Texarkana Arkansas: City Government and Cross-State Services
Texarkana is one American city with two ZIP codes, two city halls, two police departments, and a state line running down the middle of State Line Avenue. The Arkansas side — incorporated as its own municipality — operates under Arkansas law, maintains its own municipal government, and delivers services that interact constantly with the Texas side while remaining legally distinct from it. This page covers how the Arkansas city's government is structured, how cross-state services function in practice, and where the legal and jurisdictional boundaries actually fall.
Definition and scope
The city of Texarkana, Arkansas is an incorporated municipality in Miller County, governed under Arkansas municipal law. It is a separate legal entity from Texarkana, Texas — a point that matters enormously when a resident needs a building permit, pays property taxes, or calls 911. The two cities share a name, a downtown, and roughly 67 miles of overlapping cultural identity, but they do not share a government.
The Arkansas city had a population of approximately 29,000 as of the 2020 U.S. Census (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Decennial Census). It operates under a city administrator form of government, with a mayor and a board of directors elected by ward. Arkansas Code Annotated Title 14 governs Arkansas municipal operations, including how Texarkana AR adopts ordinances, sets millage rates, and contracts for services (Arkansas Code Annotated Title 14).
What this page covers and what falls outside its scope: Coverage is limited to the Arkansas-incorporated municipality of Texarkana. The Texas side — Texarkana, Texas — operates under Texas municipal law and is not covered here. Federal facilities within either city, including the Texarkana Federal Building that literally straddles the state line, fall under federal jurisdiction and are not governed by Arkansas municipal authority. Miller County services overlap with city services in places but are addressed separately at the county level.
How it works
The Arkansas city delivers municipal services — water, sewer, streets, parks, building inspection — through its own departments funded by local property taxes, sales taxes, and state revenue-sharing. The city's sales tax rate and property millage are set by the Arkansas municipal process, distinct from anything happening across State Line Avenue.
The cross-state dimension shows up in four recurring ways:
- Shared utilities infrastructure: The two cities have historically shared water treatment and distribution systems through interlocal agreements. These agreements are governed by Arkansas Code Annotated § 14-93 (Interlocal Cooperation Act) on the Arkansas side, with parallel Texas statutory authority on the other.
- Joint economic development: The Texarkana Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Bi-State Justice Center operate across both jurisdictions, requiring formal intergovernmental agreements each time a shared function requires a budget line.
- Law enforcement coordination: The Arkansas and Texas police departments operate under separate chains of command and separate state peace officer licensing requirements, but coordinate daily on crimes that cross State Line Avenue — which, given that the avenue is also a sidewalk, happens with some regularity.
- Emergency services: The Texarkana Arkansas Fire Department and its Texas counterpart have mutual aid agreements, but firefighters must be certified under their respective state systems. An Arkansas-certified firefighter crossing into Texas under a mutual aid call is operating under a specific legal framework, not informally helping a neighbor.
For broader context on how Arkansas state authority structures govern municipalities like Texarkana, Arkansas Government Authority covers the statutory framework, agency structure, and how state oversight applies to local government across Arkansas — useful background for understanding why the Arkansas side of Texarkana operates the way it does.
Arkansas state authority over Texarkana also flows through the Arkansas home page for state governance, which situates municipal authority within the larger picture of how Arkansas structures its public institutions.
Common scenarios
The dual-city configuration creates situations that are genuinely unusual in American municipal governance.
A resident on the Arkansas side who wants to open a restaurant applies for a business license from the Arkansas city, meets Arkansas Health Department food safety standards, and pays Arkansas sales tax — even if their building is 40 feet from the Texas line. Their Texas counterparts across the street go through an entirely separate licensing process under Texas law.
Property assessment and appeals follow Arkansas procedures. A property owner disputing a valuation on the Arkansas side goes through the Miller County Assessor and, if necessary, the Arkansas Assessment Coordination Division — not any Texas equivalent body.
Emergency dispatch operates from a shared 911 center, the Bi-State 911 Authority, which was established through formal interlocal agreement. The dispatch center routes calls to the correct jurisdiction based on physical address, because sending a Texas officer to an Arkansas domestic disturbance would create immediate legal complications around arrest authority.
Decision boundaries
The clearest boundary is the state line itself — but it requires some precision. State Line Avenue runs north-south through downtown, and building addresses determine which city's codes and services apply. A commercial building with an address on the Arkansas side must obtain Arkansas permits, pass Arkansas inspections, and comply with Arkansas fire codes even if its parking lot touches Texas.
The contrast between the two sides becomes concrete in property taxation. Texas has no state income tax but relatively high property taxes; Arkansas has a state income tax and a different property tax structure (Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration). A homeowner's choice of which side of the line to live on has real financial consequences that are entirely determined by state law, not by the city's preferences.
For zoning disputes, appeals go to the Texarkana Arkansas Planning Commission and, if necessary, into Arkansas circuit court. Texas zoning disputes go into Texas administrative and judicial processes. The two systems run in parallel, occasionally producing outcomes on adjacent parcels that would be impossible to reconcile if anyone tried to apply a single ruleset.
The Bi-State Justice Center — a shared jail and court facility — operates through a memorandum of understanding reviewed periodically by both cities, and its funding split is renegotiated when either side's budget situation changes. That is not a metaphor for the broader relationship. It is a literal description of how two sovereign state systems share a building.