FAYETTEVILLE -- The city would devote more personnel to public safety, planning and other services, spend more taxpayer money on parks development and parking, and spend about $2 million more overall to keep the city running under a proposed 2016 budget presented by the mayor's administration to City Council members Saturday.
Paul Becker, the city's chief financial officer, laid out the main points of the $147 million balanced budget and warned of possible expensive needs on the horizon during a morning budget working session. The City Council in the coming weeks will discuss and possibly amend the package before giving it final approval before the end of the year.
Web watch
To see Fayetteville’s proposed budget in full, including explanations for how its pieces fit together and where the money comes from, go to www.fayetteville-ar…
Source: Staff report
Chief among the changes from this year's spending would be more adding more than two dozen new city employees, including a new 10-firefighter company in the downtown Fire Station No. 1 and a new six-officer police beat. Travel and training for police, fire and other departments would also grow slightly.
"The central theme of this is to provide better public safety," Becker told the aldermen.
Fayetteville's planning, budget and parks departments would also get more people. The entire slate of new employees would help the city cope with bigger workloads on all fronts, officials have said. The council approved a 1-mill property tax increase in October to help pay for the boost, adding $30 a year to the city's property tax on a $150,000 home.
Property taxes overall would cover just 3 percent of the city's 2016 expenses, according to the proposed budget. The biggest chunk, 38 percent, comes from sales taxes, while fees, fines and other taxes cover the rest.
Besides new personnel, the budget would send hundreds of thousands of dollars more toward public parks, setting aside $150,000, for example, for fixing up natural surface trails in the year-old Mt. Kessler park in southwest Fayetteville. Less new money would go to the first stage of the neighboring regional park, expected to open late next year.
"I think we've taken care of Phase I pretty well, so we can shift that," Becker said.
The overarching Parks Development Fund, which holds money specifically for improving and maintaining public parks, would surge to $3.2 million in 2016 from $2.3 million this year. The increase is in step with more revenue coming in from the 2 percent hotels, motels and restaurants tax, according to documents Becker provided.
Spending on elections in the presidential year, on pensions for police and fire personnel and on building maintenance would also grow somewhat under the plan. Parking costs would go up partly to run the newly opened Spring Street Municipal Parking Deck near Dickson Street, which would also bring in more revenue from parking fees to cover those costs.
Some spending would buck the trend and go down, including for water and sewer services and from the Street Fund. The Street Fund would drop by about $640,000 to $6.9 million, reflecting a drop in revenue. Water and sewer will cost millions of dollars less partly because some renovation projects have wrapped up, Becker said.
The drop in water costs is a blessing, said Chief of Staff Don Marr, because the system is getting older and Arkansas and Oklahoma could soon agree to stricter limits on nutrient pollution in the area's water supply. The cost of fixing these problems could run into the tens of millions, Marr said.
"We're planning for long-term needs and these funds have to support them, and these funds have to be collected over time," he said.
The aldermen didn't voice any specific objections to the package Saturday, but they did bring up some concerns around town the budget might help address.
Alderman Alan Long of Ward 4 suggested scrounging up a few thousand dollars somewhere in the budget to help low-income families afford to join Parks and Recreation sports leagues and other programs.
The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board earlier this month recommended raising fees for programs such as adult sports or kids' summer camp by either 10 percent or $10, depending on the program. Adult kickball fees would go from $250 per team to $275, for example. The change would be the first in about a decade and bring the city closer in line with others, board members said.
Long also suggested keeping an eye on the North Rupple Road and West Mount Comfort Road intersection, a three-way crossing on the west side of town that he said is dangerous for many drivers.
"I'm hitting one wall after another, Alderman Long, let me tell you," Mayor Lioneld Jordan replied, referring to the process of finding money for the project. "But we'll keep after it."
NW News on 11/15/2015