The long awaited completion of the structural engineering report from Garver and Garver Engineering is expected to reach the county offices and the Pulaski County Quorum Court by Friday January 4th at 4:00 PM.

This report will determine if the roof on the old jail building can be repaired or if that section of the jail building will have to be torn down and rebuilt. Previous estimates were that the costs were going to be in the range of 1.3 million dollars to repair the roof and replace the boilers for the heat and air. Based on what it cost for Faulkner county to build a new facility in Conway, it would cost between 4 and 5 million for a 200 bed facility.

I will have much more once I have a chance to read the report.

Allen Kerr

New Years Day is my favorite holiday and one of my favorite times of the year! Its the time of starting over with an entire years worth of exciting possibilities ahead. The time to clean the slate and old acquaintance be forgot to quote the song.

The New Year is an equalizing time, in that we all have the same number of months, the same number of days and hours to do with as we wish and to reach for the stars and achieve anything we dream of.

It is the time of new plans and new resolutions and our chance to change our lives for the better, whether that means with relationships or financially or maybe the opportunity to give of yourself for a worthy cause. We each have 365 days and we need to make sure that we wake up each and every one of those days eager to make the best of it. There will never be another one just exactly like it!

2008 will be filled with many different and unique events, of this you can be sure. And, for Americans, 2008 will be an election year and I am willing to bet one of the most eventful and historic years we have had in a long time. What ever the out come we will be privileged once again to witness and participate in one of the greatest freedoms we have in this country and that is the democratic process of free elections. What ever your opinion of politics or the elections, it is wonderful to live in a country where you can HAVE an opinion without living in fear.

So, Happy New Year! May your year be filled with infinite possibilities and you achieve all of your dreams!

CLICK HERE to read the Arkansas Democrat/Gazette article about the Moratorium on lake projects.

Click here to watch the Fox 16 video on jail repair progress.

Click here moratorium%20ordinance%20%283%29.doc to review a copy of the ordinance affecting the Lake Maumelle watershed in which so many of you have expressed an interest. This ordinance will come up for a vote at the full Quorum Court later this month.

As the engineering firm of Garver and Garver continues their assessment of the old jail building, there have been some issues come up that may limit the possibility of repairing the roof. This damage has been growing for about 10 years and in that time a lot of things have changed.

Due to changes in the city construction codes, it may not be feasible for the roof to be repaired. If that is the case, we may have to come up with plan B. This might be the construction of a temporary steel building to house prisoners until a permanent facility can be built. This should not cost much more than the repair of the roof. The county would then have the time to demolish the old section of the jail and build a new one.

The great thing about this is once a permanent facility is built, we will have two work centers instead of just one. At that point, our capacity will have grown by 400 jail beds instead of the 300 we would have by repairing the roof. However, it all comes down to finding the funds to support the staff and daily expenses of those extra beds. I am continuing to pour over the expenses to find areas where we can save money in order to house more prisoners.

Its the time of year for reflection. I think if more people in politics and government did more of that, maybe things would get accomplished better and faster. So here are a few thoughts for today to reflect upon.

When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.
--Kikuyu Proverb

And speaking of grass; The grass may be greener on the other side, but it still has to be mowed.

In essence, I believe it all boils down to leadership. So the following is very true; Do not follow where the path may lead--- go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Happy Holidays
Allen Kerr

CLICK HERE; http://parkedplaces.com/karn/audiodownloads/2007/elswick/120307allenkerr.mp3 to listen to Allen's December 3rd interview with Dave Elswick (KARN).

Or, CLICK HERE http://www.littlerockfamily.com/story.asp?sID=800 to read the HOME SAFE HOME article in the Little Rock Family Magazine.

The 2008 county budget passes with flying colors!

When the dust cleared in February, it looked like we had over projected our revenue by close to 5 million dollars. Which meant we were 5 million in the red and projected expenditures were well over 100% of that revenue figure. However, by the end of 2007, we are projecting a carryover of approximately 2.6 million on the plus side. And we have made great strides toward getting back to budgeting within the mandated 90% of our revenue and the 2008 budget should be within 93%.

This is the result of the combined efforts of the county employees and department heads as well as the public officials all working together!

I am especially thankful to Comptroller Mike Hutchens and his staff for collecting and collating the budget information and putting it in a form that all could easily understand. Because of this, I was able to move the budget through committee and ready for full Quorum Court consideration a full month earlier to pass when it is normally done in late December.

Due to salary sweeps from the unfilled positions we were able to present a 3% bonus to the county employees for all the hard work they have done to pick up the slack and take on those additional duties from those positions.

This budget also includes a 3% coulter upgrade for the employees as well as a 2% across the board living increase. This again was due to the Employees and Department heads working together to keep their 2008 budgets under the 2007 levels and many cut their budgets by tens of thousands of dollars.

Public safety is the largest portion of the budget and the sheriff has done an outstanding job with keeping their costs down and housing on a daily basis many more prisoners than they had budgeted for. In 2008, we have budgeted for 800 beds with an option for 80 more beds upon the financial commitment of the cities to contribute as they did in 2007.

We are not out of the woods yet. We still have a long way to go. But, if we can do as well in 2008 as we did this year, we will be well on our way to a healthy financial position and gaining back the public trust.

Only because of EVERYONES cooperation and working together to hold the line on expenses were we able to come this far.

On the evening of November 27th I am proud to say that, with only 2 minutes of consideration, the 2008 budget was unanimously passed by the Full Quorum Court.