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Ark. Code Ann. § 14-42-110

Appointment and removal of department heads

Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Johnson v. City of West Memphis (1997)

Most recently applied in 2023 Ark. App. 131 - Byron Sartor v. Mayor Tony Cole, Individually and in His Capacity as Mayor of the City of Huttig And the City of Huttig (March 2023)

Acts 1981, No. 795, §§ 1, 3; A.S.A. 1947, § 19-1013.1; Acts 1995, No. 534, § 1; 1995, No. 914, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

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citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Mayors in cities of the first class and second class and incorporated towns shall have the power to appoint and remove all department heads, including city and town marshals when an ordinance has been passed making city and town marshals appointed, unless the city or town council shall vote by a two-thirds majority of the total membership of the council to override the mayor's action.

(2) Provided, however, that in cities of the first class and second class with civil service commissions, the governing body of the city may delegate by ordinance the authority to appoint and remove the heads of the police and fire departments to the city's civil service commission.

(3) City managers in cities having a city manager form of government shall have the power to appoint and remove all department heads. In cities with a city manager form of government and with civil service commissions, the civil service commission shall have the power to override the city manager's appointment or removal of the police or fire chief by a majority vote of the total membership of the commission.

(4) The provisions of this section shall not apply to department heads not under the control of the governing body of the city and shall not apply to cities having a city administrator form of government.

Current official text: Arkansas General Assembly. Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Arkansas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.