After some slight adjustments that raised the final amount, the North Little Rock City Council approved the city's 2018 budget Monday night.
Next year's general fund budget is $66.58 million, going just above the 2017 general fund figure of $66.36 million the council members approved a year ago. Council members voted 7-0 for approval, with Council Member Steve Baxter absent.
Mayor Joe Smith had originally touted a preliminary draft of the budget presented to the City Council last month, with a $66.21 million figure, as coming in below the 2017 budget.
The city still projects that revenues will outpace expenditures, leaving an expected surplus of $2.74 million. The original surplus was figured to be $3.3 million.
The budget filed with the City Council agenda last week included an extra $192,200 explained as "various revenue changes" based on year-to-date figures as of Nov. 29 and another $373,052 in expenditures that included changes in Police Department salaries.
City Finance Director Karen Scott told council members Monday that the increases included raising the Police Department's budget by $144,551 to a total of $23.39 million. The new police figure, which the City Council had to amend Monday night, was because there had been some incorrect numbers previously listed for department salaries and adjustments made to raise the pay scale of police supervisors, Scott said.
"The only difference in the version of the budget filed [last week] and the version that's before you tonight is the police budget," Scott said.
The only other issue was Council Member Debi Ross asking if appropriations given to the Argenta Downtown Council and the Argenta Arts Foundation were resulting in a duplication of services. The two nonprofits have the same director and the same overseeing board of directors.
The city has budgeted $110,000 to the Argenta Downtown Council for 2018, up $15,000 from this year, and $20,000 to the Argenta Arts Foundation.
Donna Hardcastle, executive director for both groups, said that the Downtown Council allocates the funding to the Arts Foundation, paying salaries and overhead costs. In answer to Council Member Maurice Taylor's question of why the city couldn't just give one amount to the Downtown Council, Hardcastle said that would be possible, but the preference is to keep them as separate allocations.
"We have two separate nonprofits and we like to keep the expenses separate," she said "The Arts Foundation is a local arts agency that supports other [arts-oriented] nonprofits."
North Little Rock voters approved in August a 1 percentage point sales tax increase that will raise the city's sales tax to 2 percent beginning Jan. 1. The extra revenue will be divided equally between a one-half percent permanent tax for the city general fund and a one-half percent tax to expire in five years for improvements to the city's fire stations, streets and drainage issues and a new Police and Courts Building.
Metro on 12/12/2017