Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – Dec. 11, 2024 – The Quorum Court approved an appropriation ordinance for the Craighead County 2025 annual operating budget on Monday.
The budget will see just under a $2 million increase, with the amount requested for 2025 coming in at $71,292,890.11. Last year’s budget was $69,278,226.86.
The appropriation ordinance was first brought before the Quorum Court in its last meeting on Nov. 25. Discussion of the ordinance was tabled for Monday’s meeting on Dec. 9.
Craighead County government employees will see a 3% increase in their salaries. This includes the County Judge, Clerk, Treasurer, Collector, Assessor, Quorum Court members and Sheriff’s Department, among others.
The budget allocates for the hiring of a few new county employees, including a custodian and two bailiffs for the Craighead County Courthouse Annex addition. It will also allocate for the permanent hiring of three officers in the Sheriff’s Department.
Currently, these positions are grant-funded but they will expire soon. At the Nov. 25 meeting, Sheriff Marty Boyd said the Sheriff’s Department was looking to keep those employees on staff after the grants expired. These positions are a crisis intervention and training stabilization officer, an addiction specialist and a fentanyl overdose investigator.
“In those salary positions that we’ve asked to maintain, we have two different grants right now that’s funding three different positions,” Boyd said.
The total amount requested by the Sheriff’s Office is over $5.1 million and it includes funding for new four vehicles. Boyd said his office typically asks for this number to ensure the fleet stays current.
The new budget allocated $148,000 for the purchase of a full-body scanner in the Craighead County Detention Center.
“We’re just having a lot of challenges with people hiding drugs, paraphernalia, whatnot on their bodies and they’re not catching it with a conventional search,” said Craighead County Judge Marvin Day at the Nov. 25 meeting. “If there’s tools that can help there that we can keep a drug addict from sticking a drug end to hurt himself, we should do it.”
There is also $622,342.35 set aside for improvements to the Craighead County Detention Center. This comes after a measure to implement a 0.5% sales tax to either build a new jail or expand the current one failed in the general election.
“Quite honestly, there were some projects that we hoped would get to put into the tax that didn’t pass, so now we’re gonna have to do it,” Day said.
These improvements include replacing the damaged ceiling in one of the barracks and kitchen drain.
In the Dec. 9 meeting, District 2 Justice of the Peace Garrett Barnes said he would like to see the 2026 budget allocate funds for a “plan for the detention center.”
“This is the single greatest need that we’re facing in this county, this next year that we’re doing everything that we can as a body that the county has the resources to fund the plan,” Barnes said. “It would help tremendously to have a plan that we can bring to the people and get feedback from the employees of the county, as well as citizens and taxpayers.”
All members present at the Dec. 9 meeting voted to approve the ordinance. District 4 Justice of the Peace Linda Allison was absent.
Click here to see a complete list of all the differences between the 2025 and 2024 budgets.