PINE BLUFF -- Several Pine Bluff officials are concerned that a shared ZIP code with White Hall is creating confusion about where some residents live and is affecting the amount of sales tax money that's funneled into their city.
On Thursday night, Pine Bluff Aldermen Steven Mays, George Stepps and Thelma Walker discussed the issue at a town hall meeting in front of a sparse crowd of about a dozen people.
The ZIP code in question -- 71602 -- includes parts of Jefferson and Grant counties, with a 2010 population of 17,689 residents. At Monday night's City Council meeting, aldermen passed a resolution to petition the U.S. Postal Service to end ZIP code sharing between the cities.
A message left for Leisa Tolliver-Gay, a spokesman for the post office, was not returned on Thursday.
Pine Bluff and White Hall have shared the ZIP code for nearly two decades, but Mays and others said the issue has been widely overlooked by previous city leaders. Mays said, "It's time for us to reevaluate where our city boundaries are, and we need everyone who lives in our city to have a Pine Bluff address."
Some Pine Bluff officials, including Mays, have also expressed concern that the shared ZIP code may have contributed to the city's recent population losses, but U.S. Census Bureau officials said that's not the case.
The 2010 census showed that Pine Bluff lost more than 6,000 residents since 2000, dropping from a population of 55,085 to 49,083. According to the 2010 census, White Hall has 5,526 residents, up from 4,732 in 2000.
Toni Pitchford, a U.S. Census Bureau official who has been taking questions from Pine Bluff officials on the topic, has said the agency's data are gathered through a process using municipal boundaries that are measured with a global positioning system.
"Our data collection determines exactly which political boundary any given housing unit is located in, regardless of which ZIP code they are in," Pitchford said. "We know that some people who live in Pine Bluff receive mail that says White Hall on it, but it is the actual boundaries of a city that determines where you reside."
In addition, the Jefferson County tax collector's office has said ZIP codes do not affect tax collections.
Still, Stepps said he believes some businesses that are located in Pine Bluff but are assigned White Hall addresses may use vendors that unintentionally assign sales-tax dollars to the wrong community.
"We need to inform and educate all of our businesses about this issue," Stepps said. "If someone buys a $300,000 piece of equipment, and we don't get that sales tax, it hurts us."
The issue of Pine Bluff's official city boundary lines also came up Thursday night, with all in attendance agreeing that the boundaries must be updated. Pine Bluff Mayor Debe Hollingsworth, who attended the meeting, said the last time the city's boundaries were updated was in 1987.
She said the city doesn't have the money to conduct a digitized boundary survey, which is the most accurate and preferred method today.
Stepps said the city "will have no clear understanding of the role ZIP codes play until we get a boundary line update."
State Desk on 08/08/2014