VOTING begins Tuesday in Fort Smith for sales tax to support U.S. Marshals Museum.

FORT SMITH — Early voting begins Tuesday in a special election seeking a temporary 1 percent sales tax to raise about $15.5 million to complete the U.S. Marshals Museum.

Construction is under way on the 50,000-square-foot, $19.1 million museum on the banks of the Arkansas River, but museum officials have said they have come up short on donations to pay for developing the interior to hold the exhibits telling the U.S. Marshals Service’s 230-yearold story.

At the request of museum officials, Fort Smith city directors in December set the date for a special election to levying the sales tax for nine months.

Residents can vote from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and March 11 in Room G8 at the Sebastian County Courthouse. The city’s 19 vote centers will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. March 12. Voters can vote at any vote center they choose.

The ballot title is “1% Sales Tax and Use.”

It reads: “Adoption of a one percent (1%) local sales and use tax within the City of Fort Smith, Arkansas (the ‘City’) for a period of nine (9) months with the tax ending on the last day of the nine (9) month period. The net collections of the tax after deduction of the administrative charges of the State of Arkansas and required rebates will be used to acquire a facility to be known as the United States Marshals Museum (the ‘Marshals Museum’). The City will form an independent public facilities board which will purchase the Marshals Museum and lease it back to the U.S.

Marshals Museum Inc., an Arkansas nonprofit corporation, under a long-term lease with a nominal rental free and clear of any further expense to the City or the public facilities board.”

If approved, collection would begin July 1, according to information museum officials presented to city directors in December. The tax would expire March 31, 2020. Museum Foundation President Jim Dunn said any tax money not needed for completion of the museum would to go a museum endowment fund.

According to the museum, it will cost $15,363,113 to complete the museum. Of that, $9,421,800 would be for experience production; $807,950 for start-up costs; $2,233,363 for furniture, fixtures and equipment; $2.5 million for working capital; and $400,000 for contingency.

Museum officials asked for the tax after a large potential contribution to the museum, a match challenge, fell through in August, Dunn said. Officials realized they couldn’t come up with the money to develop the exhibit experience for the museum by the announced Sept. 24 opening date of the museum.

The museum will be dedicated Sept. 24, the 230th anniversary of the Marshals Service, but the museum won’t open to the public until next year. If the tax doesn’t pass, officials have said the opening will be delayed indefinitely as they continue fundraising.

Dunn said the museum also couldn’t conduct an adequate campaign to education voters about the need for the tax in time to place the issue on the Nov. 6 general election ballot. The alternative was to ask for the special election.

Opponents of the tax have argued special elections are unfair because turnout usually

is low and gives an advantage to those asking for the election.

The museum held three community meetings to answer questions from the public and talk about what the museum offers the community.

They said Fort Smith was chosen as the site for the museum because of the connection it has with the Marshals Service. Museum President Patrick Weeks said more deputy marshals have been killed in the line of duty in the Fort Smith area than any other part of the country. Also, the community was vocal for the Marshals Service to “Bring it Home” and choose Fort Smith as the location for its national museum.

The museum provides education in civic literacy lacking in schools today, officials said. Its education component has been active for nine years, providing programs and material to adults and students on the Constitution, law enforcement and the rule of law. Its annual spring lecture series begins Monday.

Officials say a feasibility study shows the museum will draw more than 125,000 visitors to Fort Smith a year and generate $13 million to $22 million annually in economic impact.

Opponents, led by Citizens Against Unfair Taxation and Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen’s Transparency in Government group, have said they support the museum but not the sales tax.

They say the tax will be an unfair burden on residents. They also argue it will be a permanent tax, despite the tax’s nine-month term or that the museum officials will ask for another tax in the future.

Opponents have called the tax a bailout, the public facilities board an “end run” around the Constitution and believe museum officials should continue to raise money to complete the project.