Zip code designation should help Tontitown

TONTITOWN — The city is getting a new postal designation that Mayor Paul Colvin Jr. says will improve delivery services and increase sales tax for city coffers.

The U.S. Postal Service has approved what is called a preferred last line designation for the city.

The designation means Tontitown will soon be listed on the 72762 ZIP code that serves the residents and businesses in the city.

The change does not affect the ZIP code, which will remain 72762, but it will identify Tontitown instead of the current identification as Springdale.

The effort to get the designation took six years and a lot of hard work, meetings and city staff time, Colvin said in a news release Friday.

The designation “will improve the delivery of the United States mail, the delivery of important medications as well as deliveries from express and overnight carriers, online retailers and local companies to citizens and businesses in Tontitown,” Colvin says in the release.

The designation will accurately assign sales tax remittances to Tontitown rather than Springdale, which has been a consistent problem, according to Colvin.

A four-digit extension is used to identify who lives in the smaller towns that share a ZIP code with Springdale.

Those digits either weren’t recognized when ordering items online or weren’t applied correctly on local purchases, which resulted in sales tax money going to Springdale, according to Colvin.

Colvin said his rapidly growing city was missing out on tax revenue from purchases like materials used to pave streets in the city and construction materials related to numerous subdivisions being built in Tontitown.

The tax revenue should go to the point of delivery, the city where the work was done, he said.

Tontitown gets about $325,000 a month in sales taxes, Colvin said.

Colvin said staff from the office of U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., was instrumental in getting the postal service to make the change.

Any questions about the change may be directed to Colvin or Renee Biby at Tontitown City Hall.