Finance & Administration Council Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everybody. It's 4 o'clock. I'll call today's Finance Administration Council Committee meeting to order. Next up, please record your attendance. We do have a quorum. Next up is approval of minutes from the finance meeting on Tuesday, May 26, 2026.

Move to approve unless there's a noted change. Second. Second.

Motion second to approve. Any question or comments on the minutes as presented? If not, please record your vote on whether or not to approve the minutes. They are approved. We'll move into new business. First up is resolution 26060. It's a resolution requesting free utility services from City Water and Light for city-owned property. whereas the City of Jonesboro is requesting that City Water and Light provide free utilities at the following location, 301 West Monroe Street, now therefore be resolved by the City Council of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas that Section 1, City Water and Light is, that City Water and Light requested by this resolution to provide free utilities to the location listed above. Section 2, to permit such services to be provided without charge. The City of Jonesboro hereby affirms to City Water and Light that the ultimate use of City Water and Light utilities so provide 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.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to recuse myself because my members want to see where my board of directors. I'll make a motion that we forward this to full council.

Motion to second. I'll second. Dr. Conway, were you seconding?

No, I just thought he was excused because he had a mental problem.

Oh, no, no. OK. Motion and second. Any questions regarding this?

What is that? What is that 301 was? Just curious. Got it.

The answer was it's where the real time crime center is going to be. Any other questions from the committee? Anything from staff in attendance or the public? I guess I need to vote on this one. Please record your vote on whether or not to forward Resolution 26060 to full council. Next is a municipal lien. I'll just read it by title only. Resolution 26061. Resolution by the City Council of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas to place a municipal lien on property located at 300 East Pine Street. Partial 01-144-183-21000 owned by Unicorn LLC in the amount of $865.

Move forward to full council. Second.

Motion seconded. Forward to full council. Any questions or comments regarding this item from anybody in council chambers? Seeing none, please record your vote on whether or not to forward Resolution 26061 to full council. Resolution 26062, resolution by the City Council of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas to place municipal lien on property located at 316 South McClure, partial 01-144-183-21000. How can they have the same parcel number? What? Yeah, yeah, we'll come back. We'll come back to this one while Mr. Roper checks into it. All right, we'll move on to Resolution 26064. I'll read this one in its entirety. I know you are looking forward to that. A resolution for the City of Jonesboro to approve the FY2026-2027 Community Development Block Grant Annual Action Plan that includes the FY2026 2027 CDBG project activities and budget. Whereas the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas has held two public hearings and one public review and comment period for the CDBG annual action plan. And whereas the FY2026-2027 CDBG annual action plan is in the fifth year of the 2022 to 2026 five-year consolidated plan designed to address goals set for the community needs And whereas the FY2026-2027 CDBG Annual Action Plan contains the projects, activities, and budget for the federal allocation amount of $716,683, the FY2026-2027 Annual Action Plan budget is listed below. The total allocation is 716,683. Administration, 143-536-60. Public Services, 107-652. Jonesboro Church Health Center, 14,996-07. Family Crisis Center, 14,807-89. Hispanic Community Services Incorporated, 14-561-37. CASA of the Second Judicial District, 11,500. Foundation of Arts, 12,222-26. City Youth Ministries, $11,123.63. Sure Foundation, $11,068.70. Jonesboro Business Association, $9,338.35. North Jonesboro Community Development Corp, $8,033.73. Low and mod income homeowner rehabs, $99,973.24. Homelessness, St. Bernard's Development Foundation, $19,177.00. Homebuyer Program 15,000, Public Infrastructure 332,344.16. Therefore, let it be resolved by City Council for the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas that Section 1, the FY2026-2027 Annual Action Plan attached hereto is hereby approved by the City Council. Section 2, the FY2026-2027 CDBG Project Activities and Budget are hereby approved for the Annual Action Plan Section 3, the Grants and Community Development Department are hereby authorized by the City Council for the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas to submit all necessary documents for the FY2026-2027 CDBG program. Section 4, the City Council does hereby authorize the mayor and the mayor's designees to execute all agreements and contracts regarding the future award of the FY2026-2027 CDBG program funding.

I move forward to full council. Second.

Motion seconded for full council. Any questions from the committee?

Mr. Chairman, I have a question.

