LITTLE ROCK — The Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce is asking for a larger annual contribution for economic development from one of its public partners and more requests could be coming for others.
The chamber operates its economic development wing on an annual budget of about $750,000, and chamber officials said the organization is looking for increased contributions from its public and private partners to compete with economic development efforts from comparable cities.
Discussion of a request for $50,000 - an increase of $25,000 - from the Central Arkansas Water board of commissioners was postponed with a request for more information at the commissioners’ monthly meeting Thursday. The request would extend the utility’s five-year annual funding commitment for an additional two years, meaning the request would add up to an additional $125,000 over the life of the commitment.
Central Arkansas Water CEO Graham Rich said customers would not see any increase in fees or charges on their water bills if the utility agrees to the increased contribution.
“That money would come from our operating funds. Twenty-five thousand dollars is a lot of money, but in the context of our operating budget, which is $50 million, it is a rather small amount,” he said. “It’s not something customers would see on their monthly bills.”
The utility’s operating funds are paid through customer charges.
Rich said the utility made some cuts in the past few months to its public information department expenditures that could be used to fund the contribution increase. He also said the utility has a history of making contributions to the chamber because of the increase in business that new companies and developments draw to the utility.
“If you think about it in the way that industrial development moving in utilizes the lines in some areas with underutilized infrastructure,”he said, “that keeps the water cleaner because it sits in the pipes for shorter periods of time.”
Meanwhile, the city of Little Rock and Little Rock Wastewater - two of the chamber’s other public partners - have maintained their current level of funding for the chamber for the year.
Little Rock Deputy City Manager Bryan Day said the city’s contribution was allocated in the 2012 budget at $200,000 - the same as previous years.
He said the city had not received a formal request from the chamber for an increase.
The third remaining public partner, the city of Maumelle, increased its contribution this year from $1,002 to $1,120, according to city finance officials.
Chamber CEO Jay Chesshir said the organization is currently asking for increased contributions from its private-business partners as well.
And, because of the schedule for budget requests at the other public entities, the chamber may ask for increased contributions in September.
“This is part of a larger five-year campaign for the chamber called Stock in the Rock,” he said.
“We are funded at a significantly lesser level than economic development efforts in comparable markets. This is an ongoing effort that will keep us competitive with those markets.”
Many other economic development agencies around the state and country operate in a similar way, with both public and private funding for their efforts.
The chamber’s website lists several markets and how much private and public funding economic development groups receive: Fort Worth is listed at $1.5 million, Tulsa at $3.55 million and Oklahoma City at $4.9 million.
He didn’t have breakdowns for private and public funding for those agencies or any closer to home.
The Little Rock chamber uses the contributions, which were split last year at 30 percent public funds to 70 percent private contributions, for marketing, business recruitment and maintaining and expanding existing businesses, Chesshir said.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/13/2012