Agenda Highlights 9/20/22

The Fort Smith Board of Directors meeting scheduled for 9-20-22 will begin with a vote on whether to move Town Hall meetings that have been being held immediately following the regular meeting every first regular meeting of the month to 6pm every first regular board meeting of the month. This proposed change to before the regular meeting instead of after it is intended to eliminate the need for citizens wishing to speak at the Town Hall to sit and wait through the entire meeting first. Each citizen who signs up to speak at the Town Hall would be allotted 5 minutes to address the Board about any issue not on the agenda.

In 2021, there were a total of 21 citizens who spoke at the Town Hall over the course of the year with the highest participation being 11 speakers in December 2021. In 2021, half of the monthly Town Halls had zero citizen speakers participating. In 2022 so far, there have been 16 citizens speak at Town Hall meetings with the highest participation being 6 speakers in April and most of the months having one or two and some having zero.

The Board will discuss the issue of televising the Town Hall if it were moved to before the meeting instead of after. Currently, the Town Hall is not televised and not live-streamed as the regular meetings are. But starting the meeting after the Town Hall rather than the Town Hall after the meeting would cause scheduling issues with the automatic live-streaming and television broadcasting. This could be addressed by either televising/streaming the Town Hall also or by starting the meetings at a fixed scheduled time that would be predicted to be after the Town Hall rather than starting the meetings immediately following the Town Hall.

The Board will vote on whether to approve the allocation plan required by the federal government for the $1,501,450 in federal funds that Fort Smith is to receive through the American Rescue Plan HOME investment partnership program to be used for programs that reduce or prevent homelessness including tenant based rental assistance, development of affordable housing, supportive services, and acquisition or development of non-congregate shelter units. The proposed allocation plan calls for $255,246 to go to supportive services, $1,020,987 to go to affordable rental housing, and $225,217 to go to administration and planning. If the allocation plan is approved it can be submitted to the federal government and then specific proposals can be taken for projects and approved by the Board to receive their share of the funds.

The Board will vote on proposed changes to the City’s Fiscal Performance Policies to allow the city to engage an investment manager to actively manage the City’s cash and investment pool to expand the permitted investments to the maximum allowed by State law. It would also allow the City to invest in government back securities instead of just bank CDs and would relax the monthly investment reporting to just quarterly.

The Board will vote on whether to waive health, dental, and vision insurance premiums for the City employees during the month of December. This proposal is in response to the $6.3 million in the Health and Wellness account exceeding the $4.3-$4.5 million predicted to be needed for insurance costs. Waiving the premium payments for the month of December would cause a total of $238,000 to not be paid in. The savings is intended to serve as a “Christmas Bonus” to the employees who have done a good job of not spending the money in the account.

The Board will vote on whether to award one time bonuses to city employees in recognition for their hard work during the Covid 19 pandemic. The proposed bonuses would be $2500 to full-time Police and Fire employees, $1500 to other regular full-time non-uniformed employees, and $750 to part-time employees. The total cost would be $1.63 million. At last week’s study session meeting Finance Director Richards explained how though it is not technically being paid for directly with American Rescue Plan funds, it is effectively being reimbursed that way via budget shuffling. So it would not cost the City any additional budget money.

The Board will vote on whether to accept a bid to purchase a traffic signal communications system from All Service Electric for $235,000. The system would transmit real time traffic data and weather conditions on major traffic corridors. The project would be expected to be completed July 13,2023.

The Board will vote on whether to renew a 2003 agreement set to expire in 2023 for an additional 20 years to allow to the US government to continue to use land at the landfill (part of land that was originally gifted to the City by the US government) for a digital airport surveillance radar.

The Board will vote on requiring that any time the City is involved in a meeting with the Environmental Protection Agency or Department of Justice (either in person or remotely) concerning the consent decree that the Mayor and one Director be attendance. They will only observe, not participate in the meeting.