Two new items, budget workshop on agenda
■ Siloam Springs’ city board will hear the first in a series of budget workshops on tuesday.
The Siloam Springs Board of Directors are set to meet on Tuesday, Oct. 3, and one of the highlights of the meeting is set to happen before the board’s regular start time.
Directors will consider a pair of new agenda items in addition to a workshop. The workshop, which is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., will cover the first presentation for a series of workshops on the 2018 budget. The workshop will last around an hour, ending just before the regular meeting kicks off at 6:30 p.m.
The meeting will begin with a contract for the public works department for a storage shed. The shed would cost $72,434.25, and would be located at the infrastructure compound at 500 East Tahlequah Street. The shed is to be 100 feet long, 40 feet wide and 16 feet deep. The low bid is from Johnson Construction LLC, and is under the $80,000 budget for the project.
Tuesday’s other new agenda item will be a resolution to approve a city compensation plan for city employees. The plan would be the first formal compensation plan for the city, and would establish a pay plan based on staff’s interpretation of compensation philosophy and market competitiveness.
According to the staff report for the meeting, staff met to assign a point value to the skill level and responsibility level of each position and examine the pay of the position against pay scales from the Arkansas Municipal League and other outside entities.
The fiscal impact for the city to bring the positions that are currently beneath the low end of the pay scale up to the minimum of the new standards will be $105,940.81. Staff has estimated
that the overall cost to payroll will be about $130,000.
Two high-profile ordinances, Ordinance 17-21 and 17-22, are also due for their third and final readings at Tuesday’s meeting. A pair of agenda items that would amend city zoning and use codes to include regulations for medical marijuana developments could be approved by directors, after they were introduced to the agenda on Sept. 5.
The ordinances would classify medical marijuana developments and pharmacies as special uses, which requires an additional permit. Pharmacies are included in the ordinance because by state law, pharmacies and medical marijuana facilities must be regulated together.
The agenda also includes another pair of high-profile ordinances, this time to be placed on their second readings. Directors will consider two ordinances aimed at manufactured housing developments and the building standards for the homes themselves.
Ordinance 17-25, if adopted, would change the city’s zoning code for manufactured housing developments, including updated landscaping requirements and a reduced maximum lot density. The second, Ordinance 17-26, will require new manufactured homes to be installed in compliance with the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1994. Existing homes will be grandfathered in under the ordinance, as long as they are determined to not be dangerous to life, health and safety.
Manufactured homes would be subject to inspections before being issued a certificate of occupancy, and fees shall be established to cover the costs of inspection, not to exceed $500.