Fort Smith police chief seeks money for a training center

The Fort Smith Police Department is asking for $1.25 million from the city’s general fund to renovate the former Crane Kia property on U.S. Highway 71 into a training center. The request is part of the department’s capital improvement plan (CIP).

The plan, presented to the Fort Smith Board of Directors at a study session Tuesday (Oct. 30), also looks at using $290,400 from business license fees to go with the $2.58 million from the one-eighth cent sales tax dedicated to the police department to fund police raises in 2025.

“Our plan is a bit different because we used much of the anticipated revenues from the ⅛% sales tax to fund much-needed raises for the police officers in July 2023. Administration has agreed to let me cap that annual amount spent from the sales tax fund for those raises at $2.8 million, which was the amount that we calculated at the time that we proposed the raises,” said FSPD Chief Danny Baker. “The anticipated annual income from the sales tax for this plan remains at a conservative $3.4 million, but revenues have continued to come in above that averaging at $3.7 million.”

The five-year CIP estimates that the sales tax will fund $2.75 million of the pay raises for uniformed officers and the remaining $310,400 needed for the raises will come from business licensing fees for 2026. In 2027, those numbers change to $2.8 million from the sales tax fund, $400,000 from fees and $39,177 from grant funding. The CIP estimates that funding for the raises will be broken down into $2.7 million from the sales tax fund and $1 million from the licensing fees for 2028 and $2.8 million from the sales tax fund and $1 million from the fees for 2029.

“After taking out the $2.8 million each year for the salaries the ⅛-cent sales tax cannot be counted on to fully cover the various one-time and ongoing capital needs for the police department,” Baker said. “This is why our plan continues to include the $1 million generated in part from the collection of business licenses fees and anticipated grant funding in the future.”

The department anticipates a cost of $1.25 million to renovate the training center portion of the Crain Kia property in 2025, which will be needed to to be appropriated from the city’s general fund. MAHG Architecture has been contracted to design the new facility.

“We have not received completed plans yet for an actual cost estimate, but based on square footage, we anticipate a cost of approximately $1.25 million to get the training center operational. We do not have the funds available at this time in the sales tax fund to cover this expense, so we will be relying on an appropriation from the general fund in 2025 if this is approved,” Baker said.

He said the department is projecting the second precinct portion of the project to be somewhere around $4 million.

“That’s a high estimate. We are planning and hoping to leverage grant funds available for establishing a real-time crime information center to help complete that project in 2026 or 2027,” Baker said.

The Board of Directors approved spending $2.85 million to buy a former Crain-Kia dealership in south Fort Smith on March 26 with the plan to use the property for a police precinct and consolidated maintenance facility. Located at 8200 U.S. Highway 71 S., the more than 4.4-acre property at the former car dealership has three structures. Two structures will be used for a Fort Smith Police Department precinct and training facility. A third structure, which was an auto service center for the dealership, will become a consolidated maintenance facility for all city vehicles.

A former restaurant on Burrough Road, also in south Fort Smith, was acquired for $575,000 in November 2023 to be used as the police department’s southern precinct. That building will now be used as a dedicated 911 call center. Funding for work on the 911 center will be supported with funds from Sebastian County, according to the city.

OTHER BUDGET ITEMS
“Another expense we said we would use the sales tax money for is the Axon (Enterprises, Inc.) contract. This $750,000 annual expense covers all the equipment, software and data storage for our body cams, in-car cams and tasers,” Baker said.

The department also has vehicle needs, particularly in patrol, field operations and special operations, he said.

“Ideally, we should be replacing all primary police vehicles at 100,000 miles of service. We have not been able to get enough new vehicles in a fleet to do that. As more patrol officers who live in the city are allowed to take patrol vehicles home, we expect to start seeing longer service times for each of these vehicles,” Baker said, adding he hopes to add five primary police vehicles in 2025.

The CIP calls for spending $400,000 on vehicle replacement in 2025 and 2027, $260,000 in 2026 and 2028 and $200,000 in 2029. There is no funding requested for replacement of vehicles in the criminal investigation department in 2025, but there is $60,000 estimated for replacement of speciality vehicles – animal service, motorcycles, bicycles and vehicles for the downtown ambassadors.

The department is also looking at spending $100,000 in 2025 for additional Flock license plate readers, which will bring the department’s number of those from 21 to 31, according to the CIP.

“We must attempt to utilize technology in a way that is consistent with law and protecting privacy rights of citizens. Our Flock license plate reader project, while still in infancy and not fully implemented, has already resulted in solving numerous serious crimes for the city and holding individuals accountable for their actions,” Baker said. “I hope to add even more of these around the city in the coming year, eventually including gunshot detection into those systems.”

The CIP also calls for $64,600 for officer equipment replacement in 2025. But Baker said a grant will cover at least some of those purchases, so that amount needed will not be that high.