Election to continue Fayetteville's 1-cent sales tax Tuesday

FAYETTEVILLE -- Renewing the city's sales tax will provide a crucial source of revenue for serving residents for another decade, administrators say.

Voters will be asked Tuesday to continue the city's 1-cent sales tax for operations and some capital expenditures. The tax generates about $22.5 million each year, according to Paul Becker, the city's chief financial officer.

About $13.5 million goes to operations, mainly personnel, and another $9 million goes toward some capital expenditures, such as new fire trucks. The tax was last renewed in 2011 by a nearly 75% margin with more than 3,275 votes cast out of 42,732 registered voters, about an 8% turnout.

The last election has the tax expiring in June 2023. A successful vote will extend the tax another 10 years into 2033.

Previous elections in 2002 and 1993 also passed with significant majorities in favor.

Early voting began Aug. 3. Between then and Friday, 162 people had cast votes, according to the Washington County election coordinator. The last day for early voting is 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday at the County Clerk's Office of the Washington County Courthouse at 280 N. College Ave.

Eight voting centers will be open 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Election Day on Tuesday. Any registered voter in the city can cast a vote.

Mayor Lioneld Jordan said he wanted to emphasize to voters the tax has existed for nearly 30 years. A vote in favor is a vote to continue the basic services they expect, he said.

Letting the tax expire would mean laying off hundreds of employees who carry out those services, Jordan said. The hardest hit departments likely would be police, fire, planning and parks, he said.

On the capital program side, police and fire could no longer have the money to buy new equipment such as body cameras and vehicles, he said. Streets, sidewalks, drainage and trails would go without necessary maintenance, he said.

No groups in opposition have filed with the Arkansas Ethics Commission.

There's an example on the city website of what city officials say would happen if cuts were made evenly across departments, should the vote fail. Becker said the numbers likely would differ if that happened, but the example shows the scale of the impact. The City Council would make the final decision on budget cuts.

The example says personnel expenditures would be reduced by about $11 million if the city cut the budget by 27%, which is the percentage of revenue the tax brings to the general fund, across all operational categories.

There are nearly 500 full-time equivalent positions paid for under the city's general fund, and a 27% cut would result in about 150 city employees without jobs, according to Becker.

Also in Becker's example, the city's contracts with organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club, 7 Hills Homeless Center, Area Agency on Aging for the senior center, public access television and the Arkansas Air & Military Museum would be drastically reduced or eliminated.

On the capital expenditures side, programs such as street overlay, new sidewalks and trails, and equipment and technology upgrades and replacements would end, Becker said. The reduced revenue would begin in 2023 if the tax extension fails, he said.

If the vote fails this year, the city could come back and hold elections up until the June 2023 expiration date, but that would pose a significant budget challenge, Becker said.

The tax generates 27% of the revenue for the general fund, and trying to account for that large a loss would take months of planning, Becker said. If the city waited too long before the June 2023 deadline, the state would start notifying businesses of the tax rate change. If another sales election were held and was successful, the tax rate would revert to what it was -- all of which could create significant confusion, he said.