County judge responds to hazmat grant comments

EDITOR’S NOTE: County Judge Rick Davis penned the following response to comments made during Tuesday’s Hot Springs Board of Directors meeting, and to address comments included in an article published in Thursday’s edition.

Given questions that I’ve received and misinformation that I’ve had to correct along with statements, and implications within the May 18,

2017, article in The Sentinel-Record, “City gets help on hazmat grant from Little Rock,” I feel the need to add some information in response to the article for dissemination to the public. Hopefully, this will allow the public to have all the information and any further questions will be answered in a more efficient manner.

First, let me clarify the quote pertaining to the hazmat grant, “There’s no hard feelings if (Davis) doesn’t want to do it. … ” on Page 7A. Initially, given the legal requirement that the county can only budget less than 90 percent of the county anticipated revenue and the many critical projects facing the county financially, I was initially hesitant to commit over a quarter of a million dollars of the county’s general fund operations money to the hazmat grant for the Hot Springs Fire Department.

My initial hesitation was based on the knowledge that the HSFD had already received a large amount of very costly equipment and training, that other hazmat teams were within an hour’s drive and that history showed that such county general funds related to this grant can be tied up for lengthy amounts of time with reimbursement frequently taking up to a year or so. Such an arrangement obviously makes the tied up funds unavailable for county operations and mandated services.

But because the county had funded the money for the past few years and after conversation with the Hot Springs city manager, I agreed to put the grant funding request into the grants and aid portion of the 2017 general fund budget for consideration by the quorum court. I then reported to the city manager the information that I was adding the grant funding to the 2017 general fund budget. So the quote saying that “I didn’t want to do it,” is somewhat inaccurate, alludes to an incorrect implication, and needs correction.

I gladly signed the initial grant application and the MOU with the state anticipating that the grant would be funded from the county general fund with state funds reimbursing the county general fund at some time in the future. With the quorum court tabling the hazmat grant request, county funding became unavailable, so whether I like it or not, the county judge has to then decline final signing off on the final receipt of the grant funds and must submit formal written notification to the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management declining the grant funding. Given the tabling of the grant request, the county judge cannot accept a grant that does not have the required county funding in place. I don’t want the public thinking as implied on Page 1 of the May 18 article that I just made an independent decision to return the grant money, thereby denying the Hot Springs Fire Department the requested funding.

I think some explanation is in order about the budget process that the quorum court requires as it examines and approves or disapproves each annual budget. All elected officials and department heads, all groups or service-providing entities participating in a county managed grant, along with all groups receiving any county funds are scheduled times to present themselves to the quorum court’s Finance Committee as their funding requests are examined. Each line item of the entire county budget is examined and questions asked and answered in meetings open to the public. The county judge is not even exempt from this process. The city of Hot Springs and any appropriate city department head(s) are not exempt from this process. As the quorum court had some serious concerns and questions that demanded answers and clarification, a department head sending word to the Finance Committee of their unavailability in this process left questions unanswered, and from my observations, most likely resulted in the Finance Committee’s decision to table the hazmat grant request.

It’s my understanding that there were two opportunities for the relevant department head to come and answer questions or at least pick up a telephone and contact the Finance Committee. But to my knowledge this did not happen. In all fairness, the department head did send some subordinates to the Finance Committee budget hearings but due to the nature of the questions, it’s my opinion that the committee wanted to hear from the department head and not those in positions who would most likely not make the critical decisions or might not have the information needed to answer the concerns and questions that surfaced with this grant. All quorum court committees and the entire quorum court is comprised of independent thinkers who gather information and make decisions and demonstrate their concern for their constituents and taxpayer money with a high level of accountability during the long county budget process. They examine each line item within the budget and ask questions rather than just rubber stamping the budget. During this process, funding requests are sometimes adjusted or at times denied. Through the leadership of the elected officials and the quorum court, the county does not borrow and shift money around within the budget to “rob Peter to pay Paul.” The

county operates on a “pay as you go” philosophy and continues to strengthen both the budgeting, application, and monitoring of county finances.

In the absence of contradictory information and given the large investment in hazmat equipment and training that the county has funded to the Hot Springs Fire Department in the last few years including 2016, I would hope that the level of responsiveness would be at least at the same quality level as last year and not have the public totally at risk and defenseless as some have reported. I believe such verbalizations also somewhat belittle the high level of responsiveness that the Garland County Office of Emergency Management, the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, the Arkansas National Guard, area law enforcement and other adjacent area hazmat teams along with the Hot Springs Fire Department hazmat team and volunteer fire departments and other agencies can bring to the Hot Springs, Garland County, and southwest areas of the state.

I have no problem with Hot Springs circumventing the quorum court process and approaching others at the state level regarding this receipt and administration of this grant and sincerely wish Hot Springs success with the hazmat grant funding that they’ve received through their new partnership with Little Rock. I obviously don’t know all things, but I will admit that I’m not accustomed to a city funding another city and being reimbursed but perhaps it will work well to the benefit of all. I sincerely hope so.