BENTONVILLE -- Benton County's justices of the peace expressed concern Tuesday about a drop in sales tax receipts for April.
According to Brenda Guenther, comptroller, the county received $681,564 in sales tax revenue in April. That was a drop of $9,290 from April 2017 and the first month-to-month decrease in the receipts since December when tax revenue dropped about $31,000 from the same month in 2016. For 2017, the sales tax revenue grew about $500,000, which was an increase of more than 9 percent. The county budgeted for $8.9 million in sales tax revenue for 2018, a jump of almost 10 percent.
Electronic cigarettes
Benton County’s justices of the peace on Tuesday endorsed a program allowing jail inmate to buy and use “e-cigarettes” while in jail. Jeremy Guyll, with the Sheriff’s Office, said other jails have found the e-cigarettes are a useful tool for influencing inmates behavior. The county’s Committee of the Whole will consider the program at its May 8 meeting.
Source: Benton County
The county is ahead of its forecast for sales tax revenue for 2018, but the justices of the peace have agreed to set aside money in January, February and March after those months showed unusually large increases. So far, the county has set aside about $710,000.
Guenther and Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and Finance Committee chairman, agreed the larger-than-normal revenue might be the subject of a rebate request. Merchants have up to a year to request rebates of sales taxes paid in excess of certain amounts for qualifying projects, including large new construction or expansion projects. The state doesn't identify the source of the sales taxes disbursed or the amounts paid by individual businesses.
The justices of the peace also discussed jail payments from the state, from cities in Benton County and the U.S. Marshals Service for housing inmates in the county jail. Guenther said the county has received about $92,000 more through April than was received in the same period of 2017. Allen asked about efforts to increase the rate from the U.S. Marshals office and Meyer Gilbert, chief deputy, said the county has renegotiated its contract with the federal agency to increase the rate of pay from $40 per day to $55. Gilbert said the contract also will include more money for deputies assigned to transport federal prisoners.
Allen noted the state's rate of pay hasn't increased. Guenther said it costs $55 a day to house an inmate in the jail and the state pays $30 for inmates sentenced to terms in state prisons.
Susan Anglin, justice of the peace for District 9, said the state has earmarked about $16 million to reimburse counties for housing state inmates, but hasn't increased the reimbursement rate.
Kurt Moore, justice of the peace for District 13, said he would prefer the state agree to pay more of the actual costs, but he's glad some effort is being made to keep the payments current.
"It has always annoyed me that the state insists on keeping their inmates in the county jail and then running out of money at inconvenient times," Moore said. "I'm glad they're at least trying to do something about that."
NW News on 05/02/2018