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.

Over 30 years, that's about six million.

So it is our recommendation to pass the bond ordinance and allow for the signing of the bond purchase agreement, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Very good, thank you.

Um any comments you'd like to add to that?

Uh uh no.

Uh this is would be the final step by the board to uh approve the issuance of the bonds and the board approves the issuance.

Then we'll the closing would be uh the first part of November.

And uh so uh this would be the normal action for the board to take.

And I'll answer any questions.

Do we want to get citizens' comment first and then ask questions afterwards?

Is that okay?

Go ahead, go ahead, Director Stavis.

Um the interest, I just want to make sure that's locked in because I know we don't have any NTEs in this contract.

I want to make sure we're not authorizing anything that would be an above market rate down the road.

That is correct.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh to the city clerk, any anybody signed up to speak on this?

None indicated.

Uh to the board, we'll need a couple of items tonight.

So we'll have three different items we'll need the first a motion to suspend the rule.

So motion to suspend.

Second.

All right, we'll ask the city clerk to call the rule to motion to suspend the rule.

Directors Kemp?

Yes.

George Kit Savis?

Yes.

Christina Kit Savas.

Yes.

Kevin Settle?

Yes.

Martin.

Yes.

Motion passes five in favor, zero opposed.

Upon ask uh city clerk to read the ordinance.

Ordinance authorizing issuance of sales and use tax bonds for the purpose of financing all or a portion of the cost of capital improvements, pledging a portion of two sales and use taxes to pay the principal of an interest on the bonds, prescribing other matters related there too, and declaring an emergency.

All right, we need a motion to adopt the ordinance as revised, include the 93.5 million.

Is that the number I see?

94.

Three.

I'm sorry.

94,340,000.

So move.

Second.

Motion second.

Uh to directors, any directors, any comments before we ask the vote.

I just want to make sure I heard this right.

You had three big firms that acclate for 60 million of the 93 million.

Each.

Oh, they wanted six million each.

Yes, they obviously will not get all 60 million each because there was only 94 to offer.

All right.

So like somebody like me forgot to forgot it was today.

I can't go out and I can't go buy bonds after it's locked in, correct?

They can buy them on the secondary market.

Okay, that's what I thought would happen.

Okay.

So we got you got different interest rates from one year to 30 years, is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

Any other board director?

Comments?

I'm not asked the city clerk to call the roll.

Director George Kittsavis.

Yes.

Christina Kit Savis.

Yes.

Settle?

Yes.

Martin?

Yes.

Kemp.

Yes.

Motion passes five in favor, zero opposed.

All right.

The last thing we're going to do is we've got a motion to adopt the emergency clause.

Second.

Motion seconds there.

I'll ask the city clerk to call the role on the emergency clause.

Director Christina Kitzavis.

Settle.

Yes.

Martin?

Yes.

Kent?

Yes.

George Kit Savage.

Yes.

Motion passes five in favor, zero opposed.

Very good.

Thank you all very much for being here.

Appreciate it.

No other action by the board tonight.

I ask a motion to adjourn.

So all in favor say aye.

All right, we'll get to our study session.

I'll go to the tonight's study session.

There are four items on tonight's study session.

We do have the mayor and two of our directors not here tonight due to prior the commitments.

So with that, I'll leave up to the board of what we want to do tonight.

Just do we want to talk about all items without three here?

Is there certain items we want to pull off?

Well, it's a good question.

Or do you want to just see how the night goes?

I'd like to I would like to see us have Director Rigo and uh Director Good here for item number four.

So I would like to make a motion to table that.

Okay.

Anybody against tabling item four tonight?

Originally it was I'll second that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Do we need to do anything about cemeteries?

With Director Good and Rigo out.

What do you all think?

I I'm okay with hearing it, but I was still going to say that no matter what we heard, we need to talk about budget further.

So I'm okay with tabling it as well to answer the budget questions and stuff and have a good mind about it.

But I'm happy to hear the item as well.

You want to hear the item of the mayor?

Yeah, I think.

Yeah, let's hear the item.

All right.

So we'll we'll pull four off and table that to a future study session.

Uh do we need a roll call?

Okay.

We're good there.

What about item one?

I know we have somebody here to present um for item three, correct?

That's in from out of town?

Correct.

I think we'll we'll do one and three.

We'll do one, two, and three and see where we get to.

Okay.

I mean, I I hear what you are saying, Christina, but Jeff said there was a need for item one with engineering.

Is that correct?

Okay.

You want to do item three first?

Uh yeah, let's do that first.

Let's do item three first since we have somebody here for visitors.

Is that okay?

Dwayne, you good with that?

Okay.

Let's go to item number three first, and we'll go to item one and two after that.

