JPs to convene over budget

Boone County sets special meetings to deal with dispute

Boone County officials have scheduled two special meetings to vote on emergency spending measures necessary to fund county government operations at least through early 2014.

The meetings, one called by County Judge James Norton and the other by a majority of the county’s justices of the peace, are both aimed at meeting the state’s requirement that counties pass an annual operating budget before the end of the year, said Justice of the Peace David Thompson, chairman of the Quorum Court’s Budget Committee.

Although the B oone County Quorum Court approved a 2014 budget in a regular meeting Dec. 16, officials have scrambled to reconvene after Norton issued a notice Friday that he would veto the budget.

In his Friday notice, sent to the justices of the peace and news media, Norton said he could not “in good faith sign” the budget. His stated reasons were a lack of “indepth discussion and careful consideration” regarding cuts to the county’s general fund road budget, and “excessive road debt without adequate discussion of the long run soundness of this policy.”

A call to Norton’s office Tuesday seeking comment was not returned. After a private conversation with Norton, Thompson said thatNorton’s remarks regarding “excessive road debt” referred to a long-running discussion within the Quorum Court about how many of the road graders in the county’s fleet should be purchased outright rather than leased.

Thompson said the county has 11 road graders, seven of which are leased. “I’d like to see that no more than half are leased, myself,” Thompson said, although he noted that the court recently voted to lease three of the 11.

The first meeting, called by the justices of the peace, is 7 p.m. Thursday at the Office of Emergency Management, 400 E. Prospect Ave. Three appropriation ordinances are on the agenda, each submittedby Boone County Justice of the Peace Sam Tinsley.

According to the notice, the appropriations are broken into three separate ordinances, the first establishing the 2014 budget for the Boone County assessor. The second ordinance establishes the 2014 budget for almost every other fund and department in the county except the road budget, which is provided for in the third ordinance.

Tinsley said funding the assessor’s budget is critical to collecting the revenue that pays for county government operations.

“If we don’t pass it, it costs the county,” Tinsley said. “That’s why we separated it from the other two, so that if the judge were to veto [the main budget], at least that would be passed.”

In what Thompson called a “nearly simultaneous” release, Norton also issued notice of a special meeting of the Boone County Quorum Court at 7 p.m. Monday at the same location as Thursday’s meeting.

In his notice, Norton included only one appropriations ordinance, which funds the county through March 31.

A two-thirds majority of the justices of the peace is required to override Norton’s veto. While the original 2014 budget passed 8-3, making a veto override appear likely, state law requires that any such vote take place at a regularly scheduled meeting of a quorum court. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Boone County Quorum Court is not until mid-January, Tinsley said, making at least one special meeting necessary.

Tinsley said the meetings themselves are placing an additional fiscal strain on a county already in budgetary straits. Boone County justices of the peace are paid a per diem rate of $300 per meeting, costing the county $3,300 each time the Quorum Court meets, Tinsley said.

“These [per diem outlays] will have to be paid in a cleanup ordinance after the first of the year,” Tinsley said. “All of our Quorum Court budget has been depleted.”

Thompson said the Monday meeting may be canceled after Thursday’s meeting, noting that both Norton and the justices of the peace had each been unaware that the other party had been drafting their own appropriations ordinances.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/25/2013

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