Justice of the Peace J.P. Lemming introduced an ordinance proposing a daily per‑diem charge to municipalities for housing prisoners, touching off an extended countywide exchange and heavy public comment at the Nov. 12 finance and budget committee meeting.

Supporters said the county must identify sustainable ways to cover growing jail costs. Lemming said the daily fee proposal was intended to spur discussion and analysis: “We have a problem down at the jail…we need to come up with different funding methods,” he told the committee. The comptroller later said the Association of Counties’ audit methodology produced a per‑detainee cost estimate of about $80.52 per day, a figure that sparked much of the discussion.

Municipal officials and county residents pushed back. West Fork Mayor Heath Caudle told the committee his city had already received a bill at the proposed rate and said a per‑day charge is difficult for small municipalities to budget: “If we go to a daily rate, that’s hard to budget for us…It just puts cities in a pinch,” he said. Fayetteville staff and other mayors warned the daily fee could grow municipal budgets dramatically; Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse said the change could raise his city’s cost from roughly $75,000 to more than $1 million under the proposed model.

Legal and policy constraints were a central theme in comments. County officials and several speakers cited Arkansas statutory language limiting per‑diem charges to the actual cost of housing inmates and said the statute’s intent is to cover operations not to fund new construction. Citizen and municipal commenters repeatedly cited provisions of Arkansas Code governing shared jails and per‑diem billing, urging that any change conform to those limits.

The committee voted to suspend the rules and take extended public comment. After more than an hour of municipal testimony and internal deliberations about how an updated fee would be administered and whether it could legally be used for jail expansion, the maker of the ordinance said he wanted more time for study and discussion with mayors and the county judge; ultimately the measure was withdrawn rather than advanced to a final vote at this meeting.

What’s next: The committee did not adopt the per‑diem ordinance. Members asked staff to work with municipalities on a study of options and legal constraints; the sponsor said he would reintroduce a proposal only after broader consultation and analysis.