Fort Smith Board of Directors Special Meeting & Study Session - September 23, 2025
Fort Smith Board of Directors Special Meeting & Study Session - September 23, 2025
The Fort Smith Board of Directors convened on September 23, 2025, for a special meeting followed by a study session. The special meeting authorized the issuance of $94,340,000 in Sales and Use Tax Bonds for consent decree and wastewater capital improvements, as approved by voters on May 13, 2025. The study session covered a loaned personnel agreement for engineering services, a long-term solid waste management strategic plan, and a proposal to assume ownership of four cemeteries. The board also tabled discussion of the 2026 Strategic Priorities due to the absence of two directors and the mayor.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comments were made during the special meeting.
- Marty Clark, President of Fort Smith Cemeteries, Inc., presented a revised proposal for the city to take ownership of Roselawn/Holy Cross, Forest Park, and Washington Cemeteries. He emphasized that the original budget was overinflated and that outsourcing maintenance could cut annual personnel costs in half and reduce capital expenditures by 80%. He argued that the city has a moral and civic obligation to preserve these cemeteries.
- Bobby Woodard Andrews, operator of Washington Cemetery, stated that Washington Cemetery is financially sound and currently in the black. She expressed opposition to city takeover and only requested occasional grass-cutting assistance from the city. She noted the cemetery has community volunteers and private support.
Discussion Items
- Special Meeting – Sales and Use Tax Bond Ordinance: Bond counsel and PFM financial advisor reported that the $94,340,000 bond series (the initial portion of the $385 million approved by voters) was sold with a true interest cost of 4.6%, generating $6.25 million in annual debt service—$200,000 per year less than originally estimated. The underwriters received over $450 million in orders from 41 investors. The board unanimously approved the ordinance (5-0) and the emergency clause.
- Loaned Personnel Agreement with Burns & McDonnell: Acting City Administrator Jeff Dingman presented a six-month, not-to-exceed $317,493 contract for Ben Marts to serve as Interim Director of Engineering. The Engineering Department lacks professional supervision for streets, bridges, and drainage CIP projects following the director’s retirement. Board members expressed concern about the cost but acknowledged the need. The item was tabled at the previous meeting and was moved forward to the October 14 regular meeting for a vote.
- Cemeteries Oversight Discussion: Staff presented two budget scenarios: the city’s original proposal (with in-house staff and equipment) showing a $719,153 annual expense, and a revised proposal from Fort Smith Cemeteries, Inc. (outsourced maintenance) showing $404,021 annual expense. The city would need to own the properties. Board members debated the precedent, ongoing costs (~$184,000 annual deficit), and general fund impact. Marty Clark noted that alternative fundraising could reduce the deficit. No action was taken; the item was tabled for further discussion with absent directors.
- Long-Term Solid Waste Management Strategic Plan: Joe Sloan of SVM presented findings: the Fort Smith landfill has over 100 years of capacity, receives ~298,000 tons annually (75% from outside the city), and current residential rate of $15.89/month is below cost. The actual cost of current service is $23.49/month, while the regional average is $24.03. Options discussed included rate adjustments, service changes (e.g., bi-weekly recycling), billing audits, and a materials recovery facility. Board members expressed reluctance to raise rates and requested further analysis of cost-cutting and efficiency measures. No action was taken.
- 2026 Strategic Priorities: The item, tabled from the September 2 meeting, was again tabled to a future study session because Directors Rego and Good and the mayor were absent.
- Preliminary Agenda for October 14 Regular Meeting: Briefly reviewed; no action taken.
Key Outcomes
- Ordinance No. 25-XX authorizing the issuance of $94,340,000 in Sales and Use Tax Bonds for consent decree sewer improvements was adopted unanimously (5-0), including the emergency clause.
- The loaned personnel agreement with Burns & McDonnell was scheduled for a vote at the October 14, 2025 regular meeting.
- Discussion on assuming ownership of cemeteries was tabled pending input from absent board members and further budget analysis.
- The solid waste strategic plan presentation was informational; the board directed staff to explore operational efficiencies and alternative revenue sources before considering rate increases.
- The 2026 Strategic Priorities item was tabled to a future study session.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening and thank you for attending this evening's meeting, the special meeting of the Fort Smith Board of Directors. Neither the mayor nor the Vice Mayor will be in attendance therefore. A motion to nominate a member of the board to chair the special meeting and study session meeting must be offered. I'll make a motion to uh nominate Kevin Settle as the chairman of the meeting. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed to you for you? Good evening, everybody. Thank you for tonight's special board meeting and study session. We'll begin with a call to order and ask the city clerk to call the role. Director Jared Rigo, Director Andre Good, Director Lee Kemp. Here. George Kit Savis. Christina Kissavis here. Kevin Settle. Here. Neil Martin. Here. President Quorum is tonight. So with that, we'll start off with tonight's first item, which is uh first of all, is there any item we need to to the board to add to tonight's agenda? So now we'll go to item number one, and I'll turn it over. Thank you. Tonight's special meeting was called for consideration of an ordinance authorizing the issuance of sales and use tax bonds for the purpose of financing consent decree and wastewater capital improvements and pledging a portion of the two sales tax and pledging a portion of two sales and use taxes to pay the principal and interest on those bonds. This action was authorized by Fort Smith voters at the May thirteenth special election. We will need two separate actions from the board this evening. The first being consideration of the ordinance itself is revised as it is now filled in with numbers from today's market activity, and the second being the suspension of the rules relative to the effective date of the ordinance. Lauren Lowe, our financial advisor from PFM is here to speak to the details of today's activity. So yes, I'll provide a quick update today of today's market activity and give you a quick recap of the um the results of the bond offering. So as Jeff noted, we offered about ninety-five million in sales and use tax bonds into the negotiated municipal bond market this morning. There were considered no other competing Arkansas transactions, which actually served the city very well given the size and the limited activity in Arkansas. So presented a nice supply and demand opportunity. As a reminder, these were for consent decree related projects. And as noted, the voters approved this earlier this year. We had over 400 450 million investor orders, and we only had 95 to fill. So this is an exceptional outcome, thanks to the teams of the underwriters that we had working on this transaction. With that, 450 million of orders represented 41 unique investors, big national investors. So what that means is the top investors were Vanguard, Parametric Portfolio Associates, and Security Benefit Life Insurance. There were many others to follow, but those all submitted approximately 60 million orders and they wanted to buy the city's bonds. We also had unique investors that were actual individuals, so we're actually looking at Arkansas individual orders. That accounted for 25 orders, accounting for over 3 million. So that's people locally buying the city's bonds. We also had individual orders outside of Arkansas, but these are individual people accounting for 10 million of the orders received. All of that allowed us to reduce interest rates during the pricing process today with the underwriters. The final results were very favorable. Let me give you a reference point. Two weeks ago, we ran the numbers and we estimated the cost to borrow 30 over 30 years is about 4.88%. Today we landed at 4.6 percent, which is a significant savings. The annual debt service payments we originally estimated at 6.45 million, and they came out today at 6.25 million. So that results in 200,000 in savings each year.
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