The Pulaski County tax collector pounded the pavement Friday in an attempt to collect seriously delinquent taxes from businesses.
Debra Buckner and her tax specialists spent the day driving across the county and knocking on doors. They began encounters with business owners by saying, "It's a significant and serious matter."
At the top of Buckner's list of most delinquent businesses was Little Rock radio station KZTS-FM 101.1.
That station, which is run by a media conglomerate company based in Atlanta, owed $34,834 on business assets for years 2013, 2014 and 2015. Repeated phone calls, certified letters, emails and posted door notices had gone unanswered for years, Buckner said.
"The only thing left to us to do is to auction off everything pertaining to the business. That's our next recourse," Buckner told Joel "DJ No Name" Ratliff, a general manager of the station that is known as Streetz 101.1.
"I'm on top of it, I swear," he said Friday.
The station's parent company, Extreme Media Group, said there was a discrepancy in its tax bill but didn't comment further.
In total, Pulaski County businesses owed $790,000 on taxable business assets, which include things like vehicles, computers, equipment and inventory.
The entourage of tax collectors, accompanied by reporters and a reserve sheriff's deputy, visited six places of business Friday. A visit to Advanced Bath and Kitchen on Jessie Road in Little Rock, which owed a total of $29,829 for 2014 and 2015, yielded a payment of $14,000.
A visit to Silks A Bloom on Ranch Drive in west Little Rock prompted the business to come up with $6,654 to satisfy its debt.
The tax collector's office said multiple previous phone calls to Silks A Bloom had not been returned. But co-owner Dale Aldridge said he disagreed with the assessed value of his assets and had not received any correspondence from the county because his business had moved locations.
"It just really makes me mad. I changed locations. I moved into a much smaller store, where I have less than half the inventory that we did, and after submitting all of my information on our changes, they kept assessing our old location," Aldridge said.
He paid the outstanding amount by the end of the business day Friday, but he still plans to protest his assessment. If it is adjusted downward, the county will issue a refund for the difference.
"It was never about not wanting to pay," Aldridge said. "I don't feel like I should have to pay something that was incorrect."
Kenneth Edwards Fine Jewelry, at The Promenade at Chenal in Little Rock, owes the county $21,799, Buckner said, but no owner was present at the time of her visit Friday.
Owners of North Little Rock businesses Riverside Marine, who owe $13,442, and Glover's Transmission and Rear End, who owe $28,319, both said they would address their debts next week.
"It's unpleasant for everyone," Buckner said of the debt-collection process. "However, when somebody's taxes are so many years behind by thousands of dollars, this is the best course of action we can take, is to put feet on the ground, eyeball to eyeball, and say, 'where are we, folks?'"
If a business continues to ignore its delinquent taxes, state law allows county officials to hold a public auction at the business's location and sell off its taxable assets until the debt is paid -- an action Buckner has yet to take in her more than 15 years as tax collector.
"That is an extreme measure that no one wants to take," she said.
Money the county collects helps fund services like the Arkansas Children's Hospital, Central Arkansas Library System, fire departments, the sheriff's office and the jail.
"We just want them to be good citizens and pay their fair share," Buckner said.
Metro on 03/04/2017