Bryant encourages community to work together during state of city
Mayor: New truckstop to be built near Highway 1 Bypass; update offered on bond monies
During his annual state of the city address, Mayor Larry Bryant said that together, Forrest Citians can make this the best small city in the South.
Bryant delivered the address at the Civic Center, telling the audience that the city is financially solid, but warned that price increases are being considered to offset costs on everything from water to solid waste to city rentals.
“We have barely enough money to cover out debts, but yet enough money to cover our debts and keep us from robbing Peter to pay Paul on occasion,” said Bryant. “The reason I said barely is because for the last 13 years or more, since 2012 or earlier, we haven’t adjusted our rates or fees for the services the city gives to our citizens. For instance, the room I’m standing in now, if I wanted to rent it, it would cost $60 for six hours. You can’t survive at $60 for six hours.
“Our water rates have not been raised since 2012,” he continued. “We have leaks, as you can see, all over town. We have to have money to repair those leaks and we have to have money to have enough people to go out and work on those leaks. I think the city council is on the road to improving that condition so that we can have money and we can rise above the other cities in our area.”
Bryant said the city’s general fund revenues for 2023 were $8,338,980.11, but the city’s expenses were $9,208,507.38. “That leaves us with a cash balance at the end of the year of $2,864,560.39,” he said. “We aren’t going broke. We can pay our bills and are financially stable from month to month. We can pay our bills and that’s a good thing. Not everyone can say that.”
According to the mayor, the city’s solid waste department is “on good footing. We’ve used solid waste money to divert taxes on other things over the years but we can’t continue to do that,” he said. “We have bought and leased new garbage trucks from roll-off trucks to garbage trucks to front-end loaders. We pretty much have all new equipment and we’re able to solidify ourselves in that area.”
Bryant said the city is having to transfer money in the budget in order to cover fire and police retirement programs. “LOPFI (local police and fire retirement system) is killing us,” he said, adding that the city transfers about $500,000 each year to cover the difference in those accounts.
“We can’t continue down this road unless we find ways to supplement the police and fire departments,” said Bryant. “We don’t need them sitting on every corner giving everybody a ticket, but we have to bring in some income in those two departments.”
Bryant also touched on bond money that has not yet been spent from when it was approved by voters in 2021 for about 11 improvement projects across the city.
“We still have bond money for the expansion of Deaderick Road,” said Bryant. “We still have the bond money for the water softener and we’re trying to find a way to do that. We found out on the tail end that the $6.2 million won’t cover the cost. We need an additional $1.5 million or so to do what we asked to do and what we told the taxpayers we would do. The EPA stepped in and told us we needed to do some additional things and that’s why we’re short about a million and a half dollars in order to get the job done correctly.”
“Our city is the best small city in the Delta, the Jewel of the Delta,” said Bryant. “We’re the only city our size with places to stop, places to shop and hotels to spend a safe night here in Forrest City. And, if y’all don’t know it, the cities in Arkansas live and die on sales taxes. We have the hamburger and motel and hotel taxes which sustain us in a whole lot of areas.”