NLR police describe need for raising tax
Building said to outlive its usefulness
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series detailing North Little Rock’s plans for funding from a proposed 1 percentage-point city sales tax increase. Today’s focus is the one-half percent, five-year portion of the tax that would include improvements to the city police and courts building.
When police recruits or other prospective hires visit North Little Rock’s 57-yearold police and courts building, it’s best if they don’t pay too close attention to the surroundings, a police official said recently.
“We want to put blinders on them when we walk them from Point A to Point B,” Capt. Jay Kovach, head of the Patrol Division, said during a tour of the building. “We like to say we’re the best of the best in our Police De-
partment. Until you walk into this facility and just step back in time 57 years. It’s embarrassing.”
Renovating the building at 200 Pershing Blvd., or possibly building anew, is included in North Little Rock’s proposal for raising the city sales tax by 1 percentage point through a special election Aug. 8. Early voting begins Tuesday.
If approved, one-half of the revenue from the 1 percent tax is to go to capital improvements for the police and courts building, fire stations, and street and drainage improvements. That portion of the tax would be temporary, lasting five years, with $20 million projected to go toward the police and courts building.
The other one-half percent would be permanent and used for city operations and maintenance.
The North Little Rock Police Department is spread over four substations and five campuses, including the police and courts building, which housed 67 officers in 1961, its first full year. The department employs 186 officers today.
The courts annex was added onto the building in
1964. Inside a courtroom, the chairs for people attending hearings are the same ones installed when the courts section opened, said Nathan Hamilton, the city’s communications director.
“We’ve literally have had to construct space to make this building inhabitable for employees,” said Hamilton, whose father is retired District Judge Jim Hamilton.
In the Police Department, the evidence room storage area used to be the space for officer training, which is now done off-site with the Fire Department. The property room is in an area that used to be a former jail. Every old jail cell is full of property items. The room where computers are stored once housed the entire patrol division, Kovach said.
“This building was certainly not built for today’s technology and for the number of people here,” Kovach said.
During public meetings about the tax election, Mayor Joe Smith has said the city’s strategy has been “we patch and we patch and we patch” because the city hasn’t had the money for big fixes. Smith began as mayor in 2013.
During his public tax speeches, Smith has shown a photo of where an aluminum container, about 4 feet by 5 feet, has been added as
a large “drip pan” in a clerical area of the building. The purpose was to catch water leaking from the ceiling’s air-conditioning ducts so it wouldn’t drip onto workers’ desks, Smith said.
“Everybody wants nice, new stuff,” Kovach said. “I’d settle for something appearance-wise that I’d be proud of. Our officers want a facility that’s a nice place to come to work in every day. It’s outlived its usefulness.”
Working conditions have become important when it comes to recruiting and retaining police officers, officials said.
The mayor has talked about how it’s been necessary to raise police pay in the past two years to keep the officers North Little Rock hires and trains from transferring to another city’s department for more pay. The city has to stay “competitive,” Smith has said in public meetings during the tax campaign. A modern, spacious work space is another way to do that, he said.
City employees and elected officials received raises of 3 percent and 2 percent for each of the past two years at a cost of $2.37 million. The city had to pull money from its reserves to balance the budget in both years. Smith’s pay increased during that time from $103,480 to $122,400 annually. Some residents have questioned the city’s efficiency in its spending, including pay raises for elected officials and nonuniformed employees.
“When you know there’s going to be a shortfall in your budget, you don’t give raises and you don’t accept raises,” North Little Rock resident Cheryl Ripper said at a meeting Thursday night.
Hamilton also said upgrades are needed to prevent officers from being recruited by other cities.
With gang activity and shootings having escalated in neighboring Little Rock, where there are more than 70 unfilled police positions, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola announced last week an incentive package for new police officers that includes bonuses for experienced officers from other police departments: $5,000 for experienced police hires and another $5,000 if the new officer buys a house in Little Rock.
Those offers could affect North Little Rock’s department, Hamilton said.
“Little Rock wants the best, and we want to keep the best,” Hamilton said. “The current police headquarters is not a selling point for us. We still recruit the best officers, but we cannot say our headquarters is an asset.”