Discussion regarding the long-term solid waste management strategic plan for solid waste services.

Uh Jeff?

Yeah, just by way of introduction, this item is a presentation of a cost of service analysis and long-range planning recommendations for the Department of Solid Waste Services.

The City Commission, Sloan Vasquez, and McAfee SVM to conduct an extensive study of all of the Department's operations and finances.

This analysis started under the previous Director of Solid Waste.

Pause briefly while we recruited and hired a new director, and then continued to completion under direction of current Director Dwayne McDonald.

This evening we have with us Mr.

Joe Sloan of SVM, who will provide a presentation of SVM's findings and recommendations, as well as answer questions the board may have.

Joe?

We'll start with the introduction.

Good evening.

Good evening.

It's working.

It just takes a second if it got turned off.

Should work.

Good evening.

Tonight we'll hear a presentation from Joe Sloan of Sloan Vasquez-McCaffee, who will share the findings of his strategic study their team has conducted over the past year for the Solid Waste Services Department.

When I joined the city earlier this year, I was happy to see this important project already in motion with SVM leading the effort.

Nearly 30 years ago, when I first entered the recycling and solid waste field, two of the first professionals I had the privilege to work with were Joe Sloan and his partner, Enrique Vasquez.

Their expertise and their long-standing commitment to the field have always stood out.

And I have great confidence in their ability to evaluate our operations and highlight meaningful opportunities for improvement.

After we've all had some time to reflect and ask questions about Joe's uh presentation this evening, I'll return soon with some specific recommendation for the board uh based on uh SVM's reports.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Joe Sloan.

Very good.

Thank you, uh Duane, and thank you, uh board members.

Uh Mr.

Dingman and Dwayne for the opportunity to present the findings of our actually over a year-long uh study that we've done of the Solid Waste Services Department and the programs and services that uh you offer here in the city.

Um I uh understand the concern of not having some important decision makers here in the room tonight and uh as uh a part of this presentation and a part of our ongoing uh service to to bring this thing to its conclusion.

Uh I'm more than happy to come back and and uh make sure that that uh any information that's needed by the folks that can't be here tonight that they have that directly from us.

So uh happy to do that.

Um I'd just like to start by saying giving you a little bit of introduction to uh my company, who we are and uh how it is that we came to this industry and uh uh our approach to uh analyzing and then making recommendations in regard to solid waste services.

Umloan Vosquez uh McAfee is a solid waste uh and recycling uh consulting firm that focuses strictly on solid waste management for uh municipalities.

We do have some private sector clients, uh, but uh probably 60 percent of our work is with municipal agencies.

Um I started this firm about 25 years ago in Southern California and Los Angeles County and uh started originally uh doing building recycling plants for municipalities who uh were in response to California's uh Integrated Waste Management Act, were tasked with the responsibility for increasing the amount of material that was diverted from landfill disposal.

Uh so that's how I started the business.

Five years later, I uh was able to entice my longtime friend uh uh and associate Enrique Vosquez to come into the business with me, and we formed a partnership.

Enrique and I then a couple of years later added Carissa McAfee uh to our partnership team.

Uh Enrique uh is uh a longtime uh resident of Southern California.

He's got a degree in finance and business management from USC, and uh he is uh very capable of everything regarding finance and program management in the solid waste field.

Carissa McAfee came to us from the company waste management, who is the world's largest uh provider, uh private sector provider of solid waste services, and uh she was responsible for municipal contract management for all of waste management's contracts in San Diego County and Los Angeles County uh in or uh and uh Orange County in Southern California.

So we have a pretty good brain trust, and one of the uh and the reason I give you all that background is this, is that everybody on our team, including our associates, other than our partners, uh a requirement of working for our firm is that you have direct bottom line solid waste service experience.

Uh most of the people that provide uh solid waste consulting services to municipalities either come from the engineering field or the accounting field, and we respect both of those, and we respect their contributions.

But our approach to this is really directly from actually having direct solid waste experience, making sure that all the trucks get out of the yard at 4.30 every morning, making sure that there's drivers, that there's people that are there to staff the recycling facilities and provide all the services that are required in the municipality.

Um that's our approach, and that's the level of experience that we bring to the uh analysis of your uh system.

Um I describe my partners, our personnel are all people who work directly in the solid waste industry.

We do a lot of work that has to do with uh uh doing waste composition studies, a lot of field work and landfills in uh solid waste transfer stations and in recycling plants, and all of our additional personnel are people that staff those operations.

And our clients, as I said, range from uh uh the city of Pasadena and Glendale uh to uh Boston, San Diego, Seattle, Jacksonville, Florida.

So we work all over the country, mostly in California, but we've done quite a bit of work here uh in the central part of the country.

