Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Taxes, Solid Waste Discussed By League

Several items of concern to cities of the second class are being examined by the 86th General Assembly.

Tambra Smith, Gurdon's recorder/treasurer, recently attended a meeting of the advisory council for cities of the second class through the Arkansas Municipal League (AML) to learn more about these issues.

One of the main items, she said, concerns state turn back funds to cities and towns.

Under the terms of House Bill 1237, the amount of turn back money would be increased by 10 percent. This would mean turn back funds would amount to about $68 a person, instead of the current $62.

This bill is being supported by the advisory committee and the AML.

However, the hot topic concerned HB 1255. This bill deals with the transporting of solid waste through one district to another.

Currently there is a law prohibiting this. And, the Southwest Central Regional Solid Waste District, composed of Clark, Garland and Hot Spring counties, is at the center of this issue.

The Southwest District previously had a contract with the Saline County Landfill. This contract expired in September, 1998 and the district found another landfill to accept its garbage.

However, the new landfill is BFI of Little Rock and the solid waste is being transported through Saline County to reach its destination.

Attorneys for the Saline County landfill dug up this law and have been using it to try and force the Southwest District to bring their solid waste back to Saline County.

But, at one time Miller County took its solid waste to Saline County and crossed the Southwest District boundaries to do this. Nothing was done about this at the time.

Should this bill fail and Saline County win its lawsuit, the Southwest District would be forced to find another landfill to accept its solid waste.

Taking the solid waste to Saline County for the next four years would cost the district $3.2 million, while transporting it to the Yell County landfill would run $3.9 million.

Smith spoke in favor of this measure, with the AML also approving and urging its passage.

HB 1412 deals with increasing the amount of Act 833 money to local fire departments. The idea is to increase it by $2.5 million across the board in Arkansas, having this amount divided among all the state's fire departments.

A hot topic with the AML for years has been sales tax exemption. There are currently $1.5 billion in sales tax exemptions on the books in Arkansas.

The AML has fought to have these exemptions removed, but, so far, has been unsuccessful in its attempts.

By removing these exemptions, the state income tax could be done away with, and the state still have a surplus of money.

The AML opposes Senate Bill 6, the exemption of food from sales tax. The AML, Smith said, believes this will cause the state sales tax to be raised to make up for the difference in taxes from the two and removing food from the tax role at this time is a bad idea at this time

A bill has been drafted, but not endorsed, concerning jail costs. Don Zimmerman, executive director of the AML, explained the efforts by counties to have municipalities begin paying for housing of city prisoners arrested for misdemeanors.

Under the terms of the proposal, county intergovernmental cooperation councils, made up of the county judge and all city mayors, by a majority vote could establish a daily fee to be charged to municipalities for the keeping of their prisoners in county jails.

The fee shall not exceed the amount paid for keeping state prisoners, or $25 per day, at this time.

The idea is for those cities giving their share of county sales taxes back to the county not to have to pay for housing city prisoners.

Clark County Sheriff Troy Tucker said this measure will be in for a fight from the Arkansas Sheriff's Association as well as the Association of Arkansas Counties. Both these entities oppose the idea of cities not paying for the housing of their prisoners.

Gurdon Mayor Rick Smith is looking into this issue and hasn't determined if it will be good or bad for Gurdon if it passes, assuming it finds a sponsor.

In some instances, he said, it would mean a municipality would pay nothing to have their prisoners housed, while in others it could mean they pay more.

The proposal is somewhat confusing in section 1 (b)(1), which reads: "Municipalities whose prisoners are maintained in the county jail shall be responsible for paying the fee established by the intergovernmental council in the county, unless they are located in a county where the county government receives more than the unincorporated area's per capita share of the entire county sales and use tax in effect or they are located in a county which financed or finances its county jail with more than the county unincorporated areas's per capita share of a county sales and use tax.

"When so located in a county which has used all or a portion of the municipalities per capita share of any sales and use tax, the municipalities therein shall not be charged or assessed any fees for using the county jail."