Farmington Council Adopts $2.95 Million Budget

FARMINGTON — The City Council voted 5-2 last week to approve the 2018 budget, with Council members Diane Bryant and Linda Bell voting against the budget resolution.

The approved budget shows projected revenues of $3.1 million for the general fund, compared to projected revenues of $2.7 million for 2017.

General fund expenditures would increase from a budgeted amount of $2.7 million in 2017 to $2.9 million in 2018.

The budget includes two new firefighter positions and one new officer for Farmington Police Department. City employees will receive a 2 percent cost-of-living increase. Elected officials and members of Farmington Planning Commission will not receive any increases in their monthly stipends.

Earlier in the Nov. 13 meeting, Bryant had said she wanted to study the budget before voting and made a motion to table the vote until the December meeting. Her motion failed 3-4, with Bryant, Bell and Patsy Pike voting to table and Council members Keith Lipford, Brenda Cunningham, Bobby Morgan and Shelley Parsley voting against the motion.

After the meeting, Bryant said she wanted to wait a month for several reasons. For one, the Council meeting had been going on for more than an hour and she thought people were getting tired and it would be better to come back next month when everyone was rested

Another reason, Bryant said, is that she had questions about adding money to the elected officials’ payroll to cover the possibility of a full-time mayor’s position.

Council members looked over a draft budget earlier this month and city business manager Melissa McCarville told Council members she made some changes to the draft.

One of the changes was to add $38,000 to the payroll for elected officials, in case the City Council decides to make the mayor’s position a full-time one this year.

In the meeting, Bryant wondered if the Arkansas Municipal League had guidelines for elected officials’ salaries.

City Clerk Kelly Penn, who is married to Mayor Ernie Penn, answered Bryant’s question, but first asked Council members to take her out of the equation as the mayor’s wife. Kelly Penn noted the city has an ordinance that gives a range of $36,000 to $72,000 for the mayor’s salary. Ernie Penn, who is considered a parttime mayor, makes the minimum allowed.

Kelly Penn said cities make their own salary schedules, not the Arkansas Municipal League, noting the salary for mayor of Farmington cannot be compared to salaries for mayors in other small cities. She said Farmington has “more moving parts” than most smaller cities.

After the meeting, Bryant said she just wanted to make sure Farmington was doing things the right way.

“We’ve been in some hot water recently and I wanted to make sure we’re doing things correctly,” Bryant said, referring to a recent Legislative audit that found $1.5 million missing from District Court and general fund revenues over the past eight years.

That audit report found deficiencies by the city of Farmington in many areas, including lack of proper oversight of financial operations by city management and the City Council.

“We live in a great city,” Bryant said. “I just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”

For 2018, the city projects to take in $1 million from the county sales tax and $850,000 from the city’s local sales tax. The city collects a 2 percent sales tax, of which .5 percent is for debt payments.

Other projected revenue is $415,000 from state turnback funds, $375,000 from franchise fees, $100,000 from court fines and fees and $100,000 from state turnback funds.

General fund budgets approved for the different departments include: Administration, $832,650 Fire, $427,100 District Court, $115,900 Police, $1,089,200 Parks, $259,900

For the street department, the city projects to receive almost $600,000 in revenue and spend $553,000. Expenditures include $165,000 for street lights for repairs and improvements to traffic signals and $100,000 for street repairs.