Pea Ridge city council reviews 2022 budget

The city departments of Pea Ridge presented their annual budget at a City Council Committee of the Whole meeting held on Thursday.

Staff members each took turns presenting their budget for 2022. The departments who spoke were city general, police, library, fire, streets and the water department. The presenters presented their individual budgets to the city council and answered questions by the aldermen when needed. The final budget will go before the city council on Nov. 16.

The report on library, fire, streets and water will be available next week.

City general

City Clerk/Treasurer Sandy Button presented the budget for the city general. The proposed budget is $4,998,213, according to the budget handout.

The general budget covers several smaller budgets such as the police department, the court, the majority of the salaries and items relating to the dog ordinance, Button said.

Included in the budget is the new sales tax which will be introduced in January. Collections will begin on the first of January but the revenue will not be seen until March, Button said.

“Based on what we get now for our one percent sales tax, which will be exactly a duplicate, we’re expecting to get about $750,000,” Button said.

The tax revenue will go to the trustee for the street bonds, which is Bank OZK, and then the city will receive the remainder which will be the $750,000, Button said.

From the sales tax revenue, 25 percent will go towards the bonds of the street project which is $5.9 million, Button said. The city council will have to decide how much will be passed out between the police, fire, parks and street departments, Button said.

Button said of the remainder of the new sales tax, $300,000 will go to police expenditures. This pushed the budget up from $4.5 million to $4,998,213, Button said. She also said there is nothing in the city budget that is extraordinary, but if there is it can be addressed, Button said.

Ward 1 Position 1 Alderman Merrill White said voiced concern that the $300,000 jumps outside of the range of what the city’s allocations were for the police department. Button said city staff had no problem taking the $300,000 to a different number to make the budget balance.

“We were just trying to make this work and to make sure the police department got a portion of it,” Button said.

Police

Police Chief Lynn Hahn presented the police department’s budget. Hahn said he had a 10year plan for police vehicles. Part of that plan is to replace those vehicles when they reach 100,000 miles, Hahn said. The police chief expects to get four new vehicles in 2022, he said. The cost for the vehicles will be $176,000 which includes the police lights and sirens, Hahn said.

Hahn said he also budgeted $42,000 for body cameras for the officers. Hahn plans to apply for a grant to cover the body cameras he said. The $42,000 budgeted is in case the department does not receive the grant, Hahn said.

White asked Hahn if there wasn’t an organization that was raising money for the police department to get the body cameras. The police chief said the organization GI-6 did attempt to raise the funds, but Hahn believed they only managed to reach $6,000. GI-6 was also supposed to receive another $10,000 but that never materialized, Hahn said.

“I honestly think it will be taken care of by a grant,” Hahn said.

Another item Hahn hopes to get is tasers in order to offer the officers a less-lethal option, he said. Hahn said fuel is up 25 percent more this year than the previous year and anticipates a three percent increase. Hahn also said the IT budget jumped from $15,500 to $63,655 in order to update software which will help streamline manpower and allow Hahn to hire more people.

Ward 2 Position 2 Alderman Cody Keene asked Hahn how

many officers were employed at present. Hahn’s response was 13. There are also two positions Hahn wants to fill as part-time which will help keep overtime down. The part-time officers would also help fill in when someone goes on vacation or is sick, Hahn said.

City Attorney Shane Perry asked what the industry standard was, to which Hahn replied three officers per 1,000 residents in cities with a population under 10,000.

Ward 1 Position 2 Alderman Ginger Larsen said the budget submitted by Hahn does not give a specific number as to how much of the sales tax and asked what was the number the police chief would need to make the budget work. Hahn told Larsen he did not have a number in mind but wanted to keep it reasonable and just wanted to present a balanced budget.

Perry commented that a large percentage of the increase for the police department’s budget was for equipment and asked if most of it came from body cameras and software. The amount for equipment jumped from $101,000 for 2021 to $253,286 for 2022.

Court

There was no change in the court’s budget.