Lincoln To Consider Sales Tax Question

POLICE, FIRE WOULD BENEFIT

LINCOLN — The Lincoln City Council will consider an ordinance at its July 21 meeting calling a special election on Nov. 3 to ask voters to approve a new 1% sales tax to help fund the Lincoln police and fire departments.

The council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 21, in Lincoln Public Library. The meeting will be open to the public through the Zoom app.

If the ordinance passes, the sales tax special election will be held in conjunction with the November General Election.

The council’s agenda also will include an ordinance levying a new 1% sales tax for police and fire if the question is approved by voters in November. This ordinance says the revenue generated by the new sales tax will be used exclusively to fund the city’s police and fire departments.

The ordinance levying the tax says the city will create a separate line item in the city budget called “Police and Fire 1% Sales Tax,” and proceeds from the new sales tax will be accounted for in this line item.

This is the second time in two

“Our police department staff hit every last nickel of every last department to hire the group we have and it’s not sustainable.” Doug Hutchens Lincoln Mayor

years the City Council has placed a sales tax question before the voters. A 0.75% sales tax question was defeated in November 2018.

The council has discussed calling a special election for several months to bring in new revenue for police officers and firefighters.

Mayor Doug Hutchens last week said the city is grossly underfunded for the amount of land and traffic it has to cover.

“We’re a border town, a point of entry from the west to Fayetteville and we have a lot of traffic we have to take care of,” Hutchens said.

In addition, he pointed out that the ways and costs of doing business have gone up while state turnback funds have not increased proportionally over the past 10-15 years.

Hutchens said a 1% sales tax would bring in $20,000$25,000 per month. He said the city would still have to use money from the general fund for police and fire but the new revenue would free up money in the general fund to meet other needs.

“Our police department staff hit every last nickel of every last department to hire the group we have and it’s not sustainable,” Hutchens said.

The police department has six officers, including the chief, and at times only one officer per shift. This means those officers are on duty without a backup,

Hutchens said. The city does not have money for overtime or money to hire more officers as needed, he added.

The demand for services has increased, Hutchens said. At times, Lincoln officers also are called as backup for the sheriff ’s office in this part of the county.

Police Chief Kenneth Albright said the need at the department is “all about boots on the ground.”

He said “manpower first and foremost” is the greatest need for the police department. Six officers is the “bare bones to keep the coverage the city deserves,” Albright said. That does not take into consideration training, vacation and sick time for officers and that one officer is assigned as the school resource officer.

If the sales tax passes, Albright said tentative projections are that he could possibly hire two officers.

“Two more officers would be a tremendous benefit,” Albright said.

Hutchens said the city also needs to be able to pay its police officers a competitive wage to retain them.

“I can’t say enough good about the crew we have in there now,” Hutchens said.

Hutchens said the biggest need at the fire department will be a new fire administrator/fire chief.

Fire administrator Jay Norton plans to retire at the end of the year, and Hutchens said he would like to hire one person to serve as fire chief/ fire administrator. It would require more money to fill this position, Hutchens said, noting he would like to add a parttime firefighter’s position to the department at some point so two people could be on duty.

It’s getting harder to have volunteers during the day, Hutchens said, because many volunteers work in other towns in Northwest Arkansas.

Currently, Norton is a city employee as the administrator and Willie Leming serves as volunteer fire chief.

Leming agrees with having a fire chief on staff at the department.

“That is one of the big needs,” Leming said. “We need to have the fire chief back in the station.”

Lincoln voters defeated a sales tax question in 2018, with 58% of the votes cast against the proposal. The ballot question did not say how the money would be used but the council pledged to use proceeds from the sales tax to hire two more police officers. The council agreed that any money leftover would be used for code enforcement and cleaning up the city.

The ballot question in 2018 did not have good timing because of some “bad dynamics taking place in the police department,” Hutchens said. “I think that affected part of it.”

Former police chief Brian Key was fired in October 2018, and then arrested by Arkansas State Police in December 2018, in connection with tampering with physical evidence and possession of drug paraphernalia. Key pleaded guilty in May 2019, to a reduced, misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. The felony charge of tampering with physical evidence was dropped.

Hutchens said he believes the economy is a little better now and also believes people are more appreciative of police because of what’s going on in the country with riots and the new coronavirus pandemic.