Uh I'm originally from Tulsa, uh grew up in Tulsa, and uh uh as a kid I recall fondly uh coming over to Fort Smith every year to wrestle in the Boys and Girls Club wrestling tournament uh over here in Fort Smith.

Back in the days when I had hair, Mr.

Kemp Okay, good.

All right.

So yeah, clients uh that those are municipal clients, but uh also as I said we've had uh the company waste management, republic services, uh a lot of the uh the large independent uh I mean uh publicly traded and independent companies both in the recycling world in the solid waste uh world are our clients um so what were the study objectives uh and I'll just go through it quickly and I promise I'm not gonna read all these slides to you tonight uh but for this one I do want to make sure that we define what our objectives were in the study.

We wanted to create an effective tool for long-term municipal solid waste planning.

Now I want everybody to I think you all understand here that you know we're not asking you to make decisions tonight.

We're just presenting information and it's really for uh to provide the information that you're gonna need and that you will use to make some really important decisions regarding your services and the way that you're going to fund your services as you move forward.

The second objective was to define the current costs for the operation of the city's collection services.

I say I I describe your your facility out there on is it Commerce Road I can't remember yeah on Commerce Road where the landfill is I just describe that as the Disneyland of trash it's j just about everything out there.

It's a pretty great facility your landfill's excellent your uh the the grounds are excellent the fact that you've got your own organic processing operation and and you've got the ability to receive drop off material from the public it's it's a pretty uh stellar facility then number three we wanted to define the current cost for the operation of the city's landfill.

Now we are not landfill engineers the city uh hires and has uh on board a very competent landfill engineering firm that's SCS Engineers and that's pretty much all they do they do landfill engineering primarily for municipalities but also for private sector companies that own landfills nationwide actually worldwide very good firm and we relied on SCS to provide us the base landfill rate rate that they felt was necessary in order to fund current and future operations at the landfill and we incorporated that into our study.

Then we wanted to identify revenue recovery alternatives to cover the costs of programs and services.

We'll get into some of that tonight the report that we will be presenting finalizing in the next few weeks right now it's in draft form and the reason we've kept it in draft form is just because it's just you know it's not a public document yet because it's not all settled but uh it it we are very confident of everything that's in the report to date and we think it's ready for uh uh filing and and making it a final uh document so we want to identify the ways the means that what first of all the amounts that you're gonna have to recover in order to sustain your programs and then secondly different ways and means that you can do that.

Then number five describe the importance and value of the city's most important asset.

Now what do you think I'm a trash guy what do you think I think is your most important asset huh your landfill is a spectacular unbelievable gym that uh needs to be cherished because it is it is a it is a uh it is a great asset for a municipality we'll talk more about that then identify the means and methods of improving services while maintaining and reducing costs we uh all of our work to date has just been taking your current costs of operation and applying them to current standards that we employ as uh operational operational consultants to make sure that uh all of the equipment and manpower person power human resources uh are available and uh deployed in order to provide the provide the services that uh are offered by the city and then we want to describe opportunities for expansion of your Disneyland out there the expansion of solid waste infrastructure and programs so I'm gonna go to the next slide and then Josh if you can start that up for me there you go.

operational um uh operational consultants to make sure that uh uh all of the equipment and manpower person power human resources uh are available and uh deployed in order to provide the provide the services that uh are offered by the city and then we want to describe opportunities for expansion of of your Disneyland out there the expansion of solid waste infrastructure and programs so um I'm gonna go to the next slide and then Josh if you can start that up for me there you go this is just a short video that I'll show you and it's it's uh it's a short video that is um uh uh of a system that is manufactured by a company called um revolution yeah revolution systems and is it is it not going to go?

Okay, there it goes.

Um it's just a short video to give you an idea of what could be done here and what might be done in order to help reduce your overall costs of service in the city.

