Greene County city leaders look to find ways to fund county after failed gambling bill

Alabamians will not have the opportunity to vote on constitutional amendments to allow gambling in Alabama, and that will have a ripple effect in Greene County.

Proposed legislation would have legalized electronic gaming in a county that has come to count on charity bingo to get by.

Greene County is the least populated county in the state of Alabama, most of the revenue comes from catfish farming and bingo.

City leaders said they do not have a plan b for additional revenue at the moment.

“I think we are going to do the best we can with what we have and try to make things better for the citizens in our county,” said Greene County Commissioner Garria Spencer.

“You know places like the city of Eutaw, Town of Union, Boligee, Forkland, their revenue stream was directly from funds coming from bingo, so they are in pretty bad shape,” said Spencer.

Greene County’s EMS director Chris Jones explained they would do whatever it takes to keep the ambulance service running.

“We just got done doing a t-shirt sale to benefit the ambulance service, we got a rodeo that we are trying to get put on in October,” said Jones.

Jones said they will also try to make do with reimbursements from call runs.

“Just keep doing what I been doing, getting business from outside counties as far as non-emergency transports goes cause that’s the main source of income for lots of ambulance services,” said Jones.