All right. Dr. Coleman.

Not a hard question.

Oh, good. I'm glad.

So you can jump up and down for a while. The $15,000, is that per person for people trying to improve their home or that one time?

The first home, first time homeowner buyers, yes. So it's $5,000, so that's each. So it'd be for three first time homeowner buyers over the course of that year to apply for that and get that $5,000.

I thought it was that, just to make sure.

Yes, sir. That's it.

All right, Mr. McLean. A couple of questions. Sure. So I mean, we got a couple of repeats on here. Do we, do we limit how many times they can apply through this or is this come as you get as many times you want or.

We did a request for applications back in March, I believe, somewhere in there, can't remember when. So we just take all the applications that we receive through that, then we have the CDBG Advisory Committee gets together and they score the applications and then the allocations are based on those scores. But it doesn't, we don't limit how many times. No, there's not a limit as long as they meet the qualifications of the application.

Okay. Any concern that we may or may not get this with, I mean, the threat of federal government cutting some of this money?

Well, I think we're good. That's a concern that it wasn't placed in the budget submitted by the President, but the Congress, that's happened in the past, and Congress has always continued to fund the CDBG program because of the impact it has on local communities where they serve. And so, I mean, I don't have a strong concern that it won't get it passed and it won't be allocated. So, I'm confident it will be.

Last thing, public infrastructure, what is that?

It's available for a lot of different things that we can use that money for. In the past, it's been used for sidewalks, it's been used for overlays, it's been used for parks, in low to moderate income areas. Also, it's been used for some different organizations to be able to do some capital projects with their facilities. after we get the action plan approved, then we can determine our priorities and what the city wants to spend that money on.

Thank you.

Sure.

Anything else from the committee? Anything else from the public or staff regarding this agenda item? If not, please cast your vote on whether or not to forward resolution 26064 to full council. We'll move to Resolution 26065. We're going to do that one first, then we'll come back. Resolution of the City Council of the City of Johnsonville, Arkansas to amend the City Salary and Administration Plan, whereas Resolution 25197 amended the City Salary and Administration Plan and list of approved job titles, and whereas City Administration continually monitors and reviews department requests in an effort to improve efficiency, provide comparable compensation in respect to duties and or provide increased community benefit. And whereas a mid-year review of city staffing requests has determined that adjustments are necessary to address department needs. And whereas resulting from either employee retirement or positions opening, these changes will result in either a neutral budget impact or a favorable budget position and salary expense in the 2026 budget. And whereas the attached listing of changes will not require an amendment to the 2026 budget, and whereas it is recommended by the Finance Committee to ensure sufficient staffing to maintain facilities and service levels for the city to amend the Salary and Administration Plan, and therefore be resolved by City Council for the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas that section one, the attached listing of approved job titles of the Salary and Administration Plan is hereby adopted.

Move forward to full council. Second.

Motion to second, forward to full council. Any questions or comments regarding resolution 26065?

Real quick, Mr. Chairman, if I may. So we're looking at the regraded positions. Looks like it says already included in budget to headcount. So nothing changed. We just went from 115 to 118 for communications as well as The public information specialist went from 113 to 115, elimination of, on the new positions, we went, eliminated finance manager, assistant, and created the assistant finance director, eliminated the open admin assistant position in engineering, and created the permit technician, and existing position looks like we changed or got rid of the GIS coordinator and created an engineer, a new engineer position? Okay. So it didn't change the headcount in communications, correct?

No, it didn't change the headcount. Actually, both in finance and communication, we had some upper level salary retirements and we kind of took it, this is an opportunity to look at how we can improve some efficiency and hopefully free up some money in this year's budget and next year's budget for some possibly capital improvement projects or some other personnel elsewhere. Since both of those retirements, staff has kind of shared out some of those allocation duties, allocated duties, in finance and in communications. Tony and myself have picked up a couple of those duties as well, but just in a way to try to make our headcount and budget position just as efficient as possible.

I think one of the positions at least just from the matrix study, it was a recommendation.

That would be the permanent technician position, yes. And also, there was a couple empty headcount spaces that weren't filled in the building department. I believe there was an administrative assistant. And like I said, we had the GIS coordinator position that had been filled for a while. we're actually looking for an engineering position that can handle the GIS assistant duties as well as their typical engineering duties, and I think that we've been successful in finding that candidate. So yeah, like I say, it's less money and kind of valuing the employees that have stepped up and done a little bit more work than maybe what was on their original job descriptions to help make everything work.

