MONEY WOES IN POPE COUNTY work Making it
Unopposed county judge faces tough economy
By Sara Greene
LITTLE ROCK — It’s personal-property tax time across the state, and the same tough economic decisions facing residents also face community stewards like Pope County Judge Jim Ed Gibson.
“When I started in politics, gas was 55 cents a gallon and 33 cents for diesel. Having a balanced budget when you don’t know what the economy is going to do is hard for families and hard for the county,” Gibson said.
He has spent nearly a quarter of century in public office and has no plans of retiring. Gibson served 14 years on the Pope County Quorum Court and has served 10 years as the county judge. He is running unopposed for his sixth term.
Pope County, which is about 821 square miles, has 54,469 residents and an annual budget of about $18 million. Part ofbeing a county judge is keeping an eye on the financial bottom line of all the county departments, such as the road department, which has about 100 of the county’s 225 employees.
“Gravel, pipe, asphalt, everything we touch for roads is affected by the cost of petroleum,” Gibson said. “We buy fuel in bulk, but we’ve had to reduce manpower through a hiring freeze at the road department to offset the cost of fuel,” Gibson said.
Roads in the county have been hit hard by weather in recent years. In his office on a sunny September day, Gibson, 60, recounts some of the natural disasters that have struck the county - the ice storm in 2000, spring flooding earlier this year and two fatal tornadoes.
Repairing roads and bridges, in some cases multiple times because of the flooding this spring, cost the county $1.7 million.
“It put a strain on us, but we qualified for FEMA assistance. Cleanup after the tornado cost the county $200,000, and we received FEMA assistance for that, too. It takes time. You have to keep good records on every load of gravel and work through the process of the paperwork,” Gibson said.
The disasters haven’t just been natural. Some were manmade.
In August, Pilgrim’s Pride, which is a chicken processing company, announced it was closing its plant in Clinton and a feed mill in Atkins.
Gibson said that news affected about 100 chicken growers in Pope County and about 30 feed mills-employees in Atkins, as well as grain farmers who sell to the feed mill.
“Each morning about 6:30 a.m. I go to the road department to review requests and talk about the day-to-day operations. When someone requests road repairs, we try to return the call that same day, but it may take a couple of days before we can get out to look at it and decide what to do,” Gibson said.
Occasionally a resident will comment about road repairs or other county services.
“I have tell people our checkbook is just like your checkbook. We only have X number of dollars to do with,” Gibson said.
Some residents complain that heavy trucks and other machinery used in the natural-gas exploration are tearing up the county roads.
“They (the natural-gas companies) have to use our roads to get out there and do the drilling. If they mess up the road, I contact them, and they’ve been good about repairing the roads,” Gibson said.
Before becoming judge, Gibson worked 16 years for Texas Oil and Gas on the Ozark Transmission System, which is a natural-gas pipeline running through Arkansas.
Gibson said while some roads do get damaged and repaired by the natural-gas industry, the exploration has also been a blessing to the county; however, it doesn’t mean residents aren’t worried about gas prices and jobsecurity.
“I think the economy in general is the biggest problem facing residents in Pope County and across America. Taxes areon everybody’s minds right now and layoffs are the biggest worry looming in the back of a lot of people’s minds,” Gibson said.
Rita Chandler is the tax collector for Pope County.
“I hear a lot the elderly who are on fixed incomes voice their concerns about their taxes going up, but their incomes are staying the same. They’re concerned it’s coming to the point where they have to decide ‘Do I pay my taxes or buy groceries?’ or ‘Do pay my taxes or buy medicine?’ It’s not just the elderly, young married couples are having a tough time making ends meet with gas prices,” Chandler said. Real property taxes are based on 20 percent of the appraised value of property multiplied by the millage rate, which includes school and county millages. The 2007 millage rates for Pope County, which include school district millages, are Atkins, 38.66; Dover, 45.0; Hector, 40.32; Pottsville, 49.70, and Russellville, 45.30.
This article was published Sunday, October 5, 2008.
River Valley Ozark, Pages 133, 144 on 10/05/2008
