Bauxite residents will decide May 20 whether to increase the town's sales tax by a half percentage point.
The proposed increase -- which would be a permanent tax -- would allow the town to replace existing sewer grinder pumps for each resident and help to operate and maintain the sewer plant, Mayor Johnny McMahan said. The town already has a 1.5 percent sales tax, but revenue generated from that is split evenly between the town's volunteer Fire Department, the Police Department and the street department.
Bauxite water customers pay a $10 monthly fee to help with repairs after the City Council passed the charge in a 2007 ordinance. If voters approve the tax measure this month, McMahan said he would recommend that the City Council repeal that ordinance, which has no expiration date.
If not, "we would just keep collecting the $10 and do the best we can," he said. "Presently, it's not enough to upgrade or really maintain the sewer plant. We would just hop along."
Some 230 customers bring in about $2,300 a month, McMahan said. But, the sales tax would generate at least $5,000 a month, he said, adding that most residents would pay about $2.50 to $3 a month with their water, electricity, phone, cable and gas bills.
Each Bauxite home has a sewer grinder pump that carries sewage to the plant where wastewater is treated. The plant was built in 2003.
The proposal has sparked some controversy, as former Alderman Deborah Purifoy has taken the matter to the Arkansas Ethics Commission.
"The mayor of Bauxite Johnny McMahan is using city personnel, property and funds to support his desire to pass a sales tax ballot measure," she wrote in a March 24 complaint to the Ethics Commission.
Purifoy added that the mayor "still mentions the advantage of the tax in his newsletters (also mailed with our water bills)."
The Ethics Commission has agreed to look into the matter. Purifoy said last week that, since the commission accepted the investigation, she hadn't heard back.
In an April letter to the mayor, Ethics Commission Director Graham Sloan said Arkansas Code Annotated 7-1-111 says "an 'elected official' or 'a person appointed to an elective office' is permitted to expend or permit the expenditure of public funds to support or oppose a ballot measure."
Subsection (b) states that public servants -- those employed by, appointed to serve or appointed to a governmental body -- cannot use public funds to support or oppose a ballot measure.
McMahan has asked the Ethics Commission to dismiss the complaint "as I believe it is absurd, frivolous, dilatory and was not filed in good faith."
He said in a later interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he has not promoted the measure, but has simply mentioned the ballot measure in a "couple" of the letters he normally sends each month to water customers.
Meanwhile, Purifoy said she and others -- who she called "unorganized opposition" -- have started calling and sending messages online to other Bauxite residents, urging them to vote against the tax measure.
"The word on the street is if Johnny is for it, we're against it," she said.
The money collected from the proposed tax would go into the town's general fund, she said, instead of a designated fund. If the town established a designated fund for the tax, Purifoy said, she would back the tax because the money could only be used for the intended purpose.
Metro on 05/12/2014