Workshop moves city closer to pay agreement
The parties involved in the ongoing dispute over Texarkana, Ark., police and firefighter pay gained ground during a workshop meeting Thursday, they said.
“The mere fact that we’re having a workshop is big progress,” said John Womack, representing a group of more than 80 plaintiffs in a related lawsuit. Mayor Allen Brown said the group of city staff and elected officials in attendance had made headway. And Detective Tom Briggs, president of the Police Association, said he felt reconciling three proposed plans for resolving the issue now could be accomplished quickly.
During almost two hours, Brown, Assistant Mayor Linda Teeters and other members of the city Board of Directors, and City Manager Kenny Haskin talked through their differences regarding Brown’s and Teeters’ proposals to keep police and firefighter pay competitive. Womack and Briggs briefly addressed the group at the meeting’s end.
At issue is a pair of quarter-cent sales taxes voters approved in 1996 to fund keeping firefighter and police officer salaries equal to their Texas-side counterparts’, which is known as pay parity. Pay parity has been a matter of dispute for more than 20 years, culminating with a December 2017 lawsuit filed by a group of city residents to force Police Department pay parity with a court ruling.
Miller County Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson is likely to rule that the parity taxes are unconstitutional and can no longer be collected, prompting urgent efforts to find a solution.
Last year the taxes generated more than $2 million in revenue.
On Wednesday, the Board held a special meeting to hear a first reading of Teeters’ proposed ordinance, which sets out contingencies for increasing firefighter and police officer pay by different amounts, depending on how much sales tax revenue the city collects and how much money is available in the city’s general fund in a given year. Saying he had his own proposal, Brown requested Thursday’s workshop.
Brown’s chief concern is basing potential raises on projected sales tax revenues—over which the city has no control—rather than on funds the city has in hand.
“I would like to see some consideration given to working off an actual number,” Brown said. “We ought to base raises on what we know we have.”
The mayor’s proposal would review police and firefighter pay every other year “to determine the fiscal feasibility” of a raise up to 3%. If after any such raises there remains a surplus in the general fund, other city employees would be eligible for raises up to 3%, as well.
The proposal also would require setting aside 30% of any annual general fund surplus in a sort of “rainy day” fund, and an additional 15% in an economic development fund.
Brown emphasized the importance of economic development in finding a long-term solution to the city’s fiscal issues.
Other workshops may be scheduled soon to continue the work toward finding a plan agreeable to all.