Tammy Curtis, Managing Editor
County Treasurer Wanda Girtman was the star of the show, at the February meeting of the Sharp County Quorum Court. She explained that March 1 is the day the county makes their bond payment on the jail. She said on Sept. 1 when the next payment is due, the county will only owe $1,075,000 and should be able to pay off the jail debt nine years early.
“When we make the first payment in September, we should be able to pay off the jail.” Treasurer Girtman explained that this is all contingent on the bond attorney’s advice. She doesn’t foresee any issue with the early payoff.
“Sometime we will have to notify the state we will have to stop collecting the tax because we will not need it.”
Girtman told the court that sales tax revenue runs two months behind, so if the county ceases to collect the half cent sales tax on July 1, it will still receive May and June sales tax revenue.
When they started the bonds, they set up a special, DSR Fund. The fund has around $395,000 in it. It was required to be created at the onset of the bond if the county could not make a payment. “So when we get ready for the final payment, that DSR money will move over to help make that final payment. So with that said, we’re only going to need about $700,000 to make that final payment, and some money for interest. It’s done really well, we will be debt free, except for a couple of road graders,” Girtman explained. She said there will be some left, but not a significant amount.
Justices asked questions about the timeframe for the state notifying businesses to cease their collection of the half cent sales tax. Girtman said the bond attorney would answer those questions and advise how to proceed. She also explained some businesses are late in paying their sales tax, but even after the collection period ends, they are required to pay the tax and that revenue, however small it may be, will also come into the county.
Sheriff Russell provided an update from the Sheriff’s Department and jail, including informing the court of the total grants his department brought in to the county in 2024 was $225,864, this included $180,872 written by Jail Administrator Edith Elliot.
Sheriff Russell said, “The total grants received was $180,872 because our jail administrator, Edith, was able to write the grants in such a way that we didn’t get deductions off them. If you’re familiar with grants, you send them in, they start deducting points for things that are not correct, or that’s just not right, that they’re not accepting or whatever. The one that we received for $75,000 from the Department of Public Safety, took them several days to go over it, and for a few days, we were number one. Had not had any deductions off that grant, and ended up there. From what I gather, I got first hand news that there was only two that did not have any deductions. It was done without any failure or misinformation. She does an excellent job and at some point we probably need to give her an award. The other thing is, I wish Edith were here to explain to you the this compliance report for 24 compliance for jail standards is it’s very timely. There’s a lot to it. These people have gone above and beyond this year. Well, if you can see in December, the compliance was at 99.68 percent… that’s really close to 100. The year end, average was 90.35 percent. I don’t know if we would be number one in the state, but if not, we would be really, really close with a figure like that. I’ve been to a couple of their meetings in Little Rock and with that being said, a lot of your jails fall down in the 50 – 60 percent compliance rate, which is unacceptable. They say if you’re 80 or above, they are doing pretty well,” Russell explained of his jail.
In years past before Russell’s administration, the compliance was much lower than the 50-60 percent compliance rate, based on published reports.
Treasurer Girtman explained that as much as she hated to ask the court, she would need a new server for her office. “There’s me, my deputy, and girl, and Alisa’s office that does bills and payroll are on that server. I’m needing just short of $36,000 for all the equipment and all I do not have that kind of money in my budget to where I can scrimp and save and hopefully pay for it without it’s not going to affect county general fund anyway.
My budget is commissioned, but so it’s paid for revenues. I need your blessing to be able to do this. I don’t have a line item in my county general budget for equipment, so we have to add a line item to my county general budget of $36,000 to be able to do this.”
The court voted unanimously to allow her to purchase the server.
The Sharp County Quorum Court meets the second Monday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Sharp County Courthouse in Ash Flat. The public is always welcome to attend.
