The Conway City Council approved Tuesday spending $31,000 for the purchase of licenses for software that had been in use illegally in several of the city's departments.
"This gets us clean," Mayor Tab Townsell said. "It's good to be clean."
The issue was brought to the council's attention two weeks ago after an internal audit of the Conway Police Department's computer systems by crime analyst Lloyd Hartzell revealed that several of the police department's computers were using software without current or adequate licensing. The cost of the delinquent licenses was originally estimated at $56,000 before a new information technology committee formed by Townsell was able to further investigate, bringing the final price tag for the licenses down to just over $31,000. Hartzell explained that the lower figure was the result of the committee finding several software licenses that were previously thought to have been neglected.
"Some people were asked to dig and search," Hartzell said. "We struggled with this. But if we hadn't done anything, we would've wasted about $10,000."
Alderman Sandy Brewer suggested the city make a good-faith offering to Microsoft that would allow the software manufacturer to conduct its own follow-up audit of the city's systems to ensure it had indeed taken care of all of its missing licenses. He also reiterated his feelings from the previous council meeting that the city should continue to investigate the cause of the licensing discrepancy in an effort to prevent future problems.
"I'm hoping that the IT committee will continue to look into this and get us where we need to be," he said. "I'm still concerned as to how this came to be. I'd like us to continue to research that and find out what parties might be responsible."
Soft-drink decision
The council made a final decision regarding the city's soft-drink concessions, with Townsell casting the deciding vote to break the city's contract with Coca-Cola and accept a new proposal from Pepsi Americas after the council voted 4-3, with Alderman Maurice Moix abstaining. Townsell also cast the deciding vote June 20 to accept new proposals from both companies, resulting in similar 10-year offers that both included $50,000 in upfront cash. Alderman Andy Hawkins said that, in the face of what he saw as nearly identical proposals, he supported Pepsi's offer based on the jobs the company has brought to Conway.
"What I see here is basically, dollar for dollar, almost the same proposal," he said. "In my mind, this goes back to what it has always been. We have an employer in this city providing 32 full-time jobs and four part-time jobs. I don't think we can discount that by any stretch of the imagination. Those jobs in my mind are the thing that makes the deal."
Favre Lane discussion continues
The council also passed a motion by Alderman James Ed Smith to reconsider its decision from July 9 to deny a request by developer Tim Tyler to waive the payment boundary street improvement funds for Favre Lane.
The city's subdivision ordinance requires a potential developer to front half of the potential street improvement costs for any street adjacent to the subdivision that is part of Conway's master street improvement plan. If the city fails to improve the street within five years, the money is refunded to the developer with interest. Smith said waivers had been granted to other developers along Favre Lane and he felt it would be unfair to make Tyler pay.
The fate of Tyler's particular waiver was held in committee, but the issue served as a segue into the council's renewed discussion of impact fees, which were considered as part of the subdivision ordinance before being rejected in favor of boundary street fees. Alderman Bill Yates said the boundary street system is unfair and is causing developers to increase the prices on lots adjacent to boundary streets or to simply leave them unused.
"I don't think that was our intent -- to make a piece of property unsellable," he said. "You couldn't develop that property. This is not working. I want to make sure that they pay their fair share, but we found out that impact fees in streets are not a simple thing."
Townsell confirmed that impact fees had never been applied to street funding in Arkansas and would most likely be challenged in court if passed by the council. He added that impact fees applied to parks and sewer systems had been challenged in court and upheld and that applying the fees to streets might be similarly upheld and set a precedent.
He informed the council of an opportunity to meet with Jim Duncan, who has worked to implement impact fees in other cities around the state and who offered to meet with the council at no charge. The council settled on a tentative date of Monday, Aug. 12, to meet with Duncan.
(Staff writer Justin Petruccelli can be reached by phone at 505-1266 or e-mail at justinp@thecabin.net.)
