Senate committee debates bill to let counties, cities renegotiate countywide sales-tax splits; measure fails

Senate Bill 394, a proposal to let counties and their municipalities negotiate and seek voter approval to reallocate countywide sales-tax revenue when one city’s population outstrips the county's rural population, drew extensive public testimony and failed to win committee approval on a roll-call vote.

Sen. Joshua Bryant, the bill sponsor, told the Revenue & Tax Committee that Act 26 of 1981 (and related 1981 provisions) created a countywide sales tax mechanism intended to support county infrastructure and services. Bryant said demographic changes and successive censuses have shifted collections toward growing cities, leaving counties with a shrinking share while county obligations — jails, courts and other constitutional services — remain.

"This bill simply recognizes that circumstances have changed since then and that voters should be given the opportunity to adjust how their county sales tax dollars are spent to accommodate those changes," Benton County Judge Barry Moring told senators. "Nothing changes unless voters say so." Moring told the panel Benton County has seen its county share fall from about 45% in 1990 to roughly 15% today and said the county’s jail capacity and caseloads have increased substantially.

Opposition came from a broad group of mayors, city finance officials and public-safety representatives who warned the measure could shift large sums away from city budgets that provide police, fire, EMS and other municipal services. Charles Snapp, mayor of Walnut Ridge, said SB 394 "is not good for the counties of Arkansas. It's gonna cause a strife," arguing his community generates most county sales tax revenue but receives a small share…