Sebastian County, cities pushing to keep 1% tax

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Hackett Mayor Darrell Newton has put up “Protect Your Penny” signs all over town in hopes residents will vote Tuesday to renew the county’s 20-year-old 1 percent sales tax.

Newton said the $144,500 the town of about 800 people received last year from the tax helped fund the parks, street repairs and provided money for half of the twoman police force.

“It would hurt if we lost that amount of money out of our funds,” he said.

The “Protect Your Penny” signs are part of a campaign being conducted in Sebastian County by the county and its 11 cities to urge voters to renew the tax for another 10 years.

The tax actually expires in mid-2014, but County Judge David Hudson has said theelection must be held now so officials know whether they can expect the tax revenue when they begin working on 2014 budgets later this year.

The tax raised more than$22 million in Sebastian County last year and was apportioned to the county’s 11 cities and the county based on population.

Fort Smith, being the most populous city in the county with 86,203 residents, according to 2010 Census figures, received the biggest share of the revenue, more than $15.3 million. Midland has the fewest people, 325, and received almost $58,000.

Officials say the county and cities rely on the tax for several essential services such as fire and police protection.

Money from the tax also is used for services for the elderly, streets, libraries and public transit.

They also say county residents will get twice the benefit from the tax because it is estimated that 50 percent of the tax is paid by those who live outside the county.

Hudson and Fort Smith Mayor Sandy Sanders have been speaking to civic organizations and groups as part of the campaign to publicize the importance of renewing the tax.

Other officials have spoken in their own communities.

Greenwood Mayor Del Gabbard said he had spoken to senior citizens, telling them they would benefit from the tax.

Greenwood devoted more than $1.1 million of the nearly $1.6 million it received last year to fire and police expenses, he said.

The city also spent its share of the tax money on parks and recreation, youth activities and police and fire retirement funds.

He believes elderly residents can be relied on to vote for the tax, he said, but in this economy, it’s easy for people to say no to any tax.

“You can’t impress enough this is not a new tax. It’s an existing tax,” Gabbard said. If not for the tax, “the money would have to come from somewhere else.”

Or services the tax now pays for would have to be cut, he said.

Of the $15.3 million Fort Smith received as its share of the tax last year, $11 million went to the fire and police departments, accounting for 40 percent of their budgets, Sanders said.

Most of the Police Department’s budget goes to payroll and personnel expenses, Support Services Division commander Maj. Dean Pitts said.

If the tax was discontinued, he said, he couldn’t see how the department could cut expenses without reducing manpower.

“That’s a very significant part of our budget funding,” he said of the tax income.

Fort Smith Fire Chief Mike Richards said $4.1 million of the department’s $10.7 million budget comes from the sales tax.

Of that, he said, the department spends $1.1 million for operational needs such as fuel, equipment, uniforms, utilities and repairs.

The department couldn’t make up for the loss of that tax money without it having a major effect, he said. Such a loss of income would mean the department would cut personnel, he said.

Sebastian County uses most of its $3.4 million share on law enforcement. According to a resolution the Quorum Court passed earlier this year, 63.5 percent of the county’s share will go to jail operations.

That means 54.5 percent of the tax money will go for operation of the adult jail and 9 percent for the youth lockup.

The Quorum Court increased the allocation for the jail by 10.5 percent to provide money to hire 11 additional deputies at the jail next year, according to the resolution.

The resolution also calls for 9 percent of the tax money to be used to pay for three additional patrol deputies to serve the unincorporated area of the county.

In the resolution, the Quorum Court also promised to spend 11 percent of the tax money for capital improvements, 7 percent for employee health care and workers’ compensation, 5 percent for improvements to the county volunteer fire departments, 2 percent for Sebastian County emergency-medical operations, 1 percent for senior-citizen centers, 1 percent for county parks and 0.5 percent for the Scott-Sebastian County Library.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 17 on 05/12/2013