By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
A pair of St. Francis County Quorum Court Justices met this morning with the county's six elected officials to begin hammering out budget requests for 2002.
The current plan gives elected officials a bottom line figure they can use to operate their departments after salaries, fringes and utilities have been budgeted.
"These are the figures the elected officials and the departments are going to have to work with, and we want you to take these figures and budget them as you see fit. This is broken down into the percentages used by all of the departments that draw out of county general. Those percentages will be used to break down our projected revenue," said justice Regan Hill.
"We're wanting to have our auditor come in and take a look at this, tell us where we can make cuts and let us know what needs to be done. Right now we want you to take this budget and see what you can do with it," said budget committee chairman O.J. Gandy.
Much of this morning's conversation centered around problems that a projected budget plan, which would only place $47,970.87 in the county's jail account for the year, would create. According to St. Francis County Sheriff Dave Parkman, those figures could not be met and also keep the jail up and running.
"If this is what we have to actually work with, you can just forget it. You can't run a jail on this. This will just buy food for five months and that's all. We average 110 inmates or more a day, and that costs us $3.51 per prisoner per day to operate the kitchen. That includes the salaries for the cooks and the food and the utensils in the kitchen. That $3.51 per day is with us cutting things as close as we can," said Parkman.
"There's just one way for us to do this with this budget the way that it is, and that's to start letting people out of the jail, because if you can't feed them, you can't hold them. We won't have enough money to feed them let alone maintain the jail, and I'm not going to accept a budget when I know it won't work. Everyone in this room knows it won't work," Parkman added.
There was some talk of adding three mills to the county's road tax, but St. Francis County Judge Carl Cisco said the tax increase would only benefit the road department and that he would not support the increase without a vote on the issue.
"I'm not going to increase the mills because that won't help the situation with the general account. An increase would really only benefit the road department, and I don't like the idea of adding the three mills without this going before the people of St. Francis County. I just won't do that," Cisco said.
Officials agreed to continue discussions on next years budget next week.
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
To some misguided people, phoning in a bomb threat or false alarm is funny. However, law enforcement officials and firefighters are not amused by such shenanigans, and those who do it can face jail time.
"Phoning in a bomb threat is a Class D felony," said Lt. Dwight Duch of the Forrest City Police Department. "You can get up to six years."
That's for an adult or for a juvenile charged as an adult. A juvenile goes into the juvenile justice system.
A recent rash of telephoned bomb threats has police looking for the caller with a special message: "That wasn't funny."
Some of the bomb threats took place earlier this week. Sgt. Debra Ford, working the dispatch center received four telephone calls about bomb threats.
According to a police report, the first call came in at 12:55 p.m. At that time, a male caller stated that a bomb was in Locker 931 at Forrest City High School. The same person called back at 12:58, reporting a bomb in Forrest City.
At 1 p.m., the same person called again, saying, "You must think I'm lying." This time, the caller said he was going to blow up East Arkansas Community College.
The fourth call came in at 1:09 p.m. This time the same caller said he was going to "start off with the Forest City High School" and then he was going to try and get Forrest Hills Elementary.
Officers with the Forrest City Fire and Police departments were dispatched to the schools which had been threatened, within a few minutes of each call. Each campus was checked and no explosive devices were found.
So far, the caller has not been identified. However, the case is still under investigation.
By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
Work on the Circuit Courtroom at the St. Francis County Courthouse is expected to be completed by next Friday.
The job completion will allow Circuit Court to begin its next term in its regular upstairs courtroom after eight months of being shuffled around because of a March fire that destroyed the jury room and damaged several other areas at the courthouse.
The fire was ruled arson after police determined a teenager had set fire to some paper in the corner of the jury room.
St. Francis County Judge's Office Chief of Staff Tracy Teal said workers with Metro should be finished next week.
"Right now we're expecting everything to be done when they leave next Friday. There are some small things, of course, that will have to be finished after they leave, but as a whole we're expecting to begin court upstairs on Nov. 5," said Teal.
Workers will be installing windows today and will be sprucing up paint work and putting carpet in the jury room and portions of the courtroom next week. According to Teal, some cosmetic changes also will be taking place in the courtroom.
"We've installed some desk areas in the courtroom which will make things easier for some of the court officers. There are a pair of new desk areas for the bailiff (SFC Chief Deputy H.N. Green) and the Circuit Clerk (Bette Green) as well as a desk for Circuit Court Coordinator Shannon Bonds. We're also changing the tile in the outer area of the courtroom and adding new chairs for the jury," Teal said.
"We've always had one of the nicer courtrooms in the area, and now we feel like we're making it even better," Teal added.
The November term of court will begin with civil cases on Nov. 5, with circuit cases beginning on Nov. 13. Civil cases will pick up again the last week of November and the term will end with more criminal cases from Dec. 3 through Dec. 7.
Mueller Industries, Inc., headquartered in Memphis, announced Thursday that a major expansion at its plant in Wynne will create an estimated 60 new jobs.
The plant currently produces copper tubing.
In 1998, Mueller acquired the Halstead copper tube mill in Wynne. The existing plant is 682,000 square feet.
The announcement was made during a ceremony at the Wynne plant Thursday morning.
Gov. Mike Huckabee released a statement concerning the expansion, saying, "This announcement demonstrates how cooperation between the public and private sectors can lead to greater prosperity for Arkansans and continued success for the businesses that operate here. With more than $1 billion in annual sales, this is a company with a track record of success. The fact Mueller has chosen to expand here says a lot."
St. Francis County had an unemployment rate of 7.4 percent in September, according to the Arkansas Employment Security Department.
The figure was down one-tenth of a point from the 7.5 percent recorded in August, but up from 7 percent in September of last year.
According to the figures, during September, St. Francis County had a civilian labor force of 12,100, with 11,200 working and 900 not working. In spite of the decrease from August, St. Francis still had the ninth highest unemployment in the state.
Only one county had an unemployment rate over 10 percent. That was Mississippi County, with 11.9 percent. There were seven counties with rates at 8 percent or higher.
Benton and Washington Counties, both at 2 percent, had the lowest unemployment in the county. Eight counties had unemployment rates lower than 3 percent.
Rates in surrounding counties were as follows: Cross, 5.7 percent; Crittenden, 5.5 percent; Lee, 6.6 percent; Phillips, 8.3 percent; Monroe, 5.7 percent; and Woodruff, 5.4 percent.
Statewide, the unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, up three-tenths of a percent from August.
Village Creek State Park will have an old-fashioned evening of family entertainment with a Halloween party on Saturday, Oct. 27, at 6:30 p.m., at the north campground.
There will be a Halloween cartoon under the stars, hot chocolate, kettle corn, candy and a Halloween pinata. Guests are also invited to meet some of the park's resident ghouls and goblins.
Guests can bring their own lawn chairs and/or blankets. Costumes are optional and there will be a costume contest for the children.
Registration must be made in advance and the fee is $2 per person. For more information, call Vicki Trimble, park interpreter at 238-9406.
The park is located about 15 miles north of Forrest City.