This uh this system happens to be in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and that is a local uh recycling truck extruding a load of recyclables one of the great things about a small system is that uh it can be serviced with something as small as a bobcat or a skid loader instead of a big wheel loader or dozer type uh in feed uh and then once it gets up on to the sorting platform you can see that all this material is sorted by three and sometimes four sorters and what it does is it it makes its way up to this sorting platform you can see it goes in a circle and it just goes around and around until the sorters get all it pick off everything that's recyclable off the belt and um this is uh an activity that um it it this is a small volume recycling center and it initially the the underwriters of this company that developed the this revolution uh system are uh the Walmart family money it's a it's a group called closed loop investments and closed loop is a group that uh makes investment in uh recycling infrastructure development and so it's actually like local funding for uh opportunities to to uh deploy these type systems so that's just uh uh a short video to show you what might be able to be done here in the future in order to instead of having to ship your materials to some other site far away and incur the transportation costs of getting your recyclables to another location for processing you might be able to internalize it do it right here avoid the transportation costs and uh and move towards uh internalizing that and doing it yourself so what are the costs that are associated with your solid waste management program you've got three cost centers one is your landfill disposal costs the other is your solid waste collection services cost and the other is your ancillary costs there are actually a lot of services that are provided by the Sir Solid Waste uh department some of which are charged for and some of which aren't and we're gonna talk about that a little bit uh later as well so that you can uh uh hopefully appreciate the fact that you're providing services that uh in many cases aren't being paid for uh but in most cases in most municipal operations they are so it provides an opportunity for you to increase some revenue into the uh city um uh regarding landfill and landfill disposal uh we look at that facility and when I look at it I describe it as a gym uh it's uh it's very well managed and it is uh uh quite the asset with over a thousand acres out there and I've heard anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and sixteen years of remaining disposal capacity at current disposal rates right now about three quarters of the waste that comes into the landfill on a daily basis comes from third party that's non-city tonnage about 25 percent of it comes from the city operation so you're disposing of about 298 thousand close to 3000 tons a year of municipal solid waste and about 75,000 tons of that comes from city operations and the remainder comes from third parties and um those are all all of those tons are vital to maintaining the revenue that's necessary to maintain your landfill system.

Can you describe the third party who that is what that is third party that that is the it's it's anybody that's non city that by non city that means it's not your col your residential collection trucks, it's not your commercial collection trucks, and it's not your roll off trucks.

It's companies uh like uh cards is one of the companies MSG.

Waste management waste management.

Waste management.

It's come and and it's your residents who who take material there.

And it's uh it's small contractors.

But you said you say you uh you some of it is residents.

Well that well, I guess the trailer they bring a trailer, right?

Yeah, if you clean out your garage and you've got a truck bed full of stuff you want to take the landfill, that's in that 75 percent.

So like South Sebastian County or Sebastian County, Northwest Arkansas, they they could be they're putting stuff in our landfill?

Any well, it's it's my understanding that anybody that wants to come and pay you for landfill disposal can.

Uh that the twenty yes, go ahead.

And to answer the the question directly, we actually uh are able to take waste from eight different counties in uh western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.

Uh and that's in the the city's ordinance.

So are we um I I know that we've uh we're looking at closing sales and this kind of thing.

And I'm maybe we're getting to this, is the cost that non-Fort Smithians pay factored into what you are going to show us tonight?

Because I would have if 75 percent comes from outside Fort Smith.

Yes, as as it stands, every ton that comes in the landfill pays its fair share of the closure post-closure costs, the uh the daily management, there's no there's uh uh you your uh your landfill has over a hundred years of capacity at the current rate of disposal.

So that means with uh that that hundred years that's there, and actually the last I I I based some of these slides on a hundred years, but my last calculation I got from SCS said 116 years.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

And yeah, and all all every ton pays its own way.

And it's uh so there's no subsidies to third parties.

Okay.

No, we're not thinking our same thing will walk.

Yep.

Um, so the uh landfill capacity and revenue projections.

Um the the basis for the the work that we've done, as I as I said, SCS engineers gave us a base rate uh uh for which they projected that beginning in 2025, every ton of material disposed at the Fort Smith landfill would need to generate in order to uh sustain the uh landfill operations.

So the 2026 disposal rate per ton was for projected at $47.10 per ton, and that includes uh the city administrative uh uh application yeah, the cost of uh city administration of the landfill.

Now, what I did here, and this is just when I said to you that you have a gym and the value of it, this is what I want to show you.

Uh if you just use a 1.5 percent annual adjustment to the cost of operation, which that's actually below what the annual CPI adjustment has been for the last couple of decades.

But if you just consider that going forward, you your your rate is $47.10, and you adjust it annually at 1.5 percent.

That with the annual tonnage that's disposed with no growth, okay.

Now I expect that you are gonna get some growth, but if you don't grow at all, in 10 years, your landfill is going to generate 150 million dollars in fees.

In 20 years, it's gonna generate $270 million in fees.

In 25 years, it will be $422 million in fees.

And over the 100-year course of its remaining capacity, it's going to generate over $3 billion in revenue uh into uh the city operation.

Now, so the reason I classify it as a gym is this.

You're either going to be the receiver of those fees, or if you happen to be enticed, which sometimes they are, uh, to uh sell the landfill asset, uh you're gonna be paying those fees.

Because I can tell you for certain that landfill disposal costs aren't going to go down, and if private sector owns the landfill, it's gonna be way more expensive than what you are charging for it.

So here we have I don't foresee the city selling the landfill.

I just want to put that out there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, or not selling the landfill.

That's that that's uh the if if I was going to make a real strong pitch, and uh by the way, we we don't uh pretend to be public policy people, we're just consultants.

