Stone County Flock Cameras: Vote, Invoices and Funding

Transparency: WigginsMS.com founder Sundee Williams spoke about the cameras during public comment at the Oct. 5, 2026, Board of Supervisors meeting and has requested public records on this topic. This article reports what the board's minutes and budget show.

A budget should answer two questions: where did the money come from, and where did it go? For the Flock license plate cameras on Stone County roads, the public record answers part of that. It doesn’t answer all of it. This article walks through the record in the order it happened. The pieces don’t line up yet. A record that connects them may exist, and this article marks where it’s missing.

The request

In a Dec. 23, 2024 letter on Stone County Sheriff’s Office letterhead, the office asked the Board of Supervisors to approve a Flock camera system. The letter’s request reads: “Requesting Board Approval for Flock Camera System for crime reduction in the county.” The board’s minutes record the request as coming from Sheriff Todd Stewart.

It was item 4 on the board’s Jan. 6, 2025, agenda, under the sheriff department, listed as “For Approval: Flock Camera System.”

Four Flock cameras now cover Highway 26 east and west and Highway 49 north and south.

The vote

On Jan. 6, 2025, the board approved the request “to be used solely in efforts to reduce crime in the county on a 60-day trial basis,” according to the order recorded in its minutes. The order says the board found “a trial basis was appropriate for such a camera system in Stone County.”

Supervisor Spring made the motion, and Supervisor Lee seconded it. Spring, Lee and Supervisor Howard voted yes. Supervisor Nathan Bond of District 5 voted no. The order records him saying he “did not want to sacrifice liberty for the sake of safety.” Supervisor Harris was absent. The vote was 3-1.

The order does not address what happens after the 60 days. If the trial began Jan. 6, it would have ended around March 7, 2025. The records reviewed so far do not show a later vote to extend the trial, buy the cameras or subscribe to the service.

The payments

The board’s Nov. 3, 2025, minutes include a docket of claims listing two invoices from Flock Group Inc.:

• Invoice 75764, dated Oct. 3, 2025: $14,600
• Invoice 75569, dated Sept. 30, 2025: $1,481.05

The total is $16,081.05. Both were charged to fund 024, which the county budget lists as the sheriff’s special project fund. The docket describes both only as “miscellaneous.” A signature appears in the docket’s approval column.

The docket does not say what service or time period the invoices cover. The records reviewed so far include no board vote between the January 2025 trial order and the November 2025 docket.

The funding

The sheriff has told WigginsMS.com the cameras are grant funded. At the Oct. 5 meeting, he said the special project money comes from the phone-provider contract, arrives as an occasional lump sum and is not paid by county taxpayers. He said the board funds his department’s budget and he decides how it is spent. He offered to answer questions after reviewing with legal counsel what is and is not protected.

Here is what the records show:

• The special project account is funded by a revenue line called “Sales.” The budget does not say what is being sold or whether any restrictions apply to that money.
• The sheriff points to a technology funding agreement with ViaPath Technologies, the phone provider for the Stone County Correctional Facility. The master services agreement is dated April 15, 2024. It was signed by Sheriff Todd Stewart for the correctional facility, “acting through the Stone County Board of Supervisors.” It runs through Dec. 31, 2027, and renews automatically unless either side gives 90 days’ notice.
• Under the original agreement, ViaPath pays the correctional facility an annual “Technology Grant” of $61,666, in two payments of $30,833 every six months. It pays the sheriff’s office an annual “Bonus” of $61,666 on the same schedule. The agreement also sets a fixed payment of $36,666 a year for “all County services,” paid monthly.
• The agreement does not mention Flock or license plate readers. Its grant section does not say what the money must be spent on.
• Amendment 2, effective April 1, 2026, and signed by the sheriff April 6, removes that payment section and the bonus entirely. It cites a Federal Communications Commission order released Nov. 6, 2025. In its place, the amendment provides two annual technology grants of $15,000, one to the correctional facility and one to the sheriff’s office. It also gives each office 1 cent a minute on inmate phone calls and video visits.
• The amendment says the technology grants are paid within 30 days of ViaPath receiving an invoice or other documentation of a technology purchase, or ViaPath may pay the technology vendor directly. That language is in the 2026 amendment. It took effect after the Flock invoices were paid in November 2025, and the 2024 agreement does not contain it.

WigginsMS.com could not trace any payment under the agreement to the Flock invoices. The budget does not list individual contracts, payees or vendors, so it does not show a path from the phone contract to the account to Flock. The documents reviewed also do not say how phone-contract revenue is classified or who approves spending from the account.

What the record doesn’t show

• Which grant or revenue source paid for the cameras.
• What action, if any, the board took on the cameras after the 60-day trial.
• Whether the board voted to approve the ViaPath agreement in 2024 or Amendment 2 in 2026. The records reviewed so far show the sheriff’s signature.
• Who confirmed that Flock moved its recommended data retention from 30 days to seven, as the company has announced, and how the board verifies the setting.
• How the board reviews searches of the data.
• What measure the board uses to judge whether the cameras are reducing crime.
• How many vehicles the cameras record each month, what share are registered in Stone County, how many alerts resulted and how many alerts led to arrests or recovered property.

License plate readers photograph every vehicle that passes, not only vehicles on a watch list.

What has been asked

At the Oct. 5 meeting, Williams asked the board for written answers on funding, data access, retention and how success is measured, and asked that the topic go on a future agenda. The county attorney said the comment raised many questions, asked her to submit them and said the board would then advise whether they should go through a public records request.

WigginsMS.com has requested the Flock contract and the Flock invoices under the Mississippi Public Records Act. State law gives a public body seven working days to produce a record or explain in writing why it can’t. WigginsMS.com will publish what comes back.

Documents reviewed

• Stone County Sheriff’s Office letter, Dec. 23, 2024, Board Minutes Book 451, Page 489
• Board of Supervisors agenda, Jan. 6, 2025, Book 451, Pages 474-476
• Board order, “Approval of Flock Cam[era],” Jan. 6, 2025, Book 451, Pages 488-489
• Docket of claims, Nov. 3, 2025, Book 457, Page 732
• ViaPath Technologies master services agreement, April 15, 2024, and Amendment 2, effective April 1, 2026, provided by the correctional facility warden
• Stone County budget, FY 2025-26 and FY 2026-27

How to follow a dollar yourself

1. Find the invoice in the board’s docket of claims. The minutes list approved claims.
2. Identify the fund it was paid from.
3. Look up that fund’s revenue lines in the budget.
4. Ask whether the revenue line matches the contract or grant it was said to come from.
5. If the budget can’t answer, ask in writing, and file a public records request if needed.

This article will be updated as answers arrive.