TEXARKANA -- The Texarkana Board of Directors passed a new budget early this week that included a plan to delay police and firefighter raises until next summer.
Police Chief Bob Harrison and detective Tom Briggs, president of the Texarkana Police Association, were among several who objected before the board voted to approve the budget that raises firefighters' and police officers' salaries in two increments starting in July, six months later than initially planned.
A crowd of police officers, firefighters and their supporters filled City Hall's boardroom beyond its seating capacity. The audience applauded speakers several times despite Mayor Ruth Penney-Bell's request to keep the proceedings "as businesslike as possible."
How the budget will deal with first responders' pay parity has been at the center of the debate. Police officers and firefighters have criticized the city's financial practices and have demanded that their pay raises begin in January.
City officials say that because revenue is down, the budget is especially tight and they need extra time to come up with the funds needed to provide raises. Beginning the pay increase in January would have cost an additional $320,000, Finance Director TyRhonda Henderson said.
Under a 1996 ordinance approved by voters, the city is obliged to keep up with Texarkana, Texas, police and firefighter salaries. The ordinance established a quarter-percent sales tax to fund pay parity for police officers and another for firefighters.
Because Texarkana, Texas, city employees recently received raises, police officers and firefighters in Texarkana, Arkansas, also must receive pay increases. But despite the pay parity tax, the city has insufficient revenue to do so immediately and all at once.
City Manager Kenny Haskin first proposed implementing half-parity by January and full parity by July, an arrangement the Police and Fire departments voted to approve.
But more accurate revenue projections showed that the city needed more time to raise the funds, Haskin said. The budget passed Monday pushes the pay increase back six months, implementing half-parity by July and full parity by January 2018.
Officers and residents rose to show their support for first responders and demand that the raises take effect immediately, with several evoking the recent murders of police officers in attacks around the nation.
Former Mayor Londell Williams recounted that the pay parity ordinance was one of his first achievements in the office, and he asked the board to remember the will of the voters. Miller County Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Potter-Black warned that failing to pass pay parity could have dire consequences for the city.
"Our city is on the decline. We're dying. Everything's going to Texas," she said. "If we don't pass this, then our Police Department and Fire Department are also going to go to Texas."
Harrison said the pay parity sales tax has generated more than enough revenue to pay for the raises but that the funds have been mishandled. He called for an independent auditor to examine the books and said the city should fund immediate raises from its emergency reserve fund.
"We do have an emergency," he said. "I think it's your responsibility to consider going into the reserve fund and take the money and pay the police and firemen like the citizens asked you to do."
The Board of Directors voted 5-1 to approve the budget as originally presented at the meeting.
State Desk on 11/25/2016