A direct connection to Interstate 40 and the elimination of an unpopular community service fee both become realities if voters in Maumelle approve sales taxes totaling 1 percent in a March 13 special election.
In a somewhat complicated ballot, Maumelle will ask voters to decide on a pair of one-half percentage point tax increases: One is for public safety funding; the other is for two capital improvement bond projects.
On the ballot regarding the bonds, voters are to decide separately on a one-half percentage point tax for each of the two projects. Still, the maximum tax increase would be 1 percentage point even if voters approve both bond projects and the public safety tax. Effectively, the voters will choose whether the half-percent for the bonds supports one or two projects or is rejected entirely.
The Maumelle City Council approved three ordinances Dec. 4 to set the election as three separate issues to go before voters. Maumelle already has a 1 percent city sales tax. Collection of the new taxes would begin July 1.
A meeting to help explain voting details is set for 6 p.m. Jan. 18 at First Baptist Church, 100 Valencia Drive in Maumelle. A second forum may be held in February, Maumelle Mayor Mike Watson said recently.
"It's a little confusing," Watson said of the tax ballots. "Basically, we have two separate half-cent sales taxes proposed. One, that we're calling the public safety tax, is a half-cent tax that would be permanent.
"The other is the bond tax that would also be a half-cent sales tax, but that will expire, or sunset, when the bonds issued are paid off," Watson said. "These are for two separate improvement projects, so the people will get to vote on each improvement."
The public safety tax revenue would go toward the operation and maintenance of public safety facilities, "including, but not limited to" the Maumelle Police and Fire departments, street lighting, repairs of streets and walking/bicycle trails, and other related public safety facilities and operations, Maumelle City Attorney Caleb Norris wrote recently in a public social media post explaining the ballot issues.
The Maumelle City Council on Dec. 18 approved a fourth ordinance connected with the March election. It decrees that on Sept. 1, the city will eliminate its $6-per-month community service fee -- totaling $72 annually per household -- once tax collection begins, if the public safety tax passes in March. The fee began in 1985 to help fund the Police and Fire departments.
"If passed, the city would remove the community service fee, which is actually a tax," Norris said in a recent interview.
The fee is included as a charge on the city's quarterly trash bills, which households would still receive. The trash charge is $15.50 monthly.
"I've tried to make sure that people know the trash bill is not going away," Watson said, adding that there is confusion about that as well. "They will still get a trash bill from us. It will not go away."
Maumelle's community service fee has been unpopular with residents and a headache for the city to collect.
In 2015, the City Council considered lowering the monthly fee by $1 each year until it was eliminated, but the council indefinitely delayed that proposal because there wasn't any revenue identified to make up the city's loss. The proposal came after a 2014 study showed that delinquent households were costing the city an estimated $190,000 annually in uncollected revenue from the fee.
"We always have collection problems," Watson said, adding that collection rates now are 92 percent to 93 percent. "We have to go stay on people to get them to pay."
The other two parts of the vote, to support proposed bond issues, are under the same one-half percent sales tax question but are to be considered separately.
"These are two different proposed projects," Norris said of the bond projects. "Even if both of them pass, there would only be a half-cent sales tax implemented. Whether it's one project or two, the maximum we would walk away with from the election will be a 1 percent increase."
The first part is for a $15.59 million bond issue to fund a planned interchange that would be built at the end of the recently completed Counts Massie Road extension. Counts Massie Road, which passes through both Maumelle and North Little Rock, would then connect I-40 with the increasingly congested Maumelle Boulevard, also known as Arkansas 100.
The planned "third entrance" interstate connection has been envisioned since the mid-1990s. Maumelle Boulevard, also in both Maumelle and North Little Rock, is the only way for Maumelle residents to enter or leave the city, connecting to Interstate 430 at one end and Arkansas 365/I-40 at the other.
The other part of the ballot is to issue $2.3 million in bonds for sewer extensions and improvements on commercial property inside the city limits in the Morgan interchange area at Maumelle's north end. Some of the properties outside the city limits receiving sewer services would be annexed, Watson said.
Watson said the bonds are estimated to be paid off in 17 years "if there's no growth at all in sales tax revenue during that time period."
"With any growth at all, the bonds will pay off faster," he said. "Hopefully, with these projects, there will be more opportunities for retail growth both at the new I-40 interchange and at the Morgan interchange."
Metro on 12/26/2017