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2018 election, tight budget topics for Quorum Court

Johnathan Reaves, KASU News
Craighead County Quorum Court.

Arkansas State University may not have a polling site for the mid-term elections.  Craighead County Clerk Kade Holliday says a lack of a road near the Military Science Building, and lack of parking, made it difficult for voters to cast their ballots.  

Holliday told justices on the Quorum Court that other options within the University would be discussed before Arkansas State was totally taken out of consideration for the 2018 election cycle.

Holliday says the Super Polling places would reduce the number of precincts that people could go to in order to vote.  The number of polls could drop from 20 to 15.  The discussions about new voting machines and Super Polling Places will likely take place in the summer.  

In other news, Craighead County's Treasurer says he is very concerned about whether or not all of the departments will have enough in their budget to make it through the year end.  Terry McNatt says as of right now, 78 percent of the allotted budget has been used, with 22% remaining.  

McNatt told the Craighead County Quorum Court the needed revenue to cover the remaining expenses is too close for comfort.  He says there is only $3.2 million in project revenue to cover the costs of operating departments.  Those costs could be about that amount of slightly more than that. 

McNatt says departments that are very close to running out of money include the Craighead County Cooperative Extension Service, the County Health Department, and the money the Circuit Clerk uses to pay bailiffs.  He says the county's 911 has been about $200,000 in the red.  

Special ordinances called "clean up" ordinances are usually passed to take allocated funds to cover the deficit.  Justice Garry Meadows suggested a workshop take place soon involving all of the county's mayors to look at how to keep the system in the black.  

Such a workshop could take place next year after the Arkansas General Assembly deals with 911 funding across the state.  

 

Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.