Bentonville Mayor Stephanie Orman delivered her annual State of the City presentation in late February, reflecting on the past year while highlighting the work of city departments and sharing expectations for the year ahead.
Here are some of the city government statistics from 2025 that she shared during the presentation. Some of the data points to broader trends, while other figures offer day-to-day snapshots of operations.
Growth and Development
The planning department processed 288 zoning and development projects, compared to 302 in 2024 and 347 in 2023.
Residential planning activity totaled 644 housing units across single-family homes, townhomes and multifamily developments. In 2024, the total was 2,305 units, and in 2023 it was 1,517.
Code enforcement handled 564 cases, up from 437 the year before — an increase of about 29%.
The collection of art on city government property increased to 50 pieces. A map of public art can be found here.
Library
The library reported 422,874 visits, a year-over-year uptick of about 24%.
The library hosted more than 1,000 events, attracting 70,571 total attendees.
Geek Con – branded as “Comic-Con with a library edge” – had more than 2,000 attendees.
The Summer Reading Club had 4,533 participants who logged about 64,000 hours of reading.
Parks and Recreation
Trail counters recorded 2,231,109 uses.
Parks facilities hosted 13,344 sports games.
The city reported completing six miles of new trails.
The Square 2 Square Bike Ride drew 3,397 riders, and the Run Bentonville Half Marathon set a new record with 4,808 runners.
Volunteers contributed more than 30,000 hours across Parks & Recreation projects, the equivalent of about 14.5 full-time staff positions.
Public Safety
The 911 dispatch center received more than 110,000 calls.
The police department responded to 53,205 calls for service, an 8% year-over-year increase.
The fire department responded to 16,122 calls for service, a 14% year-over-year increase.
Animal Services responded to 800 stray animal calls, up 24% over 2024 and 50% higher than 2023.
Animal Services reunited 224 pets with their owners due to microchipping and found permanent homes for 134 pets.
Building and Fire Safety issued 771 permits representing more than $600 million in construction value. In 2024, the department issued 1,354 permits with a value of more than $380 million.
The legal department handled more than 8,200 criminal and traffic cases in district court, amounting to nearly triple the prior year’s caseload.
Utilities
The water utility purchased 7.24 billion gallons of water, about 6% less than in 2024.
Over the course of the year, the city replaced 1,346 water service lines at a cost of $6.53 million as part of an effort to reduce water loss from leaks.
The city’s sewage treatment plant treated 1.17 billion gallons of wastewater, up from around 1.1 billion gallons in 2024.
The compost facility produced 2,046 cubic yards of compost.
The electric department reported 99.999% reliability.
The utility billing department reported more than 1,200 new accounts during the year, the largest year-over-year increase since 2019.
About 10% of utility accounts received some form of past-due notice during the year, and fewer than 1% were disconnected.
Transportation
Ridership on Bentonville bus routes increased sharply, from 24,517 in 2024 to 42,265 — a roughly 72% increase.
Crews paved or sealed more than 13 miles of roadway and used 262 tons of asphalt to repair streets.
The city installed five new traffic signals and 15 flashing crosswalk signs.
City crews repaired 658 feet of sidewalks.
