Finance & Administration Council Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon everybody, it's 04:00. I wanna get today's Finance Administration Council meeting going. Please record your attendance by pushing the appropriate button. We do have a quorum. We'll move to item number three, approval of minutes from the finance committee meeting on Tuesday, 03/31/2026.

Move to approve unless there's no change. Second.

Motion second to approve. Any comments or questions on the minutes as presented? If not, please record your vote on whether or not to approve the minutes. We'll move into new business. First item is resolution 23,040. It's a resolution expressing the willingness of the city to utilize federal aid transportation alternative program funds and authorizing the city of Jonesboro grants

and

community development department to apply for the FY 2026 transportation alternatives program through the Arkansas Department Transportation, whereas the city of Jonesboro understands the federal aid funds are available at 80% federal participation and 20% local match to continue the construction of the Culverhouse Multiuse Trail connector to Craighead Forest Park, whereas the city of Jonesboro understands that federal aid funds are available for this program on a reimbursable basis requiring work to be accomplished and proof of payment prior to actual monetary reimbursement, and whereas the estimated cost is $2,144,639.73 and the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas is requesting $1,715,711.73 and TAP funding with a local match of $428,928 and an additional 1% RDOT administration fee of $17,157 calculated from the TAP federal share for a local funding total of $446,085. Whereas this project using federal funding will be open and available for use by the general public and maintained by the applicant for the life of the project. Therefore, be it resolved by city council for the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas that section one, the Jonesboro City Council supports the submission of the FY twenty six TAP application to continue the construction of the Culverhouse Multiuse Trail connector to Craig Head Forest Park and hereby authorizes the RDOT to initiate action to implement this project.

Section two, the mayor and city clerk are hereby authorized by the city council. But the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas has issued all necessary documents to effectuate the application. Section three, the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas will participate in accordance with its designated responsibility, including maintenance of this project. Section four, the mayor and city clerk are hereby authorized and directed to execute all appropriate agreements and contracts necessary to expedite the construction of the above stated project. Section five, the Jonesboro City Council pledges it full support and hereby authorizes the RDOT to initiate action to implement this project.

I move forward to full council. Second.

I second forward to full council. Any questions or comments from the committee regarding this project? Anything from staff or the public in attendance? If not, please record your vote on whether or not to forward resolution 26,040 to full council. Next up, resolution 26,041.

This is just a municipal lane by title only. Resolution by the city council, city of Johnson, Arkansas to place the municipal lien on property located at 505 West Woodrow, Partial 01 Dash 144073 Dash 17500 owned by Thomas and Linda Bobbitt in the amount of $5,826.87

Moving forward to full council. Second.

I'm second for full council. Any questions or comments regarding this item? Anything from staff public in attendance? If not, please record your vote on whether or to forward resolution 26,041 to full council. Last item under new business is resolution twenty six zero forty two.

A resolution requesting free utility services from city water and lot for city owned property, whereas the city of Jonesboro is requesting that city water and lot provide free utilities at the following location, 6106 Southwest Drive, now therefore be it resolved by the city council for the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas, the section one, the city water and light requested by this resolution, the city water and light is requested by this resolution to provide free utilities to the location listed above. Section two, to permit such services to be provided without charge. The city of Jonesboro hereby affirms the city water and light that the ultimate use of city water and light utilities so provided is now and shall remain a use or purpose which the city is engaged in as part of its governmental or proprietary functions under authority to it by state law. Make a motion to forward to full council. Second.

Motion to second for full council. Any comments or questions from the committee?

I'll never accuse myself.

Due to your position on the And

you'll have to vote, I guess.

Yeah. Board of directors for City Waterfront. Alright, anything from staff or public in attendance? If not, please record your vote on whether or not to forward to full council. Alright, that was last item under new business. I'm not aware of any pending items. Does anybody on the committee have any other business?

Mr. Chairman, I had a couple of things I wanted to ask a couple of questions about. Just trying to get some clarity if I can. So I know we presented last I think it was last week about our tournaments and just trying to figure out if somebody could explain to me, I know we had some information provided, but really would like for us to have kind of some more financials and maybe kind of what led to that decision. The reason I'm asking, from my recollection, it seemed like programs, the tournaments ran and they made money.

So now I'm just confused how all of a sudden we're losing money. Maybe there's something I'm not seeing that you guys that you're seeing.

Sure. What I try to do with this expense report is just account for all the additional expenses that in the past weren't taken into consideration.

Like, give me an example of one.

