion, calling it excellent.

However, other council members saw the tax issue as a chance to bridge the gap between the city and the county.

“You have to start somewhere, mayor,” Council President George Evans said. “If there’s a good system of checks and balances on that, it would be a positive step to move forward.”

“This is not a project to start trying to build a relationship (with),” Perkins said. “I didn’t say we shouldn’t do it.

Let’s continue to move to implement and do other small projects to build a relationship.”

Evans wondered if the city was going to back out, why the proposal was raised at all.

“If this was the position we were going to take, why did we go in there and propose it?” he asked.

Perkins expressed some reservations.

“The city made the decision to collect it’s own property tax for a reason. They made the decision for cash flow issues,” Perkins said. “The city felt it could collect its own money faster.

I think we need to go slowly on this process until the time we have the kind of working relationship (we need).”

Because it was a workshop and not a meeting, the council was not asked for a vote.

Rather they were asked to give their consensus on whether or not they would support a budget that reflected the change.

Councilwomen Janie Venter , Jean Martin and Bennie Ruth Crenshaw backed the mayor’s deferment proposal, as did Leashore.

Williamson and Cain preferred to move forward towards handing the duties over to the county.

Evans and Councilwoman Geraldine Allen asked for firm guidelines in place.

“There need to be some clear, concise guidelines,” Allen said.

Allen asked to defer the item while Evans suggested moving forward.