Jim Watts

Voters in the northwest Arkansas town of Farmington will vote May 18 on a 1% sales tax hike to support $1.4 million of bonds. Proceeds would finance construction of a proposed baseball complex.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe last week authorized the release of rainy-day funds and other financial transfers to avoid significant cuts in agency budgets due to an unanticipated shortfall in April revenue.

Trustees of Maricopa County Unified School District 48 voted last week to seek community support for a proposed $130 million general obligation bond package to renovate and repair facilities in the district, that serves the city of Scottsdale and portions of Phoenix, Paradise Valley, and Tempe.

DALLAS — The Kansas Senate on Wednesday approved a $13.6 billion general fund budget for fiscal 2011 that will require lawmakers to raise taxes by at least $350 million.

The Slidell City Council has decided to allocate $10 million of bonds approved by voters in October toward street repairs in hopes that the federal government will give the city $16 million that it can use for flood protection projects.

DALLAS — The Kansas Senate’s Ways and Means Committee has endorsed the largest tax hike in state history, a $434 million package of measures aimed at easing a revenue shortfall that keeps getting worse.

An increase in commercial property valuations in Travis County will compensate for a slight drop in the value of single-family homes in the county that includes Austin, according to the latest figures from the Travis Central Appraisal District. Tax notices were mailed to property owners last week.

Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett said the $555.3 million budget he presented to City Council members last week is “bare bones,” but urged consideration of new revenue measures in the proposed spending plan.

Tony Mastin, administrator of the Oklahoma Tax Commission, told lawmakers last week that existing income tax credits designed to spur investments cost the state more than $100 million a year in lost revenue.

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City received the first payment last week from a new casino being built at Kansas Speedway, several days before ground was broken for the new facility.

Topeka city councilors last week killed a plan to refinance some $23 million in outstanding sales-tax revenue bonds that financed the replacement of a bridge spanning the Kansas River after the city’s bond counsel told them the proposal would violate Kansas law.

DALLAS — The fast-growing Northside Independent School District in San Antonio plans to devote a majority of the proceeds from a requested $535 million general obligation bond issue to projects at existing facilities for the first time in almost two decades.

Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker last week said Gov. Bobby Jindal’s plan to deal with a $319 million revenue shortfall in fiscal 2010 won’t be considered until next month.

DALLAS — Kansas lawmakers will consider a 10-year, $8.2 billion comprehensive transportation program that authorizes an estimated $1.7 billion of state highway revenue bonds when they reconvene today in Topeka to develop a budget for fiscal 2011.

The Ysleta Independent School District is offering voters a ballot menu with five options for a proposed $160 million general obligation bond package. The election is set for May 8.

School officials and administrators from across Oklahoma gave poor marks to a proposal to cut public school funding by 10% in fiscal 2011, during testimony last week at the monthly meeting of the State Board of Education.

Closing the state’s revenue shortfall with a 1% increase in the retail sales tax would be better for the Kansas economy than cutting the budget by an equivalent amount, according to a new study from Wichita State University’s Center for Urban Studies and Kansas Public Finance Center.

The board that oversees Little Rock parks and the city zoo last week asked city directors to hold an election for a sales tax increase that would provide additional funding for the Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department’s capital improvement program.

Jerry Hart, financial services manager for the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, has recommended delaying $109.5 million of bond-financed capital improvement projects because new, lower property-value assessments will not support the debt service on millions of dollars of authorized but unissued bonds.

DALLAS — The Kansas Senate Ways and Means Committee Wednesday adopted a proposed state budget for fiscal 2011 that is out of balance by more than $400 million.