LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock officials are thinking ahead on how to spend the capital improvement portion of the sales tax increase voters passed in September.
The city’s Board of Directors approved a list of drainage and street resurfacing projects for 2012 at its February 7 meeting, and now the board is debating how to divvy the expected tax revenue for the next nine years.
In each of the plans, the seven city wards would divide about 90 percent of the funding evenly. Distribution of the remaining 10 percent of the funds is up for debate.
“I have questions about how those priorities will be determined and how that money will be distributed,” Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson said at an agenda meeting Tuesday. “It’s a challenge to move forward in a way that’s fair and equitable ... without resorting to pitting the wards against each other.”
Little Rock voters approved a 1 percentage point increase in the city sales tax, bringing the total tax to 8.5 percent, with 1.5 percent going to the city, 6 percent to the state and 1 percent to Pulaski County. Five-eighths of the percentage point increase is dedicated to operating expenses and the other threeeighths is earmarked for capital improvements.
The board previously approved about $1 million in drainage projects and about $3.8 million in resurfacing projects, in addition to several citywide street improvement plans for the 2012 construction season.
The city is expecting to bring in about $65.5 million in funding to be spent on projects between 2013 and 2021. The city has divided that period into three, three-year construction cycles.
The resolution on the agenda for the city board meeting next Tuesday would split 90 percent of the revenue evenly between the seven wards, with each receiving about $8.4 million over the course of the nine years.
The remaining 10 percent of the revenue would be put into a citywide projects fund.
The amount in the fund would range from $665,000 in 2013 to $841,000 in 2021 if growth projections hold true.
City Manager Bruce Moore said his understanding is the fund would be spent on things that might need immediate attention and quick action, such as sinkholes, and projects that might span several wards, such as major thoroughfares and connector roads.
The plan was proposed by Vice Mayor Dean Kumpuris as an adaptation of his original proposal in January that the 10 percent be split between wards 1, 2, 6 and 7, since those wards have some of the oldest infrastructure in the city.
The area covered by those wards includes downtown Little Rock stretching to the city’s eastern border and most of the areas south of 630 to the city’s southwest limit.
Ward 3 Director Stacy Hurst protested Kumpuris’ original plan, saying her ward, which stretches north from 630 to the city’s northern border and from Mississippi Street west to Gill Street, also has aging infrastructure.
City officials plan to meet with residents in each of the wards in a few weeks to talk about concerns that need to be addressed, and hope to go into those meetings with an idea of how much can be spent.
The board is scheduled to vote on the spending resolution next Tuesday.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/15/2012