Agenda Highlights 11/12/24
The Fort Smith Board of Directors study session meeting scheduled for 11-12-24 will begin with a discussion about the calendar for Board of Directors meetings for 2025.
The Board will hear and discuss a presentation from Jim Johnston with Trane Technologies regarding a project to study the loss of billed water through meter inaccuracies and determine the financial feasibility of large scale water meter replacement including Advanced Meter Infrastructure.
The Board will discuss potential changes to the irrigation water rates. One option to be discussed, the one recommended by Administration, is to eliminate tier 4 from the rate structure and charge irrigation at the tier 3 rate of $5.26 per CCF. The revenue from the rate increases would drop by 5% with that plan. Another option to be discussed is changing to a flat rate of $4.18 per CCF. Another option to be discussed is to keep rates and tiers as they currently are for now and adjust the rates in the future to narrow the difference between tiers.
With the recent increases, 63.5% of residential accounts (those using up to 7 CCF) saw an increase of $10 or less on their bills for water. 27.7% (those using 8-20 CCF) saw an increase of $10-$50. 8.8% saw an increase greater than $50. 0.22% saw an increase greater than $500.
36.9% of irrigation accounts saw an increase of $10 or less. 9.1% saw an increase of $10-$50. 54% saw an increase greater than $50. 8.3% saw an increase greater than $500.
The Board will also discuss the comparison of rates and rate structures with Arkansas cities including Barling, Conway, Greenwood, Van Buren, Central Arkansas Water, Rogers, Fayetteville, Bentonville, and Springdale.
The Board will discuss the potential effects of recent US Supreme Court decisions locally. First they will discuss the Grants Pass, Oregon decision in which the court upheld Grants Pass local ordinances regarding homeless camping on public property. The Board will be presented and discuss two potential ordinances that could be enacted in Fort Smith regarding homeless camping on public property. One of the ordinances is one substantially identical to the one from Grants Pass. The other ordinance is one that would also incorporate stronger language from ordinances from other cities.
Second, they will discuss the overturn of Chevron Deference in the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision. This decision overturned the previous practice that allowed federal agencies including the EPA to interpret ambiguous law including the Clean Water Act. This change could potentially impact the consent decree that Fort Smith is under.
The Board will hear the annual update from Main Street Fort Smith (formerly named 64.6 Downtown) with whom the city contracts for downtown development and participation in the Main Street Arkansas program. The report will be presented by the organization’s new director, Amanda Hager.
