City of Vicksburg officials are alerting residents of ongoing work to water meters around town.

Thursday afternoon, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen issued an official statement explaining why residents might see workers present across the city.

“On  December 8, 2023, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Vicksburg entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Core & Main to address the city losing revenue due to the older and faulty water meters,” it read. “Core & Main will be evaluating the city’s water meters, making simple repairs and adjustments to the meters, and assessing the city’s billing system. Should you see an employee of Core & Main out working, please know that they are legitimately working on behalf of the city. Please contact the Public Works Department if you have any questions.”

Core & Main is a water works equipment supplier based in Flowood.  

Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said identifying faulty meters is just the next step in the city’s plans for improving water in Vicksburg.

“When you see all of those people together, that’s what they’re doing: Just trying to identify all of those meters that are not properly working,” Flaggs said. “I’ve got $6 million for water. So, what we’re going to do is put some of that money on meters. We’ve got a consultant that we hired and we’re getting ready to do an RFP (request for proposal) and then we’ll go out and get bids and we hope to spend about $3 million on meters.”

During the March 11 meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, Flaggs said he was told about the funding by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith just days earlier.

“She said we just sent you $6 million to the president for his signature,” Flaggs said. “The $6 million will be for clean water and we’ve got a group that’s going to meet to talk about how we can utilize that.”