The financially strapped city of Port Gibson expects bailout funds to be wired today from an emergency loan executed this week with Concordia Bank of Vidalia, La., Mayor Fred Reeves said Thursday.

The city will be able to draw funds up to $500,000, repayable at 3.5 percent interest by March 15. Should municipal funds not be available, the provisions of the note call for the city to “levy annually a direct and continuing tax upon all taxable property” within the city limits “to provide for the payment of the principal and the interest.”

Today’s first draw, expected to be about $150,000, will enable the city to pay overdue utility bills, employee retirement contributions, a number of auto repair invoices covering police and other emergency vehicles and other outstanding operating expenses, said Reeves.

Reeves vetoed the aldermen’s initial attempt to borrow money last month.

“There is no doubt we need this money because we can’t pay our bills,” Reeves said. “I just wanted them to specify exactly where the money would be spent, and they haven’t done that. I want them to explain why at this point in the year, with four months left to go (in the fiscal year), they need to borrow one-fourth of our budget.”

Port Gibson, a city of about 1,800 residents 25 miles south of Vicksburg, has an annual budget of about $1.9 million. Its fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

The city just repaid a 2010 loan in anticipation of tax revenues in March, said Reeves, and also borrowed in anticipation of tax revenues in 2008 after 10 checks totaling more than $10,500 bounced.

Reeves has stated that he opposes what has become an annual practice of borrowing to meet operating expenses, and that aldermen need to cut spending, including such discretionary spending as their attendance at the Mississippi Municipal League annual conferences on the Gulf Coast.

The city’s account with Entergy was about $33,000 in arrears in May, said Reeves. State retirement funds withheld from employees had not been sent in to the state, he added.

This week’s loan from the Louisiana bank follows more than a month of financial wrangling between Reeves and the aldermen, who were turned down by Trustmark Bank officials in Jackson when they tried to borrow $500,000 May 27.

Trustmark officials declined to comment, and a call to Concordia Bank was not returned.

Port Gibson’s board of six aldermen approved what they called a tax anticipation loan at a meeting May 9.

Reeves, citing the need to get spending under control, vetoed the measure May 19.

The board voted May 26 to override Reeves’ veto, and the borrowing was then termed an “emergency note.” Mississippi law does not allow municipalities to borrow in anticipation of tax revenues unless the money is paid back in the same fiscal year.

As the city begins drawing on the emergency note, Reeves said he will keep fighting to get out of the cycle of borrowing.

“We are steadily sinking, and there is no way out unless we make some cuts,” he said. “I intend to fight this battle until either I am unelected or some of the board members are unelected.”