The Pine Bluff Public Safety Committee met Wednesday afternoon to discuss a 3/8 cent sales tax to financially support the city’s fire and police departments.
Both departments need new equipment, enhanced training and an adopted salary schedule. Based on sales tax receipts from 2022, a 3/8-cent sales tax is projected to yield $3 million annually for public safety.
At the forefront of Wednesday’s meeting was the need for new fire training facility in Pine Bluff to better train firefighters to protect citizens and first responders.
Pine Bluff Fire Chief Shawn Howell and Ernest Jones, assistant fire chief, gave a PowerPoint presentation to the committee highlighting the problems facing the department, including a 60-year-old rickety training tower with disintegrating stairs and rusted beams and an ongoing flooding problem at the current facility located on West 7th Street.
Jones explained the pressing issues facing the Pine Bluff Fire Department.
Since 2017, a five-eighths-cent citywide sales tax has been in place to pay for several Go Forward projects that enhances life in Pine Bluff while generating new businesses. That tax sunsets next year. An election for renewal of that tax for another seven years is May 9.
The three-eighths-cent sales tax for public safety is also on the ballot on May 9. If approved, that tax would not expire.
