Arkadelphia city manager details projects funded by 1-cent tax

Arkadelphia voters will decide in March whether to continue a 1-cent sales tax touted as a means to meet city needs and improve government operations

Editor’s note: This article is the first of a series regarding the Move Arkadelphia Forward tax

By RONNA PENNINGTON | For The Arkadelphian

Arkadelphia City Manager Gary Brinkley worries about the cuts that will be made to city services and personnel if a 1-cent tax set to expire this December is not passed again by voters. “There’s not any department that wouldn’t be cut,” he said.

The additional 1-cent sales tax voters approved in 2019 generates $6 million annually, Brinkley said. The five-year tax expires on Dec. 31, 2024. Arkadelphia voters will see the tax up for consideration again on the March 5 primary election ballot. This time, the request is for a 10-year tax. A group called Move Arkadelphia Forward promoted the tax in 2019 and has picked up the cause again. Brinkley said the group is made up of representatives from the local chamber of commerce and concerned citizens. The group pays for any promotional materials used to support the 1-cent tax; no city funds are used, he said.

The permanent 1-cent tax was not bringing in enough money to keep up with the city’s needs, which was the initial driving force to ask voters to approve additional 1-cent temporary tax in 2019. Brinkley said city finances were in trouble when he became city manager in 2016, and that there were even times that it was tough just to make payroll. “If people would have known how broke we were, I think they would have been embarrassed,” he said.

The city identified its areas of need and citizens gave their input on wants and needs in a series of town hall meetings. “It turned out that their concerns were aligning with the needs we identified,” Brinkley said. The city developed four areas of needs that became the pillars of the 1-cent temporary tax:

• Improving/investing in public safety
• Improving storm drain utilities and maintenance
• Enhancing and maintaining public facilities
• Developing/repairing sidewalks and streets.

If voters pass the extension of the 1-cent sales tax, these will continue to be the areas of focus, Brinkley said. “The first time was an unknown,” he said. Revenue, however, was more than anticipated, so the city was able to accomplish more than expected, he explained. He’s proud of the number of projects completed with the tax revenue since 2020, but knows there is still more work to be done, including maintaining the improvements already made. “We’re blessed to get all that we did done,” Brinkley said. A continued tax means the city can afford to maintain the ground it has gained, he explained.

What exactly are those gains? Brinkley outlined some of the bigger projects for arkadelphian.com:

Improving/investing in public safety

Replaced 28 vehicles in the Arkadelphia Police Department fleet
The fleet was in poor condition, Brinkley said. Most of the police cars were older and needed to be replaced. “We were spending $6,500 to replace the batteries in cars worth half that,” he said. The cars did their job when they were new, but with the wear and tear, needed to be replaced. “Regrettably, we never had the money to replace them,” he said. The 1-cent temporary tax remedied that problem.

Purchased a new fire truck
Fire trucks should fluctuate on a schedule, Brinkley said. The primary unit should serve in that role for five years, then it moves to the secondary truck position for five years. It’s last role is 10 years in reserve, he explained. “In the past, we have not had the resources to necessarily stay on this schedule and without a doubt, it would not have happened without the initiative passed in 2019,” he added.

One of the reasons the city was able to afford the new fire truck is that it was able to save $400,000 of sales tax money for the down payment, Brinkley said.

Safety equipment and other improvements for emergency personnel
• Fire rescue equipment such as jaws of life, breathing systems, and bunker gear to replace
expired gear
• Special washers and dryers required by law
• Addressed deferred maintenance at Fire Station 2 and the police department
• Installed a new communications tower for fire/police departments
• New equipment and training for the police department
• Police and fire department training opportunities have been reinstated and/or enhanced.

Brinkley said the city fire department was stuck without a plan to rotate equipment because funding was so low. With the 1-cent tax, however, the fire department now has a schedule and has been able to stick to it.

“Our biggest goal is to stay on task with the equipment replacement rotation that has been established. We don’t want any firefighter using outdated bunker gear or to ask a police officer to respond to a call and their car not be operable, which is where we were heading,” Brinkley said.

Funding has not been used to raise police or fire salaries, but there are no restrictions against that. Brinkley said the city needs to become competitive in police salaries because “we’re losing a whole shift” to jobs that pay more. He said funds have not been used for police/fire pay increases at this point simply because the equipment needs were so vast.

Improving storm drain utilities and maintenance

Money from the current 1-cent tax has allowed the city to redo three major drainage systems at Caddo and 27th streets and sections of Henderson and Haddock streets. The section around Haddock is one of the oldest systems in town, Brinkley said, estimating it is 75 to 100 years old. It also impacted a much larger area in terms of the watershed, he added.

Enhancing and maintaining public facilities

Brinkley said money collected from the tax has helped in daily operations of the city, including maintenance of public facilities. He said the city has the opportunity, if the tax continues, to install a Fire Training Center that would serve as a regional training facility for the fire and police departments. The center would have the additional benefit of aiding the city’s Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating, which measures fire preparedness in case of emergency. In 2023, Arkadelphia’s ISO moved up to 3 from its previous rating of 4.

In plans to consolidate city and county 911 systems, the city bought the former Sav U Mor grocery store to become the new police station. Brinkley said that current police department will become the 911 operations center. “We have a plan to do that, but we don’t have the money to do that yet. We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves,” Brinkley said.

Moving forward, Brinkley said he didn’t want the city to be in the shape it was when he arrived in 2016. “We could apply for grants, but those required matching money and we just didn’t have it,” he said. Additionally, some grants have to be paid up front, then the city gets reimbursed, which also was not an option due to cash flow problems, he explained.

Lights have been added to the Feaster Park basketball court, and maintenance work has been done at the Youth Sports Complex, according to Move Arkadelphia Forward’s Facebook page.

Developing/repairing sidewalks and streets

Brinkley estimates that the city has covered 75 percent of its streets with either slurry seal or hot mix and has increased the budget for that from about $100,00 per year to $200,000 per year with the 1-cent tax funds. “We’ve been fortunate. We got a lot done,” he added.

Several bridges have also been repaired. “When the state closed the Walnut Street bridge, we had cash to fix it,” Brinkley said. Bridges on South 10th, 8th Street and MH Russell Drive were also repaired.

Why it matters

Brinkley said the 1-cent temporary tax has been critical to the City of Arkadelphia, especially in terms of recruiting. Whether recruiting business, industry, or families, having a clean, positive community with a good quality of life is important, he said. To improve quality of life and strengthen the sense of community, Brinkley said the city has held a number of family-friendly events, such as the End of Summer Bash, a Cinco de Mayo celebration, Movies in the Park, and the Festival of the Arts.

Brinkley said the tax has also repositioned the city from reactive to proactive. “Proactive is not only easier for your citizens (in terms of planning around the inconvenience of street/drainage projects), it’s also cheaper,” Brinkley said. The increase in cash flow has allowed the city to keep scheduled maintenance on equipment for various city departments, including police and fire.

One of the biggest changes brought about by the 1-cent temporary tax revenue, Brinkley said, is having the cash on hand to apply for grants. The city has received $900,000 in grants for streets and sidewalks alone, and grants for two drainage projects. Grants have also allowed the construction of a terminal and three hangars at the municipal airport, which will generate income for the city, he said.

According to Brinkley, Arkadelphia has made $6.6 million is improvements since 2020, which would not have been possible without $1.7 million in matching funds to spend. “Not only are we doing all the work we say we’re going to do, we’re leveraging our money. It’s hard to see anything negative here,” he said.