Faulkner County to repay fund

CONWAY — Faulkner County residents who have been paying a voluntary tax aimed at building an animal shelter got some good though vague news this week.

The county’s Quorum Court agreed the county will return almost $500,000 taken from the tax fund to buy property now being used by the sheriff ’s office. The question is when.

“It’s a big step, but there’s no time frame,” said Donna Clawson, who heads the shelter task force.

The nonbinding resolution, approved before a large audience Tuesday night, “was so vague. There was no when, where, why, what,” Clawson said Thursday.

“I think they should return it in November when they get that sales tax [revenue] in because they’ll have it then.”

Still, Clawson was hopeful, saying, “The big thing was, they admitted they need to put that money back in” the animal-shelter fund.

David Hogue, the county’s attorney, said Thursday that he thought “frankly everyone agreed before we passed the resolution that we needed to return the money, and we will. But I think the public needed to hear the Quorum Court say that.”

While the refund won’t take place immediately, Hogue said, the resolution does provide a timetable.

Under the measure, he said, the county will repay the money when a separate county fund of sequestered money “is replenished or when the animal-control [task force] needs the money and is ready to do something with it.”

Shortly after buying the property on South German Lane, county officials said they would lease it to the sheriff’s office for two years, then turn it over to the shelter. But shelter advocates became upset when they realized the sheriff’s office was renovating the facilities for its use, meaning work on converting the buildings into a shelter couldn’t even begin for two years.

Since then, many of the advocates have concluded it would be best to build a shelter from scratch while teaming up with the city of Conway. The rapidly growing city has a shelter but needs a larger one. The county does not have one.

Because the shelter fund gets the sheriff ’s rent money, Hogue said, it’s getting more money in the interim than it would if the money was sitting in a bank account.

Once the $500,000 is paid back, the shelter fund will have more than $1.4 million.

But even the rent has now become an issue. The sheriff’s office originally agreed to a lease in which it would pay $20,000 a year in rent. Hogue said Thursday that the payment now has been reduced to $15,000 the first year and increased to $25,000 the second year.

Clawson said she has heard different sums. “I don’t know why it’s fluctuating,” she said.

It would be good if the county officials would keep the shelter supporters informed on the rent, Clawson said.

“That’s what’s been real difficult,” she said. “If they have something in the works, they’re keeping it to themselves.”

“The voters decided … that we need a county shelter” when they voted to levy a 1.5-mill voluntary tax, starting in 2006. “And it is time to do it. We have the money.”

Hogue said he would not say that any proposals on funding and building a shelter are dead.

“I think all ideas are still floating around,” he said.