City considers funds for fire, police salaries

BELLA VISTA — The Bella Vista City Council is considering using American Rescue Plan money to fund police and fire salaries for 2022.

In a special work session held March 15, Mayor Peter Christie asked the council to consider amending the 2022 city budget to apply the entirety of the $5.9 million in Rescue Plan funds the city has received to cover police and fire payrolls this year. The money that would have been applied to those departments throughout 2022 would then be used to fund other projects originally considered as candidates to be funded by the Rescue Plan funds. The council agreed.

During a second work session held March 21 at the District Court Building the council was presented a resolution addressing the budget amendment to be voted on during the regular session on Monday.

“The ARPA money will be moved to cover police and fire salaries,” Christie said. “Right now it’s in the bank, but it’s sitting there as ARPA money to be determined how you’re going to spend it. What we’re going to do, to make it more simplistic for reporting practices back to the federal government, is to simply say, ‘OK, we’re going to take the $5.9 million and we’re going to use it to fund fire and police salaries in 2022.’ So the savings from those salaries and benefits becomes a surplus or cash reserve, call it what you will, but it will drop into what we call the fund balance, which is like a cash reserve.”

Christie said the funds can then be used on other projects originally considered for the funds without having to be concerned with filling out forms each time the money is spent since the money will have already been allocated for covering salaries in the police and fire departments, which is an approved use of the funds.

“And you’re no longer restricted to obligate the money by 2024 and spend it by the end of 2026 because you’re already obligating it through this resolution and you’re spending it this year,” said Christie.

During the work session March 21, the council also previewed a handful of resolutions addressing projects on the original “wish list” of items being proposed to move forward on using the Rescue Plan funds.

One of those items was the appropriation of funds to the city’s information technology budget for purposes of enhancing cybersecurity of city computing and digital systems. The council also addressed an ordinance connected to the IT Department to be voted on in the next regular session waiving the requirements of formal competitive bidding and authorizing a contract with Stronghold Data LLC in the amount of $52,148.03, plus applicable taxes, for the purchase of IT storage and servers.

Other resolutions previewed during the work session, which are to be voted on Monday and concern projects originally proposed to be completed using the Rescue Plan funds, included:

• Appropriating $200,000 for the fire training facility to fund project contingencies.

• Appropriating $1.3 million to the Street Department budget to fund additional street resurfacing and improvements.

• Authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into an extra work authorization to the contract with CEI Engineering in the amount of $45,000 to facilitate engineering work necessary for the proposed fire training site near U.S. 71 and the Missouri state line.

• Appropriating $ 430,000 to various departments to fund certain employee salary increases to retain and attract a high- quality city workforce.

The council also discussed a resolution involving the purchase of four 2022 Dodge Charger police cruisers in an amount not to exceed $228,088 for the Police Department. The purchases are to be made through a contract with Superior Automotive Group of Siloam Springs, pursuant to a state procurement contract.

The new cruisers will replace four of the department’s older, existing vehicles.

Two other resolutions discussed in the work session involved the approval of mayoral appointments to the Bella Vista Board of Construction Appeals: Ricky Head to Position 5 and John Nuttall to Position 3.

Those two will also be voted on Monday.