LR board OKs intended goals for proposed tax

Parks, education, safety top list ahead of September vote

Members of the Little Rock Board of Directors on Tuesday adopted a symbolic resolution stating the intended uses of the “Rebuild the Rock” sales-tax increase should the increase win approval of voters in a Sept. 14 referendum.

The measure had narrowly failed to gain enough support during a meeting two weeks ago when City Director Ken Richardson of Ward 2 voted “present,” thereby preventing a 5-5 tie, which Mayor Frank Scott Jr. could have broken in favor of the resolution.

The resolution’s language describes it as a “statement of intent” by the board to pursue projects related to parks, public safety, early-childhood education, infrastructure and other areas using an expected $530 million in new revenue from the tax over the next decade.

The vote to approve the resolution was 6-4. Vice Mayor Lance Hines along with city directors Doris Wright, Joan Adcock and Erma Hendrix voted no.

Hendrix, who represents Ward 1, when explaining her no vote seemed to take issue with the role of the Little Rock School District relative to the early-childhood education components of the sales-tax package. She said she would campaign against the sales tax.

Hines attempted to have the vote on the resolution tabled until a meeting next week, citing concerns about the public’s ability to access the special called meeting, which was held at Philander Smith College immediately before the board’s regularly scheduled agenda meeting. Notification of the special meeting was issued Monday afternoon.

The motion to table the resolution failed in a 4-6 vote.

Hines sponsored a follow-up motion to adjust the resolution by taking funding allocated for early-childhood education and the Little Rock Zoo. That motion failed in a 3-7 vote.

At one point, Hines, who has resisted the mayor’s tax proposal throughout the board’s discussions, expressed disappointment with the process.

“I think it’s shameful that we’re doing it this way,” he said.

He argued moments later that the mayor’s administration had employed “a divide-and-conquer mentality” and suggested “he’s been able to pull off one, two or three of us to get what he wants in critical situations by playing ward politics or giving the parties what they

want.”

City Director B.J. Wyrick of Ward 7 raised questions about Fire Department trucks that need to be replaced and asked the mayor to explain what the package will do for the department after receiving a letter from a local firefighters union.

Fire Chief Delphone Hubbard told her the department’s established replacement plan provides for replacing two to three trucks per year. The salestax plan “will allow us to have an aggressive replacement plan for our apparatus,” he said.

According to the resolution, $37.25 million over 10 years would go toward public-safety vehicle and apparatus replacement.

When Wyrick asked for more information about the early-childhood education framework, which would receive $40 million over a decade under the package, at-large City Director Dean Kumpuris explained aspects of the plan.

He noted a change to the plan from a voucher-style system to one where the city would fund four child care centers where child care workers would receive concurrent training.

Several years from now, in 2026, officials on a select committee could make the decision to fund child care slots for children up to age 3 from low-income families with priority placed on these “exemplar” early-childhood centers, according to the text of the resolution.

Kumpuris said the plan “may be an utter failure, and you can call it Kumpuris’ folly,” before adding that the proposal was nonetheless something he could stand behind.

The city’s chief education officer, Jay Barth, attending the meeting via teleconference, noted that the committee associated with the plan would have only an advisory role to the board. The board would allocate money during the annual budgeting process, he said.

The proposed 11-member committee on early-childhood education would include Barth, leaders of local colleges and universities, or their designees, the director of the state’s Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education, or his or her designee, as well as three community members appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the board.

During the meeting, Barth also noted that a 529 college-savings plan originally presented as part of the education framework had been removed from the proposal so the city can “really focus on the core work related to early-childhood education.”

The 1 percentage-point sales-tax increase was proposed by Scott in his March 25 State of the City virtual broadcast. If approved, it will result in a net increase of five-eighths percent (0.625%) to the city’s salestax rate for an overall local rate of 9.625% starting in January.

Another city sales-tax of three-eighths percent (0.375%) for capital improvements is due to expire at the end of this year.

The sales tax itself would expire after 10 years, at the end of December 2031.