By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
Only $100,000 of a county certificate of deposit could actually be used by county officials to shore up the county's general fund.
According to Quorum Court Justice Regan Hill, the CD and a trust fund were established as ways for the county to save money after changes had been made during an earlier administration.
"At one point and time we had county dumpsters located throughout the county, and we were paying $200,000 a year to dump those dumpsters. The government came in and told us that if we were going to have these dumpsters then we would have to fence them in and place a guard at them for eight hours a day. We decided it would be better to put some of the money into a trust fund, and we saved, in a very short period of time, to do some things to help the county that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise," said Hill.
According to a balance sheet report from St. Francis County Treasurer Ann Harbin $481,901 is listed as the County CD. However, according to Harbin, only $100,000 of that money is allocated for the general fund. The CD account is separated into four different accounts, the county trust fund, NEARCO, road equipment and Act 768, and the differing accounts can't be used for anything other than assigned purposes.
"We list all of our CDs together but only one of the CDs could go toward county general. That CD is for $100,000. We also have a NEARCO CD for $60,000, a road equipment CD at $217,935.37 and a CD for $103,965.63, which belongs to the circuit clerks office for data processing," said Harbin.
"We do have $481,901 in CDs but the majority of that money is earmarked, and can't be used for anything but the accounts that it's earmarked for," said Harbin.
According to Hill, although the county doesn't want to touch either the trust fund or the county CD, if push came to shove, the county could access money that is in the trust fund account.
"If we needed to, there is money that we could get to in the trust fund that we would not be penalized for. I believe there's a little over $120,000 in the fund that we could get to and we wouldn't touch the county CD at all," said Hill.
The county removed funds from the trust fund earlier this year according to Hill to shore up the county general account.
"If I'm not mistaken, in January, we took $125,000 to shore up county general. I know for a fact that two weeks ago another $40,000 was taken out of county general. I do not recall or remember if we have taken any other money out of the trust fund," said Hill.
The new budget changes are also going to be a point of interest for the quorum court. An increase in budget committee meetings may be able to help control some of the spending in county general, which Hill says is not wasteful spending. The budget meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 26, in the county judge's office.
"What we're looking to do is help control our spending. When I look at the bills, there's not one that I see that is wasteful spending. There's nothing that I see that makes you say why did you buy this. We've lived well for the past couple of years and we're at a point now where our spending is greater than our revenue," said Hill.
"I just wish people could understand why we're at this point," said Hill. "Three years ago we had a reappraisal of the county that we budgeted $300,000 to do but it ended up costing us $415,000, and a portion of that was repaid by the schools. But, I don't know if we've really felt the full effect on what that has done to county finances.
"Then we had $114,000 less money in taxes which didn't help. We also don't know what the $300 (homeowners tax exemption) is doing to us, and we won't know. We haven't been making drastic budget changes. Our budgets over the last five years don't have much difference in them whatsoever. We have a number of things that have caused changes in the budget that right now we have to tackle and get a handle on," Hill said.
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
Beginning July 1, child support money being held out of paychecks by employers will be traveling a different route than it has been.
The office of the Circuit Clerk in each county has been handling the money.
"A check comes in to us on Monday, we process it and it goes out in the mail that afternoon," said Bette Green, circuit clerk for St. Francis County. "Usually, if it's local, the recipients should have their checks within a couple of days."
With July 1, child support payments will be received by the Arkansas Child Support Clearinghouse in Little Rock.
"The idea is to centralize," said Green.
However, in a recent written statement, Green said "I regret that this will change the method in which custodial parents receive their support payments."
When asked, Green responded that she wasn't convinced that the change will be for the best.
"Not really," she said. "Because just from handling one county, I know the volume of work that St. Francis County has. We have a tremendous number of payments that come through on wage assignments (deducted by employers).
"I know the time that is involved in processing these payments just in St. Francis county. I can only imagine what it would be like in a centralized location, handling 75 counties."
So far this year, Green said, her office has handled 602 wage assignments, totaling just over $86,000.
The need for wage assignments is real, according to Green. Usually court-ordered, a wage assignment not only insures that the custodial parent will receive the money, but it also makes it easier for the non-custodial parent.
"It takes the non-custodial parent out of having to physically handle it. It's automatically done."
