| Clark (~21,000) | Garland (~100,000) | Ouachita (~22,000) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Fund (courthouse government, law enforcement, courts) | $6,829,201 $325/res |
$24,645,565 $246/res |
— not comparable |
| Clark spends more per resident than Garland — the small-county scale penalty: one sheriff, one clerk's office, one courthouse divide across five times fewer people. Ouachita's general fund total is not yet summed from its department-level filing. | |||
| Sheriff's office | $2,118,755 $101/res |
$9,120,047 $91/res |
— not comparable |
| Nearly identical spend rates per resident — yet Garland pays deputies about $14,000 more. Same dollars, less salary: scale again. Ouachita's sheriff budget sits inside its Jail Operating fund and is not line-comparable. | |||
Ouachita County (~22,000 people, Camden) is Clark's closest size twin. Most office budgets land in the same ballpark — evidence that Clark's administrative structure is normal for its size, not bloated. The one line running well above the twin: courthouse maintenance, flagged below.
| Office | Clark 2026 | Ouachita 2026 request | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| County Judge's office | $168,446 | $194,833 | −$26,387 |
| County Clerk | $314,622 | $407,144 | −$92,522 |
| Assessor | $560,131 | $581,947 | −$21,816 |
| Courthouse maintenance ◐ outlier | $416,460 | $254,009 | +$162,451 |
$88 per resident per year — four times the library, forty times the health department — appropriated as a single word with no public recipient list. $25.4M collected from 2008 through 2023 (audited).
See the line · Docket #5 — EDCCC incentives — who receives the $1.84M?
The state millage book shows 1 mill each levied county-wide for the hospital and the college. At the county's ~$346M assessed value (derived from the FY2023 audit's debt-limit figure), that is roughly $346,000 a year each — flowing to those institutions without ever appearing in the county's appropriation ordinance. Possibly entirely proper; documented nowhere we can navigate.
See the line · Docket #11 — The hospital and college mills — roughly $700K a year not in the county appropriation ordinance
~$1.28M projected revenue, $469K appropriated, ~$883K sitting unappropriated (including a $196K bequest). A building fund? A policy? No document in the corpus says.
See the line · Docket #8 — Legislative audit reports & treasurer's reports
While dispatcher staffing and pay are live issues in the same system, the reserve fund appropriates $118K of a $1.26M balance.
See the line · Docket #8 — Legislative audit reports & treasurer's reports
A 0.5% sales tax pledge repays the $8.46M Truck Bypass bonds (2021, 1.125–2.00%, through 2036). We earlier guessed it might raise far more than the debt costs; the audits say otherwise. The bond fund took in $469,373 in 2022 and $678,806 in 2023, against debt payments of $341,005 and $670,756. Any excess may be used for any lawful purpose. The bond ordinance itself is not yet in this corpus.
See the line · Docket #3 — Millage rate sheet & sales tax inventory
Road "other professional services" ($350K), jail "contracts" ($351K), sanitation engineering and professional services ($325K) — single lines, no stated recipients. Check-register territory.
See the line · Docket #10 — County check register (layer three)
$416K vs Ouachita's $254K. The gap sits mostly in a $100K property-maintenance pool and $66.5K of insurance — explainable, but unexplained.
See the line · Docket #7 — Remaining line-item pages of the county ordinance
The arithmetic: roads, public safety, and sanitation — direct service — are about two-thirds of everything the county spends. In the remaining third, the documentation thins out: roughly $4M a year moves without public detail (EDCCC, the hospital and college mills, pooled lines, fee funds), and roughly $4M more sits unappropriated — some of that required by the state's 90% rule. This page draws no conclusion about any of it. Every item above is a trail that stops short of a receipt, a document that would extend it, and a docket number tracking the ask.