FAYETTEVILLE -- One Washington County justice of the peace Monday called for an increased sales tax to support an increasingly strained county jail and strengthen the entire county budget, but other officials were sharply opposed, saying the county's financial woes go far beyond the jail.
The Quorum Court's law enforcement committee discussed the issue during a wide-ranging meeting Monday evening that became a larger discussion about the county's overall financial health. No action was taken on taxes, but the issue's sure to come up again during the rest of the year's budget discussions.
Washington County committees
The Quorum Court’s County Services Committee also met Monday. It approved an ordinance formally abolishing the Quorum Court finance committee, which was voted on last month. The ordinance also creates a new ordinance review committee to go through county code and fix its outdated or mismatched laws. The proposal goes before the full Quorum Court Aug. 20.
Source: Staff report
Ann Harbison, a Democrat from West Fork who represents much of the county's rural south, said the jail was never meant to get by on its quarter percent sales tax that voters approved more than a decade ago.
The jail is expected to cost almost $14 million this year, or nearly one-fourth of the county's $59 million budget, thanks largely to overcrowding and a clogged state correction system. The sales tax is forecast to support roughly two-thirds of that spending; the rest comes from the county's general fund, which is also pulled in dozens of other directions by the animal shelter, the patrol side of the Sheriff's Department and other departments.
"It does hurt other services in the county if we continue to draw that much money out of the general fund," said Harbison, suggesting the Quorum Court ask voters for another quarter-cent sales tax to pick up the slack.
"Don't shake your head, because it is a possibility to do this," she told other justices. "There's some things that this court could do to generate more revenue."
Harbison, along with the county judge and one or two other justices, has also suggested raising property taxes slightly for similar reasons. Her comments Monday are part of a years-long debate on how much the county should be spending and saving.
Last year the Quorum Court cut about $4 million in spending in a bid to rebuild its reserve for unexpected needs; based on spending so far and the year's revenue forecast, the reserve stands at about $4 million now. Many of the justices have agreed that number should be closer to $15 million. The Quorum Court has been reluctant to grant even small spending requests this year because of those concerns, notably including a $10,500 request from the animal shelter that stirred controversy last month.
Harbison at the time said the jail's rising costs have been the budgetary elephant in the room for years, but its role in the budget problems have been ignored.
As they have before, her comments brought strong opposition, with many justices saying the "elephant" is actually a whole herd of problems and the county needs to live within its means. Republican Tom Lundstrum pointed to large county construction projects in recent years and to events as large as the 2008 recession and the loss of manufacturing jobs across the country as factors in the financial concerns.
"The cuts last year were an attempt to see if we could restore reserves -- we're not," said Eva Madison, a Democrat from Fayetteville who pushed for many of the cuts.
Madison noted Arkansas' average sales tax rate is the second-highest in the country: 9.26 percent, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation.
"To fund the jail with a tax that hurts poor people the most -- that's just a terrible idea, and I had to say something," Madison said. "We've got to think really carefully about what the solutions are."
The jail's population Monday evening was near 650, right around its highest levels. It's built for 710, but its practical capacity is lower because of restrictions on who's housed with whom.
"It's totally out of our control," Sheriff Tim Helder told the justices, referring to the rising costs. He said the pitch for a new sales tax might fall flat unless it's to expand the jail. The jail could be a couple of years from needing to do so, he said.
NW News on 08/11/2015