Plan to boost NLR sales tax goes to voters

Mayor touts 1% levy to fund city operations, construction

Harvey Cobb and his sister-in-law, Sara Raines, read the sample ballot Monday at the Pulaski County Regional Building on the final day of early voting for the North Little Rock sales-tax election.
Harvey Cobb and his sister-in-law, Sara Raines, read the sample ballot Monday at the Pulaski County Regional Building on the final day of early voting for the North Little Rock sales-tax election.

Whether North Little Rock voters approve a 1 percentage point increase in the city's sales tax in today's special election, Mayor Joe Smith says his administration will continue to "run a tight ship."

Voters will decide on the new city tax that will have its revenue divided for two purposes if approved. One-half of the tax would be permanent to fund the city's general operations. The other one-half percent would expire after five years and be used for a new police and courts building, fire station upgrades and street and drainage improvements.

Polls will be open from 7:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Because of a new state law, voters are required to show a photo identification or sign a sworn statement confirming their identity before casting a ballot.

If the tax increase is approved, North Little Rock's overall sales tax would rise to 9.5 percent. The city charges a 1 percent city sales tax on top of the state's 6.5 percent tax and a 1 percent tax by Pulaski County.

The tax collection would begin Jan. 1. The tax is projected to bring in about $16 million in additional revenue per year.

"Just because this passes, doesn't mean we will do anything different," Smith said last week. "I want to build our reserve up, or, as I've also called it, our emergency fund. We'll also begin to work on our construction issues and street and drainage issues.

"We'll still run a very tight ship and continue to find ways to do things cheaper," he said.

The one-half percent tax for capital improvements is projected to generate, over the next five years, $20 million for a new police and courts building, $10 million for streets and drainage to be evenly divided among the city's four wards and $10 million for fire station upgrades.

Smith made 44 presentations in the last two months to various groups showing figures compiled by city officials that showed the combined city and county sales tax revenue having grown by 0.3 percent on average annually during the past 10 years, while expenses have increased by 3.5 percent on average annually.

North Little Rock doesn't charge a sanitation fee, a promise made in an ordinance adopted in 2000 to help get the current 1 percent city sales tax approved by voters that year. The North Little Rock City Council could decide without a vote of the electorate to begin a sanitation fee if the sales tax fails. However, that revenue would likely only cover the almost $5 million it costs to provide sanitation service, not the city's growing expenses, according to city figures.

Smith said that normal attrition of police officers would mean having 13 fewer officers in a year's time without any layoffs, if the tax fails. The city would, though, "probably have to let some of our firefighters go," if the tax fails because turnover isn't as high, he said. In other departments, budgeted jobs would be abolished or there would be layoffs, he said.

Bubba Lloyd, a North Little Rock businessman and former mayoral candidate, opposes the tax increase, saying last week that city officials "haven't really cut back to the bare bone." Lloyd mentioned raises provided city employees in each of the past two years when the city took money from its reserves in order to balance those budgets. The city transferred $2.5 million and $4.2 million, respectively, in those years, in part because of the raises.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Information about North Little Rock polling sites

"You don't go borrowing money to give people raises," Lloyd said. If the tax passes, he added, "They'll just have more of the taxpayers' money to throw out the window."

Metro on 08/08/2017

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