Hope Kiwanis Club Hears Program on Quorum Court Finances
The Hope Kiwanis Club heard from Ed Darling on Tuesday (12-16). Darling is the finance chairman for the Hempstead County Quorum Court. He began his talk by saying county government needs to be transparent. Darling said they need to be transparent in their dealings and also that they do their jobs so you don’t realize they are there. He said the county is lucky to have a group of “seasoned professionals” that are elected to the offices in Hempstead County.
Darling says county government funds four major departments. These include the general fund, the jail, the road department, and solid waste.
The “County General” funds the majority of the county offices and their deputies. The assessor’s office and the collector’s office does have some funding from the schools because the schools are the primary beneficiaries of much of the taxes collected by those offices. Darling said the general fund in the coming year will be over $6 million dollars for the first time. He said that has almost doubled in the last 8 or so years. About 61% of the general fund goes to salaries. Most of the county general funding comes from a 5-mil property tax as well as some sales and use turnback taxes. The district courts and circuit courts also received some funding; however, these judges are now paid through the state. Darling said they fund operation and maintenance of the health department. He touched upon the library and civil defense. Darling also said they were able to give their employees a raise for the first time in three years. Also funded by the general fund is elections.
Darling said the county helps fund the extension service. He said Terrie James had requested funding for an additional agent several years back and this has been a success. Darling said this has resulted in big growth in 4-H.
The road department is funded by sales tax and turnback taxes. This year the budget will be $4.1 million dollars and this has to take care of 1,800 miles of county roads. He said that breaks down to about $220 per mile. Darling said they spent about a half-million dollars on gravel. There’s good news in that they’ve found a type of gravel in Howard County that costs about half of what they’ve been using. Also in the road department is the cost of eight road graders the county operates four days a week as well as six heavy-duty trucks, track hoes, and bush hogs. He noted they spent $400,000 on parts and service. The county is also looking to lease four new graders this year at a cost of about $1,000 per month per grader. He said leasing will shrink the repair budget but the county still will have a quarter-million dollars in fuel costs. The county also has seven dump trucks. In addition, Darling said they have some excellent county employees who are often underappreciated.
Darling talked about solid waste. This includes about $1.5 million dollars for trash pick-up. Salaries take about half that. The county runs three dump trucks four days a week and an extensive dumpster network which provides some funding for solid waste.
Darling said the Hempstead County Jail, which is over thirty years old, runs with an average census of 85. Darling said there’s no one in jail on misdemeanors or minor charges. He said the state pays about $55 for the county to house state prisoners awaiting transfer to the Arkansas Department of Corrections. Unfortunately, it costs the county about $75 per day to house an inmate. Darling said the jail salaries are about $1.7 million dollars. Luckily, they have some COVID funds left that paid for some replacement of pipes under the jail which had deteriorated. Darling said essentially, when the jail was built, crews simply put dirt over what was 4th street and built the jail. This has caused some issues. Two old manholes are located under the old roadbed and have collapsed.
Darling said they have three primary goals in the county this year. This includes working to bring the county-wide emergency alarms back into operation. The current system is analog and replacement parts are virtually impossible to find. Secondly, the county plans to work to expand grant funding. Darling said the county is currently at the bottom of all southwest Arkansas counties in obtaining grand funds. The third aim is to stabilize the hospital. Darling talked at length on this subject.
Darling stressed the importance of maintaining a hospital. He said the Southwest Arkansas Regional Medical Center is like the rest of the rural hospitals in the state and is not breaking even. He said no rural hospitals in the state are profitable. Darling said the county is looking at possibly asking the public to fund a sales tax to help fund the hospital. He said the county would probably seek a three-quarters of a cent sales tax. Before this can happen, the operating company would have to switch to non-profit status and that’s complex change. Darling said the Pafford-Gresham family has invested over $8,000,000 in the hospital and the city and county have spent almost $3 million dollars on funding the hospital. He stressed the need for the hospital for local industries and noted he knows of at least a half-dozen local residents whose lives were saved by the hospital in the past year.
Darling closed his talk by noting the newest strain of the flu is supposed to be particularly virulent. He said even though the current vaccine was not developed for this new strain, a flu shot will still “beef up” your immune system and often some protection from the new strain.
The club greatly enjoyed the program and several members stayed after the meeting with questions for Darling.