Just like, for example, when I on this on the second page of the spreadsheet where it talks about community center staffing outside of normal hours. Mhmm. So once we left outside of normal hours, we tried to account for the amount of money we spent to staff that that we normally would not. So we tried to create the actual real value of that. And then like when you see the sports coordinators playing and prep that game day, what I wanted to do is I wanted to show that number of amount of time that it took them away from their day to day jobs to help put on this tournament.

We don't have a true tournament director in our department. We have a sports that in the middle of this tournament, we were in the middle of the basketball season. And so what I tried to do with that additional expenses that totaled $8,000 that was the amount of time that staff didn't get paid for the tournament. It took them away from their duties as park employees to put on this tournament.

So it wasn't real dollars, it was time.

That's correct.

Yes, sir.

That's correct. And I should have clarified that in the description and I apologize for that.

I haven't had a chance to study the spreadsheet as close as I wanted to so far but that was going be one of my questions because I know I had some more time for you on there and I believe you're a salary employee So it wasn't really additional money.

No, no. It a true expense as far as dollar amount expense. We tried to account for the amount of time people took away from their day to day jobs to put this tournament on to make it happen. It was kind of handed in our lap in December And we wanted to make sure that as the tradition was, it was a pretty good strong tournament with Jonesboro's reputation. And so what we want to do is make sure it happens.

So we really took all of the staff away from their normal. Like my pool manager gave up I can't remember how he was I mean, he spent twenty hours helping out with the two with the tournament on just one of the tournaments. So he took away from his pool duties prepping for the pool for this for the spring Mhmm. Summer to help with the tournament. We just pulled together as a team, but we wanted to include that as a time expense to show that that was the true cost of what it cost us to put that on. But it wasn't a dollar value.

So our account, if you will, the account is still accumulate are we still in positive and the negative? I guess if we didn't include if that's not real money that went out the door, then we should be

So in the real money it showed we made, I want to think, it was about $10,000 net revenue that we made on the two tournaments.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, if it was an hourly employee, that wasn't additional expense. If they worked additional hours on top of their regular hourly

Correct. That is correct.

But like

the sports coordinators, pool coordinator, community center coordinator, they did not get paid additional money.

So are we I guess the comment was we're out of the tournament business. Are we saying we're getting of putting tournaments on or are we saying that's a possibility?

No, no, I truly we've talked about this as a team. If the Ridge is not ready in January, we, our parks department, will make sure that these two volleyball tournaments will continue the tradition in Jonesboro. We only put on one other tournament. We put on a tournament for the Jonesboro Basketball Youth League. Most of the other tournaments that happen in city are put on by private organizations.

We don't put on an end of the year city youth sports tournament because we try not to emphasize the competitive side of that. As far as we don't want to appear to be in competition with the Ridge. We want to support the Ridge fully in our tournaments. And so we don't want to put tournaments on in our facilities while they're trying to put on larger tournaments in their facilities. We don't want to compete for the same fan dollars, so to speak.

Well, also part of the purpose of the Ridge is to open up our community centers

Right.

For the That's true.

Not have tournaments there, have them at the ridge and at the community centers be open to the public.

So much more accessible to the public for public activities. We've tried to create some additional adult sport leagues as well.

Guess the last thing in terms of this, when we look at, I don't know if other council members may have questions, if they do, I don't know if we could get another report maybe on the agenda. Don't know, Mr. Chairman, if we need to do that. And then also maybe look at how the gun range is performing. I don't know if that's been included. I don't think that was included in our last bit of information, but we'd like to have some information on the gun range and how it's performing every year financially and see where that's at because I know that's been a big undertaking. Don't think financially it's been the greatest.

So we approved the point of sale system was approved. We purchased we placed order today for the equipment. We're hoping to have it in place. We would like to say this weekend but most likely it will be on the eighteenth or the twenty fifth.

Okay, okay. Well, I'm just talking about if we can

get something on the agenda.

I don't know if you would have to request that or but I mean as far as maybe more discussion around our performance on our tournaments. On tournaments, yes, sir. And then also like I said, if we can get a report on our gun range is how it's performing, how the gun range financially has performed. At the gun range? Yes. Certainly.

Yeah, I can put that report together for next Tuesday.

Okay, that would be great. That's all for Jim but then I think last name is chairman. I would like to I don't know the last time we bid out our deposits. I know that conversation I had, I brought that up a few years ago, but I would like to maybe recommend that we take a look at that and see what's out there as far as rates, as far as returns and see what other banks have for us. I'm sure the rule I think the rule of thumb for most public entities is looking at doing that a couple of years and I think that's something we should definitely take a look at and see what type of rates we could get.

That's all I got. Sure. Thank you, Jim. You're welcome.

Anybody have any other business for the committee today? Comments. So move. Second. In favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you all.