Supervisors Monday approved a $5 million bond for bridge repairs in Lincoln County.

Supervisors and county engineer Ryan Holmes are putting together a plan for which bridges need to be repaired in the county.

County Administrator David Fields said they are going to work to use the money as efficiently as they can to repair as many bridges in Lincoln County as possible.

“We’re borrowing the money to fix bridges that are fixing to be closed,” he said.

The county will pay a lump sum each year on the loan. Fields said they wouldn’t have the exact cost until the bonds are sold and the interest rate is determined. He expects to have an amount in place by December.

Holmes said there are  over 2,200 timber bridges of some sort in the state. He said most of the bridges are over 30 years old and Lincoln County has a total of 109, which is the second largest amount in Mississippi.

Renovations are also in store for the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Government Complex.

Supervisors approved a $900,000 bond to help with ongoing projects.

“We’re putting a new roof on the jail,” Fields said. “We’re going to resurface the parking lot. We’ve got about $40,000 worth of computer work we need to have done on our computer systems. It’s a multitude of small projects and we’re just bonding them all together so we can complete them at one time.”

He said these projects are long overdue maintenance issues.

The Lincoln Civic Center will receive some money to paint the iron in the arena and stall barn.

“The building is 20 years old and just needs touching up,” Fields said. “With all of these projects added together it gets a little expensive.”

Lincoln County Tax Collector Blake Pickering unveiled the new Mississippi Automated Registration Vehicle Information Network.

MARVIN is the new, modernized motor vehicle title and registration system that will replace Mississippi’s outdated legacy system.

“This is going to tie us better into the state. It’s going to be much easier to train people on this system. It should have some benefit to the taxpayers as well,” Pickering said.

Some benefits mentioned are immediate access to vehicle records, accurate record-keeping and tracking, online availability of forms and online renewals.

“It’s going to do a better job keeping up with transactions. It’s going to cost us $4,700 to upgrade our printers to the new system, but it’s just a necessary expenditure,” said Pickering.