HOT SPRINGS -- The Hot Springs Board of Directors will ask a court if it can receive pay without a vote of the people.
Directors are uncompensated but reimbursed for mileage and other travel expenses. The $36 million they appropriated for 2024 general fund operations included $20,000 for out-of-state travel, $8,000 for in-state travel and $2,000 for local travel.
Earlier this year, the board eliminated the committee charged with reviewing travel reimbursements. The committee of three directors could require reimbursements it considered inappropriate to be refunded to the city, but City Attorney Brian Albright told the board last year the committee had convened only once since its inception.
An ordinance adopting a monthly stipend and annual technology allowance was on the draft agenda for the board's April 16 business meeting. Albright recommended putting off consideration of the item while he asks a court for its interpretation of conflicting statutes regarding director pay in a city manager form of government.
The City Manager Enabling Act of 1989 requires an election to authorize director compensation, but a 1991 law allows directors to unilaterally decide the issue. Hot Springs voters authorized the city manager form of government in a 1986 election. Sixty percent of the more than 6,000 people who cast ballots approved the transition from a mayor-alderman form of government.
Albright said if the 1991 law supersedes the 1989 one, the 2002 election the city had on director compensation may not have been necessary. The referendum was defeated, with 60% of the more than 10,000 who voted casting ballots against compensation.
"I feel pretty certain that the election is not required, but I want you to know anyone can argue anything," Albright told the board at its April 9 agenda meeting. "Sometimes even successfully."
Albright said in his opinion, the 1991 law is the controlling statute. He recommended seeking a declaratory judgment in support of his opinion.
"I don't want you to make a decision thinking this is without the possibility of being contested," he told the board. "Anything is capable of being contested, and most of your actions are subject to referendum. We could take legal action and seek declaratory relief, and a court can make the determination in advance of whether or not an election is required."
Albright called it a "belt and suspenders approach," one he said was needed in the absence of court precedent or attorney general guidance on the subject.
"There's no cases or opinions," he said. "It's kind of baffling, quite honestly."
Mayor Pat McCabe endorsed Albright's idea.
"I think in the interest of transparency having a court ruling on it is best," he told the board.
The board first discussed compensation in February, ahead of its adoption of an ordinance amending its policies and procedures. The $862 monthly stipend Garland County pays justices of the peace was referenced as a potential compensation amount. Albright suggested $1,500 for the annual technology allowance at the April agenda meeting.