Maumelle City Council members on Monday evening analyzed seven potential bond projects for the November election ballot and discussed whether an additional city sales tax would be needed to help cover some operational costs.
The informal meeting was to allow aldermen to ask questions and express their concerns about the estimated costs to build, run and maintain the projects.
An election would ask taxpayers to extend the city’s property tax rate of 6.6 mills to help pay off any bonds, but wouldn’t increase the millage rate, Mayor Mike Watson said. The property tax raises $2.2 million annually for the city, he said.
If all seven projects were included, the total construction cost would be between $23.2 million and $25.5 million, but Watson said that he would be more comfortable holding the total cost to $10 million to $12 million.
“There is no money limit as such,” Watson said. “But our borrowing power would be limited.”
Aldermen spent most of the workshop discussing the most costly project, a $6.3 million indoor aquatic center that would include a competition pool for swim meets and a separate therapy pool.
Most questions centered on projected operation and maintenance costs and the potential revenue for the aquatic center,with Alderman Ken Saunders leading that line of questioning.
“I have a lot of issues here,” Saunders said at one point.
Projected annual costs for operating and maintaining the aquatic center would be $454,808, said Parks Director Phillip Raborn, comparing the project with similar facilities in four other cities.
“Each has at least one other form of income coming in that we don’t have,” Raborn said, referring to shares of county or city sales taxes that those centers receive.
The aquatic center would need 1,500 memberships at $300 a year each to make enough revenue to work, Watson said.
Alderman Preston Lewis suggested “a safety net” to help offset the center’s operation costs by including a quarter-percent city sales tax on the ballot.
“There is a significant population of the community that has a strong want for this project,” Lewis said.
“If we include an option of a quarter-[percent] sales tax, that would generate a half-million dollars. The ballot question for the bonds and the tax would each have to pass. To me that’s the most fiscally responsible way to go.”
Other projects and their construction cost estimates include: replacing the city’s senior citizen wellness center, $4.46 million; a two-phase convention and events center, $3 million-$3.75 million for the first phase and $4.8 million-$6.37 million for the second phase; renovation of Maumelle City Hall, $2.6 million; adding two softball and two T-ball fields to the Diamond Center Softball Complex, $1.05 million; and a pedestrian overpass or underpass to cross Maumelle Boulevard, $1 million.
The council still is working on a survey to help gauge residents’ interest for each project before the council selects which projects, if any, it will place on the ballot.
“The people will make the final decision on the survey,” Alderman Burch Johnson said. “Let’s poll the people and see what they really think.”
The senior wellness center, now part of City Hall, would get its own building at an undetermined location and double in size to 14,000 square feet.
Park on the River, a city-owned site overlooking the Arkansas River, would be renovated for the proposed events center and arts theater, expanding from 3,000 square feet to 17,856 square feet.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 04/01/2014