HERNANDO, Mississippi — In the fast growing DeSoto County, Mississippi, new projects are on the way, after the board of supervisors Tuesday morning approved the county's spending plan for the next year.
One of the big ticket items includes improvements on a three-mile stretch of Holly Springs Road in Hernando.
"It was a mess. Yeah, it would get bad," Phyllis Killion said.
Killion knows first hand the issues Mother Nature would bring in her five years living on Holly Springs Road.
"It was really needed when we lived out that way, because when you got a lot of rain, you would have a lot of flooding. You couldn't cross the bridge," Killion added.
Crews closed a portion of Holly Springs Road nine times since 2019 alone.
The approved budget will pay for the road to be elevated 10 feet in the three miles between Johnston and Smith Road, with five replacement bridges.
"Citizens would have to drive around and the school buses, and it's also a safety factor because we would have our emergency personnel on one side and our citizens on another," DeSoto County Supervisor Lee Caldwell said.
"It's been sorely needed for years and we've kind of been saving our money up until we were able to do that," DeSoto County Supervisors President Mark Gardner added.
Other highlights in the budget include building a new DeSoto County Justice Court next to the DeSoto County Jail. Gardner said the project will save time and free up resources.
"What it's going to do is it's going to put our deputies back in the neighborhoods patrolling where they should be, instead of the time involved transporting inmates up to the Justice Court Center," Gardner said.
The spending plan also helps jumpstart construction for an Agricultural Education Center - with walking and horse trails - off of Star Landing Road. It's expected to take around two years to finish.
"One thing COVID taught us was we need to be outdoors more, so during COVID people were looking for places to spread out. So we have 200 acres there," Caldwell said.