HOW WE SEE IT A Full Plate In Benton County

By StaFF REPORT

Posted: November 28, 2009 at 3:11 a.m.

• Print item
• E-mail
• Share
• Tweet

The Benton County Quorum Court is staring at a buffet and likes everything it sees.

Problem is, there’s only so much room on the court’s plate. Justices of the peace must decide what they can do without.

They didn’t get much closer to that decision during a special Committee of 13 meeting on Tuesday.

By a 7-6 vote, the committee agreed to forward to the Quorum Court a recommendation to buy and renovate a building in southwest Bentonville off of Arkansas 12and convert it into offices for the juvenile justice system.

A Juvenile Detention Center would be built next door.

But the members didn’t stop there; the committee approved money for an addition to the county jail,and in a surprising move, they also agreed to purchase (rather than lease) space at the Center for Nonprofits for the Health Department.

The total cost of all of these projects: about $9.1 million.

That’s more than the county can really afford. What the Committee of 13 did Tuesday was merely punt its decision on capital projects to another day.

Once again, we strongly support the idea of relocating the Health Department to the Center for Nonprofits in Rogers. We were pleased to see that most justices (10 out of 13) voted for that plan Tuesday.

The Center for Nonprofits (formerly St. Mary’s Hospital) is an ideal location, not only because it is in the heart of Benton County’s biggest city, but because of the other services offered there. Also, it’s on a publictransit route, so it’s very accessible.

Originally, the county considered leasing space at the Center for Nonprofits, but the center recently agreed to let the county own the space that the Health Department would occupy. The cost for 24,000 square feet would be about $2 million. For what the county stands to gain, it’s a sweet deal.

But with only $6.8 million to spend, there’s no way that the Quorum Court can accomplish all of the above projects.

Our fear is that the county is determined to spend every last dime it has. The county is already struggling financially - so much so that it changed millage rates last week in order to take a share of property taxes away from the cities. In addition, a legal dispute with a contractor, stemming from cleanup of last year’s ice storm, could potentially cost the county $1.4 million.

We wonder where that money would come from if the county loses its case.

We have expressed our concerns about the juvenile justice complex. The price tag ($4.9 million) is one thing. The remoteness of the proposed site is another.

As for the county jail addition, it is necessary. The question is whether there’s enough money for the additional nine or 10 jail deputies necessary to staff it.

The Health Department should be moved to the Center for Nonprofits. That deal is too good to resist. After that, the county should ensure that it has enough space to accommodate its rapidly growing jail population. These are the priorities that we believe should guide the Quorum Court’s decisions at the buffet table.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/28/2009

Comments

To report abuse or misuse of this area please hit the "Suggest Removal" link in the comment to alert our online managers. Please read our comment policy.

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.