Green said with all the money going to and coming from a central location, there may be an increase in turn-round time -- the time between the deduction of the money and the when the custodial parent receives it.
There is currently an administrative fee, mandated by law, of $36 a year, or $4 a month, for having the money handled locally. Green said she didn't know if the charge would be continued.
Dan McDonald, administrator of the Office of Child Support Enforcement in Little Rock, said the annual $36 administrative fee would continue to be charged. He said it would be billed annually to the non-custodial parent.
And while the turnaround time may be a little longer, it won't be much longer, he said.
"We're required by federal law to disperse a payment within 48 hours upon receipt of that payment," he said. He said the 48 hours actually translated to two business days, so over a weekend the wait will be longer.
LITTLE ROCK -- Arkansas' most famous rapist, castrated before he went to prison, was arrested in Missouri on a parole violation after being linked to a murder case, a corrections official said Monday.
Wayne Dumond, 51, was arrested early Saturday. A spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections said police suspect Dumond had a hand in a Kansas City-area murder.
''There was significant evidence that indicated he is involved in this murder,'' Missouri corrections department spokesman Tim Kniest said. ''They believed they had overwhelming evidence that he was involved in the murder.''
Smithville (Mo.) Police Chief Ken Wilson said Kansas City investigators picked up Dumond in Smithville on Friday and took him to Kansas City for questioning.
Kansas City police spokesman Steve Young said Monday that Dumond was being held only on a parole violation, but confirmed that Dumond is being questioned in a murder case.
''I can't tell you any more than that now,'' Young said.
No agency would release details about the killing, citing the ongoing investigation.
''The reason we issued a parole violation warrant was based on evidence concerning his suspicion as a suspect in this case,'' Kniest said.
The Arkansas Department of Community Punishment, which supervises parolees in state, said it is not involved in the Dumond case.
''We don't have a role at this point. Once an offender transfers out of state, that offender is supervised by probation and parole officials in that state,'' spokeswoman Rhonda Sharp said.
Dumond was being held Monday at the Clay County jail. Clay County is just north of Kansas City.
Dumond was convicted in the 1984 rape of Ashley Stevens, a 17-year-old high school cheerleader from Forrest City.
While awaiting trial, DuMond was castrated at his home, he said by masked men. No one was ever arrested in the attack.
Dumond was sentenced to life plus 20 years, but in 1992 Gov. Jim Guy Tucker commuted the sentence to 39 years and six months. Shortly after taking office in 1996, Gov. Mike Huckabee said he had ''serious questions'' about Dumond's guilt and began the process to let Dumond go free.
He reconsidered after protests by the victim's family and state legislators and withdrew the plan after the state parole board said it would free Dumond if another state would take him.
Texas and Florida both rejected parole plans and Dumond remained in prison until the state parole board granted his release in 1999.
Workers with the Forrest City Water Department spent a portion of Saturday making repairs to a water line that burst at a section of piping near the Forrest City/Highway 1 bypass work on U.S. Highway 70.
According to Jim Beazley, FCWD manager, the problem occurred late Saturday afternoon, and kept Forrest City and St. Francis County FCWD customers west of the construction site without water for close to 30 minutes.
"We had the line that runs north and south near the bypass simply snap. We turned all water off at the main and got a crew down there to make the repairs as quickly as possible. I was told that services were off for 15 to 30 minutes at the most," said Beazley.
According to Beazley, although he wasn't sure, construction near the pipe may have lead to the line snapping.
"With all the heavy machinery and all the work that's going on down there this isn't something surprising. We don't know exactly what caused the line to burst, but it may have been anything such as too much stress to the line being moved. Once it settled, it just burst. We just don't know," he said.
Forrest City School District Superintendent Lee Vent returned to work this morning after spending a week undergoing tests at a Memphis hospital.
Vent was hospitalized after passing out in his office last Monday. He was hospitalized at Baptist East in Memphis through Friday.
The superintendent said he probably wouldn't work a full schedule this week. "I'm taking it easy right now, easing in and out of the office. I feel good, but I'm trying to watch it."
As for his hospital stay, Vent said doctors still haven't determined exactly what happened. "The jury is still out on a couple of tests."
"It was quite an experience," Vent said of his attack last week. "I really appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers that were sent my way, and all of acts of kindness shown to us in many, many ways. We have just been inundated with calls, flowers and cards.