Little Rock city directors on Tuesday approved a $210.6 million budget that provides no raises for city employees and decreased contributions to outside agencies.
Little Rock plans to spend $387,561 less in 2019 than it did this year. Salary increases for staff members contributed to the 2018 budget increase.
A draft budget presented to the board earlier this month provided for union-negotiated raises of 2.5 percent for all union-eligible positions in the city's police and fire departments and no raises for other employees.
Nonuniformed employees with salaries of $40,000 or less will receive $500 bonuses. Employees with salaries between $40,001 and $60,000 will receive $375. Those who make more than $60,000 annually will receive $250.
Personnel costs will increase by about $6.7 million for 2019, to about $163.2 million. Part of that will go toward the 2.5 percent raises for police and fire department employees.
In 2017, the city approved a 1.5 percent salary increase for all employees. In 2019, uniform and nonuniform employees will continue progressing in their step-and-grade pay scales.
Under a step-and-grade pay scale, employees are assigned a certain grade category that has a starting minimum salary associated with it. Each year on an employee's hiring anniversary, he moves up one step on the scale, which equals a 1.8 percent pay increase, until he reaches the maximum assigned for his grade.
The city plans to add 12 firefighter positions to accommodate the addition of Little Rock Fire Station No. 24. The station in the city's southwest is expected to be completed in November or December 2019, and the firefighters will be hired in February.
Personnel make up about 75 percent of the city's budget each year, Little Rock finance director Sara Lenehan has said. Those costs total about $163.2 million in proposed expenditures for 2019.
The budget allots about $11.1 million in support for outside agencies. That's a decrease of $1.4 million from the 2018 budget.
The city's contributions to eight of 11 outside agencies will remain the same. The city's contribution to First Tee of Central Arkansas, a nonprofit youth development program on a city golf course, is set to decrease by $126,500.
The city's contribution of $350,000 to the Arkansas Arts Center comes from a hotel tax. Normally the city contributes a total of $700,000 to the center annually, but the facility will be closed for part of the year for renovations, resulting in decreased costs to the city.
The city's funding to Rock Region Metro will increase by $208,000, down from an increase of $330,000 in the 2018 budget over 2017.
The city board approved the budget unanimously with no discussion at its regular voting meeting Tuesday.
Metro on 12/19/2018