The Garland County Quorum Court will consider appropriating the remainder of the county’s $12.4 million share of the $54.7 million bond issue voters authorized in a June 2016 special election tonight.
Most of the proceeds provided $30 million toward the $87 million extension of the King Expressway that opened in September 2023. The 5.8-mile, two-lane highway connected the Highway 70 east interchange to the junction of highways 5 and 7 north, decreasing travel time between Hot Springs Village and Hot Springs.
An interlocal agreement distributed the balance to the county and its incorporated areas on a per capita basis.
“It’s the last of the money that’s left in the Pave it Forward program,” County Judge Darryl Mahoney, referring to the campaign that advocated for the reauthorization of the 0.625% countywide sales tax that secured the bonds, told the quorum court’s Finance Committee last week.
“We expect by the end of the year to have that used up on the bridge projects we have going right now. We still owe them roughly $3 million on the bridges they’re operating on right now,” he said.
The sales tax paid the bonds off in early 2022, a year ahead of the schedule underwriters projected when they sold the debt in late 2016. Collections outperformed projections, allowing surplus collections to fund the debt service reserve and trustees to call the bonds before they reached maturity.
Underwriters said the projected 2023 payoff was based on zero growth from what the sales tax collected when it was servicing more than $41 million in debt that financed the construction of the Garland County Detention Center that opened in 2015. Underwriters said taxpayers paid more than $4.5 million in interest on the $54.7 million principal.
The more than $4 million in excess collections were distributed to the county and its incorporated areas on a per capita basis. The county has been using its share on road and bridge improvements.
Thirty seven months of remittances from the county’s share of the second reauthorization of the tax voters approved in a February 2022 special election have returned more than $33 million for the county road and bridge fund, according to a report presented to the Finance Committee. The county received the first payment in September 2022.
The ballot title voters endorsed by a narrow margin pledged the proceeds to the repair and replacement of existing roads and bridges in the county and city of Hot Springs’ 1,000-mile road network.
Per the ballot title, the tax will sunset in June 2027.
