BROOKHAVEN — Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing presented a Memorandum of Understanding between Lincoln County and Mississippi Department of Transportation to the board of supervisors Wednesday. The agreement would allow Lincoln County to be reimbursed for cleaning up state highways. 

Rushing said the county road crew picked up trash along US84 over three days from the Franklin County line to the Lawrence County line this past year. Under the agreement with MDOT, Lincoln County would be reimbursed for the time spent cleaning the roadside of state highways. District 5 Supervisor Doug Falvey had a question about the agreement. 

“Why would we pick up for the state when we can’t pick up our own,” Falvey said. “The problem I have is county roads need to be picked up and we don’t need to neglect them.” 

Rushing explained the agreement would not keep the County from cleaning up non-state roads. County roads would remain top priority for the road crew. He said they cleaned US84 this fall because it had gotten so bad and MDOT had not cleaned it. 

Lincoln County is picking up trash on roadways throughout the county every day. Rushing said he is unable to start another road crew at this time due to the limited space he has in the work program. Lincoln County would need more space to house inmates to expand the work crews first. 

District 4 supervisor Eli Ferguson pointed out that there was no detriment to the agreement. Lincoln County Administrator Daniel Calcote advised that if they do not approve the agreement they may have to still clean up the trash anyway and he would rather be paid for it. 

The supervisors agreed and voted to approve the memorandum of understanding with MDOT.