FORT SMITH -- City directors hit a snag -- state law -- when they tried Tuesday to hold the second of three readings of an ordinance to institute a $100 business license fee to raise money for the Police Department.
City directors had voted 4-3 on Dec. 5 to pass the ordinance, but because the measure didn't get five votes in favor, the ordinance had to be read three times before it would go into effect.
At the start of Tuesday's special meeting for the reading, City Administrator Carl Geffken announced the city's attorney discovered Arkansas Code Annotated 26-77-102(a) required a two-thirds vote, or five of the seven-member board, to pass an ordinance requiring local businesses to pay a business license fee.
The vote the board took on the ordinance failed because it didn't receive the required five votes, Geffken said. He said he was placing the ordinance on the Tuesday meeting agenda to allow city directors to vote again.
"If it does not pass, then [city finance director Jennifer Walker] and I will be working to make the reduction to the new requests for 2018 that reduces those requests by $471,280," Geffken said.
City directors intended the $471,280 the business license fees were estimated to raise to be used to help come up with the money to hire 13 police officers and buy new police vehicles and equipment for the department.
The second reading of another ordinance Tuesday to increase the city's franchise fee from 4 percent to 4.25 percent was successful. It also passed last week by a 4-3 vote and required three readings to take effect.
City officials said the increased franchise fee would generate $554,000. City directors also intended that money to help generate more money for the Police Department.
City directors who opposed the two revenue-producing fee ordinances complained the city should be reducing the tax burden on residents instead of increasing it.
They also complained there was no guarantee the money raised from the fees actually would go to Police Department needs and not be absorbed into the general fund, which funds most of the city's departments.
City Director George Catsavis tried at last week's meeting to amend the ordinance to earmark the new revenue for the Police Department but the effort failed.
NW News on 12/14/2017