On the same study, if I'm not mistaken, she said we could turn on some of the features of our technology, correct, and to help us. And the only reason I'm asking about that is if there's a way for us to not continue to add headcount across the board, I think that would be a good move.

Yeah, and that's always gonna be the goal is to try to be as efficient as you can and get the most out of each and every employee. This resolution was presented in a way that it is because it is budget neutral and a budget amendment wasn't necessary. Some of these other changes that are being identified by matrix, they very well could require a budget amendment and they wouldn't necessarily be an amendment to the salary administration plan. And so those will come at probably a different time once some of that realignment is completed and recommendations and financing is found for that. Every decision we have has a dollar attached to it. So we're trying to figure out the best way to move forward with those recommendations in a way that we can also afford.

A question. I read through that report that came. Will this include? additional people like an engineering department, a permanent department, or is this just an across-the-board reduction?

This resolution is simply about some immediate needs within the city and also some equity needs too as well. The public information specialist is really doing a job that's very similar to some other departments in the city and so that was the need to help bring that up to kind of to match the, the demands and the needs and the responsibilities of that job. As far as for implementing the actual building department study, I know that Mr. Thomas and all of our building department directors have been working pretty hard on that. I walked in on a meeting yesterday, we were talking about it. I do expect some additional recommendations coming forward soon. And again, it's trying to identify where every dollar is going to come from and exactly what each person is going to be doing. So when we come and request something, we know that it's the best possible scenario and solution to the problem.

Any other questions from the committee regarding this item? Anything else from staff, public? All right, if there's no other discussion, please record your vote on whether or not to forward Resolution 26065 to full council. All right, now we will backtrack and go back up to Resolution 26062. I'll go ahead and read it. Resolution by City Council of the City of Johnsonville, Arkansas, in place of Ms. Follin. On property located at 316 South McClure. Partial 01-144-183-21000. Owned by S-B-R-E-M-E LLC in the amount of $465.00.

Move forward to full council. Second.

That motion is seconded forward to full council. Mr. Roper, do you have an update?

I do. The 2602 is correct. We may need some guidance from April. 26061 is incorrect.

So I guess we can vote on 26-062 and then have a, do we need to reconsider? Okay. All right. Any questions on resolution 26-062? Anything from the public or staff in attendance?

Just so I'm clear, so the parcel number on 20-062 is correct, 061 is incorrect? Yeah. Okay. Yep.

All right. Please record your vote on whether or not to forward resolution 26-062 to full council. Now we need a motion to reconsider Resolution 26061. I'll move.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to reconsider Resolution 26061. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. Mr. Roper, you got an update on 26061?

I would think we probably need to resend that through.

So table it until the next meeting.

Until the next finance? Next finance meeting? Yeah, that'd be great. I think we can correct this pretty quickly. Okay.

Move to postpone until our next finance meeting.

Second. Motion to postpone until our next finance meeting. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right, thank you. No other items under new business. Moving to pending items. I guess the only thing that I have a question about from the last finance meeting is, the status of the swim team contracts? Is that something you think we'll see pretty soon? I know they reached an agreement.

They've reached a tentative agreement on lane division. We're working through some particulars and some responsibilities. I think there's some discussion about how to, accurately reflect some wintertime swimming rates. I was actually talking to Ms. Cook today on some questions regarding some billing last year that we're trying to work through, but they're swimming right now under their own tentative agreement. Everything seems to be going okay, but we... Just some of the finer details need to be worked out. Yeah, there's some contractual details there that need to be hashed out, but like I said, they're operating in a way that seems to be... be working for them. Was hoping to have that contract hopefully at the next finance meeting, if not a little before, but I didn't see any need for a special called finance meeting or anything. There's swimming under an agreement that we're all okay with as far as the land division goes.

Thank you.

Both teams swimming?

Yes. All right. Does anybody else have any other business for the community today? If not, we'll move to public comments. Anything from the public wants to comment on that we have not already discussed on today's agenda? Seeing none, we'll move to adjournment.

We'll move. Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We stand adjourned.