Van Buren’s 2025 budget is approved; city to receive full county sales tax amount

VAN BUREN — The City Council approved the city’s 2025 budget on Monday.

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The budget was approved 4-0 at the meeting. Council members Madison Simmons and Shannon Newerth-Henson were not in attendance.

“I’m just really proud of the work that’s been done and looking forward to 2025,” Mayor Joseph Hurst said, reflecting on the creation of the budget.

The city’s total budgeted 2025 general fund revenue is $19,440,525 with budgeted expenditures of $19,438,759, according to the adopted budget.

The city’s 2025 street fund has budgeted revenue of $2,581,500 and expenditures of $2,580,340.

Hurst said property tax in 2024 was up 7% compared to 2023. He said the county recently reassessed, and increased, property values.

Due to the increase in property values, the city’s budgeted property tax revenue in 2025 is $710,000. The 2024 budgeted amount was $620,000.

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He said a percentage of property tax revenue goes to the street fund as well. The expected property tax revenue in the 2025 street fund is $520,000.

The Crawford County Quorum Court recently approved an increase in the amount of money the county gives the city for the District Court. The city will receive $41,000 more in county court reimbursement, Hurst said. The city’s total budgeted revenue in 2025 for county court reimbursement is $400,000.

The 2025 budgeted city sales tax revenue amount is $8.3 million. The amount in 2024 was budgeted to be $8,020,000; the actual amount received to date is $7,956,157.

The budgeted 2025 Fire Department expenditure is $5,419,170. The budgeted expenditure in 2024 was $5,489,071.

Fire Chief Tim Arnold previously said his department is down two trucks. He said the department is arranging to get one repaired. He said the amount to get both repaired is $5,000. He said the amount isn’t a lot, but the repair amount is costly through the lens of 2024’s year-end budget leftovers.

The Fire Department has $26,000 for repairs in the 2025 budget.

The 2025 budget gives the Police Department $6,313,160, nearly $100,000 more than last year’s amount of $6,214,426.

Police Chief Jonathan Wear said the department is starting to switch over to Dodge SUVs, and the vehicles are $10,000 cheaper than the Chevrolet Tahoes the city was previously purchasing. The city buys the cars through Superior Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram of Northwest Arkansas in Siloam Springs, he said.

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The Dodge vehicles are new, and it is too soon to say if the brand is better for the department than the previous one, Wear said.

He said some of the newer Tahoes the officers are driving now have issues due to the active fuel management the brand implemented in its newer engines, causing the department to replace engines and get other repairs done.

“So yeah, it’s hard to know which one is going to be the best product for us at all,” he said.

The Police Department has a budget of $70,000 for vehicle repairs and maintenance in 2025.

The city didn’t receive the full amount of county sales tax revenue the past two years, Hurst said at the Dec. 9 meeting. He said the months the city didn’t receive the funds were December of 2023, and January and February of 2024.

The budgeted amount of county sales tax revenue in 2024 for fire and police was $369,000; the remaining amount of 2024 county sales tax revenue for capital improvements was $2,210,000. The actual amounts to date are: $294,240 to police, $373,633 to fire and $2,241,799 to capital improvements.

In July 2023, Crawford County missed filing the necessary paperwork notifying the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration of a change in its sales tax rate. Scott Hardin, spokesman for the Department of Finance and Administration, said in 2023 the clerical error caused the county to not collect any revenue from the sales tax from October through December.

Crawford County residents voted in 2022 to continue a 1% county sales tax from Sept. 30, 2023, through Sept. 30, 2031.

Every county and municipality in the state is required by law to notify the Department of Finance and Administration at least 90 days before any sales tax rate change is due to take effect in their jurisdictions, according to Hardin. The department communicates sales tax rates to the tens of thousands of companies registered to collect sales tax in Arkansas on a quarterly basis.