Van Buren tax revenue up almost 5% in 2023, county revenue down in early 2024

Crawford County sales tax revenues restarted for the county and its municipalities in March, with collections down from last year. Van Buren Mayor Joe Hurst said March funds were down more than 8% from 2023 and April revenue was down 2% from April 2023.

“Interesting, the first numbers that we got in March, they were down about 8% compared to March 2023. I was questioning, maybe that was because some of the businesses hadn’t updated their sales tax yet so they weren’t collecting as much as they should. The difference was still down 2% in April compared to 2023 in April. It was not as big a decrease, but I was still surprised it was down in April because the city sales tax had gone up nearly 5% in April. Hopefully that trend will reverse,” Hurst said.

March revenue from Van Buren’s 1% and 0.5% sales taxes was also down about 2%, something that seldom happens. Hurst said March might just have been an off month. But with the sales tax down in April when the city’s sales tax is up has him thinking maybe it’s not all being collected.

“I’m not sure. I think it’s possible there are some that haven’t updated. We catch those sometimes with the bills that we receive (at the city). Hopefully, that will straighten out,” Hurst said.

In March, the city collected $453,477 from its 1% sales tax and $226,738 from its 0.5% sales tax for a total of $680,216, city records show. In April, city tax revenue was $703,262. Overall the city has seen a 2% increase from last year in sales tax revenue through April, Hurst said.

Van Buren received $298,701 from its share of the county-wide sales tax in March and $318,085 in April, city documents show.

TAX COLLECTION ISSUE
There was a three-month period – October through December – when the 1% countywide sales tax was not collected. In 2023, Crawford County had $11.627 million in revenue, down 13.1% compared with 2022 revenue, according to figures from the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA). Van Buren sales tax revenue in 2023 was $9.109 million, up 4.6% compared with 2022.

On May 12, 2015, Crawford County voters approved extension of a 1% sales and use tax and scheduled the tax to expire on Sept. 30, 2023, according to the DFA. On May 24, 2022, the tax was approved by the voters to be extended until May 30, 2031. However, there was an error in reporting that continuance to the state, and in July retailers were notified of a change in the amount of sales tax that should be charged for sales in the county.

Crawford County Judge Chris Keith learned after talking with the DFA that the county had not filed necessary paperwork about the election results. Though the paperwork was filed in July, the state did not resume collection of the tax until Jan. 1.

“Luckily we were able to plan when we were setting the budget at the end of last year. We planned to lose those funds. In terms of projects, we did a good job of scaling back what we projected,” Hurst said. “I was very happy to continue to receive that revenue for the first time back in March. We have had two months of it now, and we are trying to do what we can.”

Of the funds collected from the county-wide sales tax, goes to capital improvement and 12.5% goes to each the police and fire departments.

“We had scaled back the big street overlays that we normally would have planned this year. That’s where a lot of those funds would go,” Hurst said. “We are doing a lot of in-house overlay projects, smaller projects that need to be done.”

PARKS AND REC PLANS
The city did complete a large $1.2 million overlay and drainage project at Legacy Boulevard and Durango Drive just a few weeks ago, Hurst said. As far as big future plans for the city, Van Buren is updating the city’s parks and recreation master plan.

“It’s been about nine years since we did the city’s first parks and recreation master plan. We are going to be updating that. We are going through the process to update the past plan,” Hurst said. “We have completed a lot of the projects in that plan. And I look forward to continuing to prioritize parks and recreation in Van Buren.”

The city has advertised a request for quotes (RFQ) for firms wanting to update the plan. The deadline for those RFQs was May 3.

“Once we finalize that, that company will be able to get moving to update our parks plan. We will have public involvement meetings to see what we can do to keep improving on parks,” Hurst said.

Major parks and recreation projects completed in recent years include Freedom Park and Veterans Memorial downtown, bike trails in Colley Park on the northwest side of the town, and two separate pickleball court locations – one in city park completed in 2023 and another pocket park that has pickleball courts on the east side of the city.

“The big project completed this year is our skate park. In the central city park. The ribbon cutting and grand opening for that will be next week,” Hurst said. “There is all sorts of fun stuff going on.”

The skate park is at the site of the former city swimming pool at Dr. Louis Peer Memorial Park (City Park). The Van Buren City Council approved a $1.2 million contract with Joplin, Mo.-based American Ramp Co. in January 2023 to build the skate park. The skate park is almost 20,000 square feet and includes street and transition skating elements.