We you guys get the information we give you and do what you will with it.

But if I was going to be a public policy person, I'd say hang on to the landfill.

Um there's uh this is local landfill comparison.

This is landfill rates that are kind of here in your region.

Right now, today the base rate, now this does include uh the state and and county taxes or the uh the uh the uh sales tax.

This is just the this is that the landfill gate rate.

This is the landfill rate.

Residential rate, this is just a gate rate.

This is the gate rate at the landfill.

Just want to make sure public understands that.

Yeah, that's it's that's $36 per ton.

Um if you go to Conway.

This is what the 70% This is what the 75 percent of users outside of Fort Smith are paying.

That's what everybody pays.

Everybody pays.

Including people outside of Fort Smith.

Yeah.

That's what everyone is.

Your projections from the previous slide were based on $47, is that correct?

Yeah, they're based on $47.

Um so uh understand this.

Your rates, your collection rates include a landfill disposal charge.

The city doesn't pay it pay itself.

You don't you don't write a check for yourself to yourself for landfill disposal, but your landfill costs are incorporated included in your rates.

So uh the that $36 is the current landfill gate rate.

$60 is what's paid at the Conwell Con Conway landfill.

Garland County is $37.40.

Little Rock City landfill is $55 a ton.

This is the controversial you probably have heard about it, the Eco Vista landfill at Tawnytown.

That's uh $73.76 is the rate, their gate rate at that landfill.

And then the City of Salisaw, just across the river over here is at $40 right now, you know, before you pay their taxes and fees.

So this is this is kind of the the point that I was making.

If you look at the all of those landfills up there are municipal landfills except for the Eco Vista landfill, which has a rate of $73.76.

And why do you think they charge that?

Because they can.

They're the only game in town, they're the only landfill in Northwest Arkansas.

And um now, I will tell you this.

There are uh they they do make deals, though.

And by the way, I'm not painting the owner of the landfill as an ogre or greedy because that's that this is the way the market works.

You you uh uh you you you own a business, you own an asset, and you try to generate whatever revenue you can from it, and that's what they're able to get at that landfill.

Now, they also, though, have uh clients that are big generators that they make private deals with that are considerably lower than that 7376.

That's what anybody pays that pulls up to the gate with a load that you don't have an agreement with them, a contract with them for disposal.

So they do have private sector contractors just like you do, who come to your landfill and dispose at your landfill that dispose at a lot lower rate than that.

We don't know what that is because that's not public information.

That's private information between private parties.

Um when we were discussing the the landfill rate and what it's gonna take moving forward uh in order to sustain the the landfill uh services.

Um the question was asked in one of our staff meetings.

Hmm, I wonder what it would look like if the city didn't pay any landfill disposal costs and none of the admin costs, none of the that none of the costs associated with uh landfill disposal, um if those were just all paid by the uh the third party people, that's 75 percent.

What if all of that was paid by the 75 percent and Fort Smith residents and businesses didn't pay anything for disposal?

And so I'll just give you one example.

It would be easy to get lost in the weeds on this slide, and I'm happy to go into depth on it, but just look at it this way.

Currently we're projecting that the the need going forward at the landfill is the uh 4710, which includes uh the city admin fee or at admin cost.

And uh if the city paid nothing, your landfill rate would have to go up to $62 and 79 cents if only the third parties were paying for landfill disposal.

Now, you can do a sensitivity analysis on that, but I can tell you that at $62.79, there'd be a lot of people seeking other locations for disposal.

So you'd you'd lose a lot of volume if uh before you go there, Ms.

Dwayne, isn't the Sebastian County Solidwood District dictate everything picked up in the Sebastian County must come to our landfill?

It's actually within the city.

It's in our city ordinance.

I think if you check the Sebastian County Slater waste district, I think the district has mandated everything Sebastian County comes to our landfill.

I'll uh I'll I'll check on that.

Make sure.

Okay.

So here is uh a a discussion about your current rates and uh service alternatives.

We call them alternatives because I didn't want to define them as options, because it's like we're asking you to choose one of those.

Uh we're actually defining them as alternatives, and I'll I'll explain the difference here shortly.

Um your current rate, the City of Fort Smith residential service fee is $15.89 per month.

And that is a rate that was agreed upon in 2000, and then it was stair-stepped up to that rate commencing in 21 and 22.

What did I say?

Oh, 2020, sorry.

Yeah, in 2020 and stair stepped up to the 1589, it was below 1589 in 21, and then in 22 it uh it landed at its current rate.

And so it's been at that current rate for the last at that current rate or lower for the last six years.

Um, in almost every uh municipal service and private sector service contract that I'm aware of, there's a provision in the contract or a provision in the ordinance whereby the uh service costs are attended to on a scheduled basis for an annual adjustment.

