Berryvillle council focuses on finances

McKinney

By Scott Loftis

The Berryville City Council reviewed mixed results regarding city finances at its regular meeting on Tuesday, June 20.

While monthly sales tax collections were down slightly from the previous year — for the “first time in months and months,” noted council member Linda Riddlesperger — a recent increase in the city’s water and sewer rates is having a positive impact on those funds according to Mayor Tim McKinney.

“We’ve got a lot farther to go on sewer than we do water but that’s starting to get our balance sheet back where it’s not quite so scary,” McKinney said.

The city council approved the first reading of an ordinance amending the 2022 budget to transfer funds between various line items, with McKinney and assistant Jay Lee explaining that the ordinance was a bookkeeping measure.

“We always try to estimate our revenues low and then there’s always some expenditures that will pop up over the year,” McKinney said.

Lee said some adjustments were necessary in the police department budget, especially after the state legislature adopted a bill calling for stipends for law enforcement officers across the state.

“This is bookkeeping that the state requires us to do,” Lee said. “All the fund balances and everything’s in good shape.”

The council suspended the rules and approved the ordinance on second and third readings by title only. Council members also voted unanimously to allow the Friends of the Berryville Library to use the city pool park from 8 a.m. to 3

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p.m. Saturday, July 8, for the “Peace, Love and a New Library Fundraising Festival,” with McKinney joking that the Friends are “a pretty rowdy group.”

Police chief Robert Bartos updated the council on the department’s activity report for May. Berryville officers wrote 147 citations for the month, Bartos said, up from 77 in May 2022. Offenses also increased, from 56 in May 2022 to 90 for the same month in 2023. The department had an 89 percent clearance rate for the month, Bartos said, and took in $1,860 in fines and bonds. Police responded to 11 accidents, down from 13 in May 2022.

“We had a pretty busy month,” Bartos said.

In other business, Riddlesperger said Saunders Museum had 150 visitors in May — an increase of about 40 over May 2022. The museum sold $122.50 in merchandise and deposited $834 for the month.

Riddlesperger also updated the council on the Arkansas Municipal League’s annual convention, which she attended earlier this month in Little Rock.

“Cybersecurity was one of the highlights of the meeting, and the need for that,” Riddlesperger said. “I think we’re in good shape. They’re working with our IT person here personally. The league has formed a partnership with Forge Institute and any city that wants to use them can.”

McKinney, who served as Municipal League president from June 2021 to June 2022, said he requested that the league form a cybersecurity task force.

“Every president has an initiative and that was my initiative, to start a cybersecurity task force,” he said. “And that’s when they started that. They’re doing a really good job. I just threw it out there and they ran with it. I didn’t really do much but they’ve got a really good program.”

Riddlesperger said that there is funding available for a youth council composed of students in grades nine through 12 if the city is interested in establishing one.

“They would report to the city council twice a year on what they were doing,” Riddlesperger said. “Another thing, they were saying in the future that we may have to budget for naloxone for drug overdoses. It may not be free anymore. We might have to put that in our budget.

In response to a question from the council, Bartos said progress is continuing on remodeling the former Entergy building in Berryville to house the police department.

“(City construction manager Chris Bouly) is coming along really good on it,” Bartos said. “I still can’t give you an exact date. It might be closer to the end of summer, but he’s doing really good. It looks like a brand-new building.”

McKinney said he had checked on the project’s progress earlier that day.

“You see it all coming together and it’s going to really look good,” McKinney said. “I think it’s going to be very functional for them.”