The Helena–West Helena City Council on Nov. not specified adopted Ordinance No. 4 (2025) to revise the cityase-pay ordinance and set the police chiefase salary at $70,000, resolving a clerical discrepancy that left the ordinance listing the position at $55,000 even though successive chiefs have been paid $70,000 in practice. The adoption passed with three yes votes, two abstentions and one member absent; the ordinance does not contain an emergency clause.

Council discussion traced the pay discrepancy to an earlier grant and subsequent practice. According to materials presented at the meeting, a grant under the administration of Mayor Jay Hollowell raised the effective pay for the police chief, and Virgil Green, Patrick Smith, James Mayfield (interim) and Vincent Bell all served as chief while being paid at the $70,000 level. The citylerk and treasurer told the council the written base-pay ordinance was never amended to reflect that change; the ordinance before the council was described by several speakers as a clerical correction to make the formal ordinance match the longstanding practice.

Councilors debated whether the change should be made before a new mayor is appointed by the governor and whether the city can afford it given reported fiscal pressures. Multiple speakers noted the city is running a multi-million-dollar deficit (participants referred repeatedly to roughly $4 million), and several members pressed for clarity on where the funds would come from. Council members and staff said the 2025 budget already appropriated $70,000 for the chieflassification. The meeting record also shows discussion of a roughly $900,000 grant from Washington, D.C., intended to support new officers; speakers said that money had not yet been drawn down but is the anticipated source to fund new hires on patrol.

Chief Steve Sanders spoke directly to the council about department morale and staffing. "If you just take all that into consideration of what I'm doing and how I'm doing it to better public safety, I think you guys get where I'm going," Sanders said, urging the council to consider public-safety needs when deciding pay. Council member Adrian Messina said he supported the increase only if the city can identify funds: "If we can get the money, if we have the money to do it, I'm for it." Those two quoted remarks are taken from the meeting transcript and attributed to speakers who spoke on the record.

Several council members urged caution about broader compensation changes and emphasized that the city's budget problems, participants said, stemmed largely from excessive overtime, contractors and vendors rather than the base salary of one position. Others said that if the council reduced pay for the chief to $55,000 it would effectively be a pay cut for a position that several previous chiefs had been receiving at $70,000 for about a decade.

Formal actions: Council member Kyle Miller moved to place Ordinance No. 4 on its third and final reading; Maxine Miller seconded and the motion passed. The council then moved to adopt Ordinance No. 4 (2025) to amend the number and base pay of full-time employees and elected officials, specifically fixing the police chiefase pay at $70,000. The final recorded vote on adoption was three yes, two abstentions and one absent; the ordinance passed without an emergency clause.

What the ordinance does and next steps: The ordinance amends the city's base-pay schedule to list the police chief at $70,000, aligning the written ordinance with how successive chiefs have been paid. The ordinance does not itself create additional funding sources; council discussion indicated staff will continue to pursue grant drawdowns and other budget measures. Council members said the new mayor (to be appointed under state law) and future councils can review other base-pay items as part of broader budget work.