$750,000 fund loss expected, PB says

PINE BLUFF — Pine Bluff projects more than a $750,000 loss in state turnback funds as a result of the 2010 Census findings, said Steve Miller, the city’s finance director.

The good news is that the losses will likely be washed away with money collected through Pine Bluff’s recently approved five-eighths-percentage-point sales-tax increase, Miller said Friday.

The tax, which goes into effect July 1, allocates more than $1 million to help shore up city coffers in the wake of revenue declines.

“We anticipated this, and we planned for it in the tax,” Miller said. “We should be all right.”

Pine Bluff’s population dipped 11 percent, to 49,083 residents, according to the 2010 Census.

This drops the city to fewer than 50,000 people for the first time since the 1960s. The 2000 Census counted 55,085 residents.

In 2010, Pine Bluff received $3.6 million in state turnback funds. These funds are composed of general revenue allocated by the legislature from budget stabilization and highway funds that come mostly from gasoline taxes, said Debbie Rogers, manager of local government services with the state treasurer’s office.

Municipalities in Arkansas now receive about $60 a person each year in state turnback money based on their populations, she said.

To figure how much money each city receives monthly, the state divides a city’s population by the total population of all incorporated cities in the state.

On the federal end, Suzanne Evinger with the Office of Management and Budget said that Pine Bluff’s Community Development Block Grant funding, which is also based on population, should not be affected because the city is still the largest population center in its Metropolitan Statistical Area of Cleveland, Lincoln and Jefferson counties.

The Office of Management and Budget defines metropolitan areas for purposes of collecting, tabulating and publishing federal data, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s website.

Block grants are meted out through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Each year, the department awards grants to entitlement communities so that they can carry out a wide range of community development activities, such as revitalizing neighborhoods, according to the department’s website.

Pine Bluff is still considered an entitlement community as defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development because it is the principal city in its specified Metropolitan Statistical Area, Evinger said.

Cities that aren’t considered principal cities must maintain a population of 50,000 or above to be automatically eligible for block-grant funding, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website.

Miller said he was unsure just how many block-grant dollars Pine Bluff currently receives. Donald Sampson, who handles federal grant funds for the city as part of the Economic and Community Development Office, was unavailable Friday for comment.

Other funding, such as federal and state highway dollars that cities receive each year based on population, also should not be affected by the population losses in Pine Bluff, said a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.

Meanwhile, Pine Bluff Mayor Carl Redus has vowed to challenge 2010 Census results.

According to the census website, disputes can be filed beginning June 1 as part of the 2010 Census County Question Resolution Program. The challenges must be submitted directly by a mayor to Census Bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C., via e-mail, fax or mail.

Challenges will be accepted through June 1, 2013.

Among Arkansas cities that have reached or exceeded a population of 50,000, Pine Bluff is the only one in the state’s history to ever dip below that threshold, according to the Arkansas Municipal League.

Earlier this month, Redus said that while the 50,000 population mark is largely symbolic, “we strongly believe that somewhere out there in this city we have enough residents to still give us 50,000 or slightly above that in population. We knew that we were going to see some population loss, but we just want to make sure we had a fair and accurate count.”