Aldermen in NLR set budget session
A second city budget work session for the North Little Rock City Council will be at 4 p.m. Thursday in the council chambers at City Hall, 300 Main St.
The meeting is open to the public. It will be televised on the city's government access channel and available for streaming on the city's website, nlr.ar.gov.
An addition to the proposed $64.2 million general fund budget will be $100,000 to repair Lakewood Dam on Lake No. 1 north of Waterside Drive, Mayor Joe Smith said. The city is proposing to pay one-quarter of the estimated $400,000 cost for repairs, Smith has said. The amount was inadvertently excluded from the first budget preview, he said.
The City Council will be asked to approve the budget at its first regular meeting in December, Smith said this week.
City aldermen went through the proposed budget a first time Oct. 26, looking at departmental budgets one by one. That meeting, held before a regular City Council meeting, ended after two hours without getting through the Parks and Recreation and North Little Rock Electric Department budgets.
The budget includes a 4.3 percent increase over the 2015 general fund budget. Raises of 3 percent are included for city employees, as well as for full-time and part-time elected officials.
Smith, City Attorney Jason Carter and City Clerk-Treasurer Diane Whitbey are full-time elected officials. The eight city aldermen are part-time employees and would be receiving a pay increase for the first time since April 2003, if approved. Pay increases are approved in separate legislation.
Director of library to visit reception
An informal reception during the monthly Argenta Art Walk will give the community a chance to meet the new executive director of the William F. Laman Public Library.
The event will be 5-8 p.m. Friday at the Argenta Branch library, 420 Main St.
Crystal Gates was formerly director of the Jackson Parish Public Library in Jonesboro, La. The Laman Library Board of Trustees approved hiring Gates from among three finalists for the position on Sept. 11.
Gates began Oct. 19 at an annual salary of $85,000.
The library system had been without a full-time executive director since September 2014 when Jeff Baskin died shortly after being diagnosed with cancer. Baskin had headed the library for 27 years.
The library system in North Little Rock consists of the main Laman Library, 2801 Orange St., and the Argenta Branch.
Metro on 11/18/2015