And had you done that for the last since 2020, when this was initially uh initiated, if you had just uh uh adjusted your rates annually in accordance with the consumer price index, your rate today would be $19.33.

That's what your rate would be.

Now, the following three rates, the $17.42, the $2193, and the $2349.

I'll tell you where those come from.

Um we essentially decided to just design design a spectrum of potential services that could be provided in the city.

What you're actually providing right now is that bottom one.

The service that you are providing in the city right now is the service that we cost, the current cost of doing that service.

And by cost, I mean cost, what it actually costs to do it is $23.49 per household.

Um the lower cost, the $17.42, that's a service that you can't even offer because we just said if you did nothing, the every solid waste service in municipalities is all driven by public health and safety codes.

And if you did nothing other than just pick up your garbage and put it in a hole, that's all.

You didn't do any recycling, you didn't do any uh organics or yard waste.

If that's what you did, your cost right now today would be $17.42.

Just to pick up trash, put it in the landfill.

Um that second one, the $2193, that's reverting a little bit to your former service you had where you actually uh are picking up garbage every week, but then every other week you're picking up the yard waste and the uh recycling.

Yard waste on one week and uh recycling on the next on alternative weeks.

So that's the difference in prices between those three services.

One is no recycling or yard waste at all, the other one is alternating weeks on your yard waste and uh and recycling, and then the bottom one, the 2349, is what we project your s your actual current costs are of providing the service that you are providing right now.

So we haven't seen the budget yet for sanitation.

Are you running at a deficit for 26?

Is that what you're gonna be looking at?

That's what we're projecting at this time.

That's so far.

What about for 25?

What does that look like?

We will probably end up with a small deficit at the end of 25.

You know, my impression was that solid waste was running efficiently.

And I don't disagree with that.

It's more a matter of covering all the costs of the services are being provided rather than inefficient operations.

And from what I have seen up until last year, the Department was running in a surplus, but since the rates have remained the same for several years, they're not covering some of the rising costs that go into those operations like maintenance, uh labor, fuel, and the other things that that go into all of those costs.

Do we do our own maintenance?

For the most part we do.

We do all the vehicle maintenance that we can do in-house.

Some of the larger yellow iron and truck maintenance goes back to dealers.

So if I understand this correctly, you're suggesting that we are losing $7.60 per resident per month on residential collection.

I'm going to give a much clearer explanation of this as we go forward, but that I would say that's correct.

Oh, sorry, Christine.

Cost is $15.

I pay $1589.

It costs me 20 it costs the city 2349.

That's our estimate.

Yes.

So we were about breaking even and costs have increased that much over one year.

It's uh and I don't recall the exact figure from the from the draft uh budget, but it's it's more of a matter of uh of creeping cost eating into that uh uh excess and and and turning it over over the course of several years.

So can I can I just I know you know when we have talked about some of the discussion about you know uh different people we contract with, we've talked about kind of uh, you know, with insurance and things like that.

I know there was an issue that came up.

We were talking about not wanting to use some of the smaller mom and pop people who have lower overhead and keep costs low and create competition.

You know, I I find it hard to believe costs have increased that much in one year.

I mean, how much did this study cost?

How much do we pay for that?

About 260.

I think I looked at I can I can find it actually.

That's that's 258.

I mean, our residents are paying enough.

And you know, we keep doing these studies.

This is why I voted against that parking study or the parking garage, because we do these studies and then we feel like we have got to act on them when we don't have the money.

And I mean, people that you know they can't afford groceries, they're paying the water rate increase, we've got sewer.

I mean, this is a department I never hear anything about, and that's a good thing.

That's a good thing.

That means you are providing a quality service, and that is what our residents you know depend on.

But you know, I mean, this is a big jump.

So um Neil, are you good?

I'm good.

Uh Lee, you got a quick question?

Uh yeah, just to so that I can stay with the presentation with this as well.

What is the I was under the impression we had a fund balance available within this services of 50 percent, but I am hearing that that's not the case.

I I think the fund balance is available, yes, but it's a matter of uh when you when you look at budget uh how much revenue are we bringing in on a 12-month period versus the expenses in that 12-month period is what we are talking about in terms of budgeting and deficit.

Doesn't mean that we don't have reserves to cover that.

Okay.

I was just gonna make sure that because I think that lowers the intensity of this.

I mean, we're talking about this, but you have 50 percent.

Fund balance, right?

We we do have reserves to draw from at this point.

Okay.

And and should next year as well.

That is it's more of a matter, and I believe this was recognized last year, which is what started the review, that uh basically costs were eating more and more and more into that reserve and and uh felt the need to do something to to turn that around, at least have a discussion about what that means and how to react to it.

