Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. has recommended amending the city's budget to reduce expenditures by more than $5 million by making significant cuts to the Parks and Recreation Department and decreasing contributions to outside agencies.
Scott, along with finance director Sara Lenehan, presented two options for amending the 2019 budget to the city Board of Directors at Tuesday night's meeting. They recommended the first, which creates about $5.3 million in savings, in part by eliminating 48 jobs.
The other option, which Lenehan said was riskier, proposed steeper cuts, with 80 layoffs and a decrease in expenditures of nearly $7.4 million.
"Our city has financial challenges that must be addressed," Scott said, explaining that he had to balance optimism with pragmatism.
Neither of the mayor's budget amendment options included funding for new initiatives. Scott has proposed hiring 100 additional police officers and purchasing body-worn cameras for the department.
The city's $210.6 million budget was approved by the city board and former Mayor Mark Stodola about two weeks before Scott took office on Jan. 1. It includes a roughly $7 million deficit.
The budget amendment proposes cutting 26 positions from the Parks and Recreation Department, 17 of which are filled. Many of those are maintenance positions, which Scott said could be outsourced through contractors. The cuts would also eliminate the department's greenhouse, but not all of the horticulture staff.
Scott said he had earlier that day notified employees whose jobs might be subject to cuts.
Added together with other operations reductions, the cuts to the Parks and Recreation Department total more than $1 million.
Other proposed cuts include two vacant deputy attorney positions from the city attorney's office and five filled resource coordinator positions from the Housing and Neighborhood Programs Department. Scott noted that no programs would be affected by the Housing and Neighborhood Programs cuts and that all neighborhood resource centers would remain open.
The balance of the proposed job cuts comes across several departments.
Additionally, $92,000 in cuts to the Little Rock Zoo, which included closing the zoo on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between Nov. 1 and March 1, was proposed.
Officials also recommended repurposing two of the city's four golf courses, saving $642,464. A spokesman for Scott said the city had not decided which courses, though in her presentation to the board Lenehan referred to a study presented last week in which consultants said that Rebsamen was the city's premier course and Hindman Park was "under water" from flooding.
Joan Adcock, city director at-large, said it made little sense to close Hindman without closing First Tee, as the two are so close together. First Tee is on South University Avenue and Hindman Park is on Brookview Drive.
Lenehan's presentation also showed cuts to the city's contributions to the Museum of Discovery and the Downtown Little Rock Partnership. The Museum of Discovery's allotment would decrease by half, or $115,000, and the Downtown Little Rock Partnership's annual allocation would decrease from $195,000 to $145,000.
The Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce's annual allotment could also be cut in half, to $150,000. It has received $300,000 from the city for the past two years.
Officials said the city will not replace Assistant City Manager James Jones when he retires at the end of June, reflecting the mayor's restructuring of City Hall in January that made it so he directly oversees six of the city's 14 departments, rather than the city manager.
Some city directors expressed concern about how the city would maintain its parks with fewer staff members, and how it would continue to attract businesses with less money going to the Chamber of Commerce.
"You kind of need a greenhouse to grow seedlings, don't you?" Ward 6 City Director Doris Wright asked about the proposed parks department cut. "I'd like for [Parks and Recreation Director John Eckart] to think about that."
Capi Peck of Ward 5 cited one of the city's promotional mottos.
"As an enjoyer of our parks that are already being understaffed, I'm concerned about Little Rock being a city in a park," Peck said.
Adcock said Jay Chesshir, president and chief executive officer of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, was "the golden goose that lays the golden eggs for us, and we have just cut off his food bill." Earlier in the meeting, Chesshir had touted the chamber's efforts in attracting firearms manufacturer CZ-USA, along with hundreds of jobs, to Little Rock.
The budget discussion took place more than two hours into a city board meeting that wasn't without tension. Frequent local government critic Luke Skrable was escorted from the boardroom by two security staff members after protesting that he wasn't allowed to speak during the "citizen communication" portion of the meeting. Scott announced that Skrable, who wore a tinfoil hat, was banned, though details weren't immediately clear.
About five minutes into Lenehan's presentation, Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson suffered a seizure. He was escorted from City Hall by medical personnel in a wheelchair, and the meeting reconvened. Richardson also suffered a seizure during a meeting in early April.
Adcock told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that city directors received no documents about the budget recommendation before the meeting. She said the mayor had called several board members to talk about it but had not offered specifics.
The board will continue its discussion on the proposed amendment when it meets Tuesday at 4 p.m. and will decide how to move forward. The budget amendment will have to approved by the board.
"You all are going to have to do a lot of convincing in the next week," At-large City Director Dean Kumpuris told Scott.
Metro on 05/08/2019