Faulkner County squeezes budget; layoffs an option, JP says

CONWAY -- Two days after a special meeting was held to consider giving all Faulkner County employees a 3 percent cost-of-living raise next year, the county administrator advised all department heads in an email Wednesday to submit reduced budget requests by noon today.

Across-the-board salary cuts or layoffs are options, Justice of the Peace John Pickett said Thursday. "It is up to the department heads to decide how to administer the budget reductions."

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette obtained the email, sent by County Administrator Tom Anderson, after making a request under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

All members present at the county's Quorum Court meeting Monday night voted to amend the originally proposed salary-increase resolution, thereby eliminating any mention of raises and instead agreeing to set aside $1.28 million toward an undefined "future use to be determined by the quorum court."

The nonbinding resolution makes no reference to what that "future use" might be, but county attorney David Hogue said a possibility was construction, such as an addition to the county's relatively new jail rather than continued operation of two separate jails.

Pickett, who heads the county's Budget and Finance Committee, said the forecast of county revenue "was not as high as anticipated, and the second reason is that the Quorum Court [wanted] to sequester the $1.28 million for future capital expansion." In addition to jail construction, he said, another possibility is renovations of the former courthouse in downtown Conway. It now houses the county clerk's office; the Quorum Court also meets there.

County Treasurer Scott Sanson said Thursday, though, that the county's general revenue is not the problem.

Sanson said the 2017 original budget was $14,169,685.36, which included a $1 million annual payment for the county's new criminal-justice complex, though there were some budget amendments later in the year. In October, the county finished paying off a $5 million loan that enabled construction of the Faulkner County Justice Building.

Sanson said he has not seen any paperwork saying revenue from the 0.9 percent millage tax that financed the loan must go to any one thing such as capital projects, and that tax remains in effect.

By comparison, the requested budget for 2018 was $14,034,207.21 Sanson said. "We're talking about [roughly] $130,000 difference," he said. "It's not a revenue issue." Rather, the gap grows after $1.28 million is set aside, he noted.

A 3 percent cost-of-living raise for all employees would have cost the county $280,000 in 2018, Hogue said.

"I'm 100 percent [for] sequestering some funds ... for capital improvements," Sanson said. "However, in my opinion, we don't need to cut salaries or whatever."

Circuit Judge Troy Braswell said Thursday that he would have to cut $85,976.56 from the Faulkner County Juvenile Court's budget under the emailed request.

"It's a little bit concerning to hear that the county is doing well budget-wise, but now I am being asked to submit a budget that would require me to cut employees," Braswell said.

Complicating any pay cuts is a state law requiring "that if we cut anybody's salary [for budget reasons], then everybody's salary has to be cut equally," Hogue said.

Arkansas Annotated Code 21-5-103 says, "If, in any year, the funds available for the payment of salaries of elected county officers and employees of a county are inadequate to pay all such salaries and it becomes necessary to reduce salaries, the salary of each elected constitutional officer and each employee in the county shall be reduced in the same percentage."

Braswell said, "If I have to make the cuts they [county officials] requested, I will have to terminate more than one employee and then cut all other expenses."

Braswell said that last year he eliminated one position after being asked to make cuts then. When he later learned the county had more money, though, he told the Quorum Court that his "probation officers were struggling and we needed another person." The court approved the addition at a $34,820 annual salary.

Braswell stressed that County Judge Jim Baker of Faulkner County and the Quorum Court "have always been responsive to the needs in the juvenile court, and I trust they will be there to support" it again.

Hogue said he wasn't sure but said, "I think what's happening is that the Quorum Court is suggesting everybody make the big cuts out of [their] budget. I imagine that the Quorum Court will be a little bit more lenient when people start coming in and saying, 'Well, this is all I can cut without cutting people.'" Hogue thinks the attitude then may be one of "Let's try to work this out."

"Some people are saying, 'If you don't know what you're saving for, why do you we have to cut the budget?'" Hogue said. "Other people are saying, '...Why don't you give the raises?'"

State Desk on 12/08/2017

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