Yeah, thank you.

And I appreciate that because I think that helps bring a uh perspective to this.

I think also sometimes votes for new equipment just always go because we know the money is there.

I think that we just watch the needle on every time we are voting on new equipment as we think about this.

So another question I have before we and I'll let us continue on.

Who currently handles our recycling right now?

I know we talked about that on a slide for recycling and potential service increases or something.

Who currently handles our recycling?

It's uh MARC industries out of Lowell, and uh they've been handling our recycling since uh 2024.

So there really is no is there profit from this agreement of how we do it?

No.

Okay.

No, there's not.

No, sir.

Okay, thank you.

No, we do we it's a it's a cost, and in my experience, a recycling program like that is always going to be a cost center because the materials that you are recovering, when you sell those, they don't cover the cost of the whole operation.

And that's a whole different tangent, but basically it's a cost center, and part of what Joe is talking about is some of the ways that we could help mitigate that.

Thank you.

Anything else, Lee?

No, that's all for the first time.

George you got anything to do.

Jeff, uh uh the sanitation up by uh uh number of services a portion of the neighborhood services demolition and cleanup fund is does come from the solid waste fund, yes.

A portion.

Yes.

Well, 90 percent ish.

Of the cleanup and demolition fund comes from the solid waste fund.

Yeah, guys, you you uh you said that the city was funding sanitation somehow.

Yeah, earlier.

I was understanding this being an enterprise fund, they're self-sufficient, so evidently they are not.

Would that be correct?

Say that again, George.

I think I would think I was saying that there is an administration fee that we is.

Yeah, administrative cost.

I keep saying fee, but it's a cost, yes.

It's administration and management, which goes for neighborhood services and some other city functions that are covered by revenue coming out of solid waste.

Through allocated cost, yes.

That's right.

So for what I've heard of now, you you're you're saying that we need to raise rates.

Correct.

What he's actually saying is demonstrating what our cost of providing the services are compared to our rates.

Yeah, and there's quite a bit of difference.

But what I'm wondering is could those costs be mitigated if we go through and look at ways to create efficiencies and make some reductions?

You know, that's always where I look first before.

You know, I'm I'm in small business, and you know, I I'll tell you, I I can tell you what my costs are.

I don't need to hire a study uh to tell me what our costs are.

You know, it surprises me we we couldn't figure this in-house.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Um all great questions and expected.

So thank you for those, and we're going to try to cover those as we move forward.

Um right now your current rate is 1589, and what it would be if you just adjusted it over the last six years at the CPI rate, it'd be 1933.

So this is a residential rate comparison.

And these are for what we think are like representative cities, somewhat representative.

They're not twin cities to Fort Smith, but they're cities that have economies of scale that are comparable to Fort Smith, so and they're in their neighborhood.

So their rates should be comparable because they are providing similar services.

All of them except for the City of Van Buren, which I understand uh is not providing a recycling collection service.

But if uh if you can just look at the colored bars that are on the left of the of the screen.

The colored bars that are on the left of the screen, and I'm sorry, um I'm an old geezer and my eyes are tired, so I've got to look at my printout here.

It's uh there you go.

Okay.

Um the colored bars on the left, that that uh orange bar to the far left is your current rate, $15.89.

So you can see the line all the way across the page there.

Uh you're currently the low-cost leader uh, you know, of all these cities.

And the cities that we put on here are uh I'll start Van Buren, Tallaquah, Springdale, Sherwood, Rogers, Pulaski County, Pine Bluff, McAllister, Oklahoma, uh Magnolia, Arkansas, Little Rock, Jonesboro, Jinx, Hot Springs, Fayetteville, Conway, Broken Era, Oklahoma, and Bixby, Oklahoma.

Uh those are all cities that provide municipal service.

They provide services that are roughly comparable to what you are doing here, and you can see what their rates are.

The average rate of those 17 cities is $24.03 a month.

That's all your neighbors.

Their average rates that their residents are paying for service right now is $24.

What's that container?

There are three containers, so they're either 60 or 90 gallon containers.

Yeah.

It makes no difference.

No.

Well, they're there.

Yeah, the purchase price of the containers, if you put three of those out to every house, it's probably $140 to $150 of investment per household for 90 gallon containers, and it might be $20 less than that, $20 or $30 less if you put out $60, $64 gallon containers.

And that would make a couple of cents difference in the rate.

Not a very big difference in the rate.

Okay.

Yeah.

So your current rate is $1,59.

Then if you look at the next bar, that's where I gave you the illustration that if you had adjusted it annually by CPI for the last six years, that your current rate would be $1933.

Then you can see the $1742, that's the rate that I told you, that's not one you can even really do because you by state law you have to have a uh a yard waste program.

