LITTLE ROCK — The Little Rock Board of Directors will discuss an ordinance at its meeting tonight that would require all newly hired police and firefighters to live inside Little Rock city limits.
The ordinance, proposed by Ward 1 City Director Erma Hendrix, is being brought up for the second time in less than a year. The timing of the ordinance coincides with dozens of open and newly created positions at the two departments made possible by a portion of the one-percentage-point increase in the city’s sales tax that went into effect in January.
Hendrix held a community meeting Monday night for a group of residents who support the ordinance to discuss possible changes before the meeting tonight. The board will discuss the ordinance at its agenda meeting and decide whether to place it on the agenda for the regular board meeting next Tuesday, April 17.
Hendrix said she planned to take the suggestions from the meeting Monday and make some changes to the ordinance before the board meeting, but did not say what specific changes she would incorporate.
The ordinance as it was submitted would require newly hired police officers and firefighters move into Little Rock city limits within 90 days of being hired. It would not apply to existing employees, and it would give City Manager Bruce Moore discretion over extenuating circumstances that could make a new employee exempt from the ordinance.
According to recent studies of the city’s work force, more than half of the city’s employees live outside of city limits.
Little Rock adopted a residency requirement for employees in 1994, but it was repealed one year later. The city does not currently have an official residency policy, but Moore requires all department heads to live inside city limits.
Lt. Terry Hastings, Little Rock Police spokesman, said the department administration had not had a chance to review the ordinance and could not comment on it Monday. Kevin Simpson, the president of Little Rock’s Fraternal Order of Police chapter, said the chapter had not had a chance to discuss the ordinance in its newest form.
Little Rock Fire Chief Greg Summers said he could not comment on the ordinance in depth, but said it could limit the department’s recruiting options. Calls to the local firefighters union representative were not returned Monday.
Mark Hayes, legal counsel for the Arkansas League of Municipalities, said he fields calls from city officials regularly asking whether a residency requirement is a legal option.
“We don’t follow them through the process to find out if they’ve passed a requirement, so off the top of my head, I can’t tell you any cities that have one in Arkansas,” he said. “It’s a pretty well-tested policy across the country, from what I know.”
Several larger cities nationwide and many smaller cities require either all employees, or police and firefighters to live within city limits. There was a debate during the most recent mayoral election in Chicago over whether to repeal the city’s long-standing policy that most employees live within city limits, but that requirement is still in effect.
A similar debate for police and firefighters is ongoing in the Wisconsin Legislature over whether to repeal a Milwaukee law in effect for decades that requires employees to live in city limits.
At the meeting Monday, residents suggested that the Little Rock ordinance be changed to include all new city hires and that the 90-day moving period be removed from the ordinance so that current residents be given the benefit of the law if it were to pass.
“We have the ordinance on paper, but the union and the Fraternal Order of Police are going to flex their muscles ... and we need to flex our muscles right back,” said former police officer Kaward Jolly. “You have to come out and show your support. Like my grandmother used to say, bring somebody and have them bring somebody, and that way we fill the church.”
As of Monday, the police department was on track to fill 55 vacant positions and add another 12 positions, Hastings said. The fire department will hire 36 new employees and fill between 12 and 20 positions that are vacant or are projected to be vacant by the time the next training class starts in July, Summers said.
Hendrix brought a similar ordinance that would have required all city employees to live in the city to the Board in June but could not get the votes to put it on the board’s agenda. At that time, several directors suggested that the city look into incentives to encourage employees to live inside city limits, such as allowing police officers to take home patrol cars or offering help with down payments on houses inside the city.
Hendrix said Monday that she was encouraged to make the ordinance into a resolution, but she declined.
“I knew that if this was not an ordinance and it was a resolution, that it would carry no weight at all,” she said. “That is why I wanted to move forward with this as an ordinance.”
Ward 2 Director Ken Richardson, one of the people asking that the ordinance include all city employees, suggested that Hendrix defer discussion of the ordinance until the group can iron out some of the details, including how to promote the ordinance to other residents. Richardson deferred to Hendrix when she said she wanted to move forward.
“We may want to expand this for all new hires and employment opportunities,” he said. “This is something that could help us address unemployment and under-employment ... help us stabilize some of our most blighted communities.”
Arkansas, Pages 8 on 04/10/2012