Helena-West Helena council stalls police funding amid budget fight

Helena-West Helena aldermen restored five police positions Tuesday night, but they left American Rescue Act dollars unsettled and stalled several other financing items after the council lacked enough members to clear a required two-thirds vote.

The vote put the city back at the center of its long-running budget fight. Residents will feel the result first in public safety coverage, while other priorities, including street work, water and sanitation, remain tied up in the same shrinking pool of money.

Council proposals involving competitive-bidding waivers were tabled when attendance fell short of the threshold needed to move them forward. That left the city without action on several routine financing questions at the same time it was trying to stabilize police staffing.

Police manpower has been a recurring issue in Helena-West Helena. The council had already discussed adding up to 10 new officers through a grant, and the latest decision to re-fund five positions shows how even a partial staffing fix is now being handled inside a broader fight over what the city can afford.

The financial backdrop remains severe. Arkansas Legislative Audit and the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee were told in July 2025 that Helena-West Helena’s end-of-2023 deficits totaled more than $604,000, including shortfalls of $173,122 in the general fund, $192,094 in the street fund and $238,833 in the landfill fund. City treasurer Derrick Turner told lawmakers the city was over $2 million in debt, up from about $173,000 before former Mayor Christopher Franklin took office in January 2023.

Auditors also said the city had spent beyond appropriations, run up late fees and overdraft charges, received utility shut-off notices and faced repossessions. Those problems have been compounded by leadership instability. Franklin was removed from office by court order on July 1, 2025 after state police charged him with four counts of failure to pay or file a tax return, and Don Etherly was serving as mayor pro tempore.

The strain has reached basic infrastructure as well. Helena-West Helena’s water system suffered a pump failure in January 2024 that left 1,400 residents without water, and a later failure in September left half the city without drinking water. Federal money that had been expected to help repair aging, leak-prone lines was cut in March 2025.

For Phillips County, the stakes go beyond one department. Helena-West Helena is the county seat, and every delay in council action carries into the services, jobs and public meetings centered there. With police funding, bidding waivers and rescue dollars still caught in the same budget fight, the city’s next decisions will determine which basic services move first and which remain on hold.