Little Rock officials plan to pass on the cost, estimated at up to $116,000, for a Feb. 9 special election on bonds for the Arkansas Arts Center to a private group dedicated to campaigning for the passage of the ballot issue.
Typically, the cost of a special election is borne by the entity that called it. In this case, that would be the city.
Little Rock chose to have the election on the bond question in February instead of adding it to the already-planned March primary vote, which is being paid for by the state and would have cost the city nothing.
City Manager Bruce Moore said through a spokesman Tuesday that the city worked out an agreement for the Committee for Arts and History to foot the special-election bill. Moore didn't return messages seeking further comment.
The three-member committee was formed last week to register with the Arkansas Ethics Commission to raise money to campaign for the ballot issue.
It's unclear when the sides reached an agreement for the committee to pay for the election.
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola didn't know of the arrangement earlier Tuesday when, in response to a reporter's questions about the city paying the cost, he defended spending taxpayer money on an election separate from the primary.
"We don't want this particular issue, which is so important to citizens, to get lost in the noise and cacophony of a presidential primary election. I think the importance of what this means for the next 50 years for these institutions is certainly suggestive that the money is well spent," Stodola said.
Stodola made the remarks after a campaign launch event sponsored by the Committee for Arts and History at the Arts Center. About 150 people attended.
Gary Smith, the committee chairman, said Tuesday afternoon that he didn't know when the agreement was made for the committee to pay for the special election and that he wasn't told the full cost until Tuesday.
"I had assumed all along that the committee would pay for it. [There had not been] any discussion about it whatsoever as to who was going to pay or who wasn't going to pay. The only discussion we had was about what the cost would be. I didn't find out a final cost figure until today," Smith said.
Before the city announced that the committee would take on the cost, Smith said the committee had a tight budget and would do well just to pay for making phone calls and sending out mailers.
"With a limited budget, that's really all you can do, plus with a short time frame," he said.
The committee's campaign will be funded through private donations. The group has set up a website at www.forartsandhistory.com.
In the past, groups that were set up to campaign for special ballot issues in Little Rock haven't typically paid the election costs.
When a group of residents set up Restore Robinson in 2013 to campaign for a bond election to fund the $68 million renovation of the Robinson Center, the city's Advertising and Promotion Commission paid the special election bill.
Voter turnout likely will be lower in February than at the March primary election.
About 6.5 percent of Little Rock voters turned out to the Robinson Center bond election in 2013. About 35 percent of Pulaski County voters showed up at the polls in 2008, the last time there was an early primary in a presidential election year.
When asked about losing out on the potential to reach more voters in March, Stodola said it was better to set the Arts Center issue apart from voters' selection of candidates.
"We don't want this to get confused and lost in the big shuffle of the crazy Republican primary and the crazy Democratic primary, where the focus is on something totally different," he said.
Little Rock isn't the only entity holding a special election this year. Pulaski County is asking voters to approve a 0.25 percent sales tax for transit, but it chose to put the issue on the March ballot.
The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District is holding an election on a proposed 7.6-mill property tax. The district chose to pay the cost of holding a special election Feb. 9.
Normally, a special election would cost about $70,000 to $75,000, including the pay for poll workers and the cost to print ballots.
But Little Rock's Feb. 9 election is estimated to cost $111,000 to $116,000 because the city has to pay to rent equipment.
Under state law, the polling machines usually used by the Pulaski County Election Commission have to be prepared for the March primary a certain number of days before early voting starts. This year, that date is Feb. 9.
Since the Election Commission couldn't use the same machines for the Little Rock election, the city had to borrow some from the secretary of state's office. That won't cost any additional money.
But since the machines being borrowed are the kind that read print ballots, the city will have to rent electronic machines -- to be used by the disabled and visually impaired -- directly from the polling machine company. That will cost about $41,000, said Election Commission Executive Director Bryan Poe.
"I could see how a layman would question" the city spending extra money to have an election a month before the primary, Poe said. "Honestly, when I first saw it, I kind of questioned it, too.
"But since it's a bond issue, there are certain deadlines they have to hit. I'm assuming it has something to do with those deadlines as to why they set the date they did," he said. "I don't know anything about that. I'm not an attorney. I'm just assuming they are acting in good faith for why they did it when they did."
Stodola didn't mention any bond deadlines as a reason for holding the special election early.
Poe said that in his experience, people generally don't turn out for bond elections.
"There's usually somewhere between 2 and 10 percent," Poe said.
Metro on 01/06/2016