JONESBORO -- Voters approved reallocating money from a citywide sales tax during a special election Tuesday, authorizing city officials to use the revenue for salaries and operational expenses.
The reallocation replaces funds lost when a temporary 0.5 percent city tax expires at the end of the year.
Had the measure failed, Jonesboro Mayor Harold Perrin said the city would have faced potential cutbacks and layoffs in several departments.
Complete but unofficial results are:
For 612
Against 348
The city will transfer money collected from a temporary 0.5 percent sales tax that voters first approved in 2000 to help pay for several projects. Since its passage, the city built a new City Hall, several fire stations and a police station and made improvements to roads.
The 0.5 percent sales tax generates about $7.5 million a year and will expire Dec. 31.
"This makes next year a bit easier," said Ben Barylske, chief financial officer for the city. "We will still have to budget tight, but this gives us some breathing room."
Jonesboro will still lose revenue from the expiring tax, but officials didn't use the entire $7.5 million collected each year for improvements, he said. Instead, the city is planning to see a decrease of about $3 million annually when the tax ends.
Officials called for the special election rather than place the measure on the November election ballot because time would have been needed to prepare the city's 2015 budget of $40 million if it had failed, Barylske said.
Perrin had discussed placing a new half-percent citywide sales tax on the ballot in November to replace the retiring tax, but opted not to instead. He said he didn't favor asking for a new tax.
Barylske said he was disappointed with the low voter turnout for Tuesday's election.
Fewer than 1,000 cast ballots; Jonesboro has more than 20,000 registered voters.
Only 425 people cast early ballots in the election, Craighead County deputy clerks said Tuesday evening. Another 25 voted on absentee ballots.
"It's troubling," Barylske said. "We put a lot of work into informing the public about this."
Barylske and Perrin spoke to a group about the allocation proposal early Tuesday morning at a downtown restaurant. Barylske has also visited civic organizations and held public meetings to discuss the measure.
"I wish the numbers had been better," he said. "But maybe some people trusted what Harold was doing and didn't think they needed to vote. This [proposal] was a no-brainer. It was common sense. Maybe that's why they didn't get out to vote."
State Desk on 08/13/2014