BC now owns building on south side of Mountain Home square

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Baxter County is now the owner of what has been a vacant building at the corner of U.S. Highway 62B next door to the County Assessor’s Office on the Mountain Home square.Baxter County Judge Mickey Pendergrass says closing on the purchase was completed last week at a cost of $133,000, including payment of the property taxes for the first part of 2018.While the assessed value of the property was set at $273,000, Judge Pendergrass says the appraised value was set at $185,000.

In September, Pendergrass told KTLO, Classic Hits and The Boot news, the former restaurant location is actually connected to the county Assessor’s Office.


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When the quorum court was asked to appropriate funding for the purchase at its October meeting, a committee report noted Collector Teresa Smith had declined to support the expenditure from the collector’s automation fund.

By state law, county collectors may set aside up to 10 percent of the gross commissions collected annually from local tax entities to be credited to the county collector’s automation fund. In 2003, the Arkansas legislature expanded the permissive use of the dollars, adding the terms “to operate the office of county collector” and “for administrative cost.”

Smith says the legislative establishment of the fund originated from a time when judges and sheriffs, who at one point served in a dual capacity also as collectors, were regarded as the two most powerful county elected officials. Across the state, other county office holders experienced difficulty in securing funds to operate their offices.

The collector’s office is among three in county government with automation funds allowable. The Treasurer and the Circuit Clerk each has its own parameters for the use of automation funding.

Smith says Judge Pendergrass approached her regarding possible use of funds from the collector’s automation fund to purchase the building.


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Instead, Smith says she plans to use a portion of the more than $700,000 that has been accumulating over several years in the automation fund to remodel the current Collector’s Office.


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Judge Pendergrass said the recently purchased building will initially provide storage space as the county continues its work at the former Arkansas State University Mountain Home campus that originally served as First Baptist Church. Once the project is completed, long-term the newly acquired space is expected to be considered for additional offices.

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