They don't uh the there's a prohibition of of brush and yard waste from landfill disposal.

So uh municipalities are supposed to have a yard waste program, uh, but that's the 1742 rate.

That's just if you pick up garbage only.

Uh the 2344, uh that's the rate for the service that you're doing now.

That's right now, you pick up garbage every week, you pick up the yard waste every week, and you pick up recycling every week.

Uh there's only about a third of the residents in town that are participating in the yard waste and recycling program.

Uh but it's available to everyone.

Um and because the the the participants are so spread out, the truck has to go all the way down the street even if there's only one cart out on the block.

So that's that's that situation.

So then if you look at that red bar, that's the the $24.03.

That's the average rate uh that is paid by all those cities, all those other cities on there.

You will notice that what's the cost of service in Jonesboro?

The cost of service in Jonesboro, nobody knows.

And the reason that people say, oh, our trash is free in Jones.

I know why.

I don't know exactly why.

Huh?

I don't know exactly why.

Because they passed the sales tax and there's the residents get free sanitation.

Whether they're they're uh they're they're paid for in the general fund.

The residents pay past the sales tax, and that's how they do it.

Yeah.

That but they had a sales tax increase to do it.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, Christina, sorry.

We were just picking up recycling every other week.

And when we moved to doing it every week, we were told that we could afford to do that.

If that's become a financial burden, should we look at going back to every other week?

I was fine with every other week because I had two cans.

I was good with that.

It was easy.

It's actually easier on us.

But that's I like every week that you arrived.

I mean, I I like every week too, but if it's, you know, if we're looking at ways, we need to make cuts versus a rate increase, that's some place I think we could start because our residents already have familiarity with that system.

And I'll just remind everyone, this Joe's not making recommendations at this point.

These are just some of the options.

So uh and these are great questions.

All right, so we've it's a possibility that we could go back to bi weekly.

Uh you want to know you want to know how much longer you're going to be.

Um, how much longer do you want me to be?

I'll I'll work on your schedule.

10 minutes.

Let's wrap the start programming.

All right.

Well, let me let me try to breeze through this then.

Because as I said, I'm more than happy to to come back and continue the issue.

Um, but uh we weren't expecting you to make decisions.

I'm just trying to be the bearer, hopefully not bad tidings, but realistic tidings uh tonight regarding uh your current situation.

Okay.

So that's that what that shows you, and I think it's uh it's a worthy consideration, and that is your residents are per currently paying $15.89, but the average of all the cities in this region is $24.

Okay.

Um, so we talked a little bit about ancillary services.

These are services, and I'm not going to belabor this.

I'm just going to tell you that if you look at the bottom right corner on here, it says $529,000 $529,712.

Based on this illustration, which I'm telling you is reasonable, but we don't know what the future holds.

All these things over on the left, these service fee options, like a return fee.

Yeah, this happens more often than you would believe, but because we uh in many uh areas we have cameras on trucks now, uh and we're able to make the determination.

So many people call during the week and say, You missed my trash.

Well, uh in most cases what it was was they didn't have it out.

Uh but uh uh in some cases, uh you know it's possible that it was missed, but there's a go back charge in in in the municipalities, a go back charge for places especially where you can demonstrate that the trash just wasn't out when the truck was there.

Uh extra dump fees, uh uh additional bulky item collection, there's a certain amount of bulky items that are uh collected annually uh under the normal service, but uh if you go beyond that amount, there can be a fee for it.

Pull out services, uh that is where you've got bins or carts that have to be pulled down a long driveway or have to be accessed and pulled out to a street where they can be serviced by the truck.

Uh typically there are charges for those type things.

You guys don't have those in your uh rates right now.

We're saying that if you look at that list on the left, and that's just a partial list.

If you look at that list on the left list on the left, and you charge what we consider to be a reasonable fee for those.

If you look at that third column from the right where it says percent per week, that means only at the top one, only a half percent of your customers per week would probably use that service.

The next one is a quarter of a percent of your of your residents would use it per week.

The next one is a half percent, then one percent.

Then locking carts and bins, that's in your resid your uh commercial sector.

A lot of people use locking carts and bins, and there's a cost of that.

The driver has to pull up to the thing, get out of the truck, go out, unlock the bin, go back to his truck, dump the bin, get back out, go back out, put the bin back in, lock the thing back up, and drive away.

Now, there's not very many people that have that, but that's a cost that those people aren't paying for.

Everybody else is subsidizing that cost.

We're saying that if you actually charge people for the services that they're getting, you have the opportunity to generate that additional revenue on an annual basis.

This speaks uh Ms.

Kat Savas to one of your questions, and that is there's an opportunity right there to increase revenues and reduce costs.

Okay.

All right, so here's the key questions.

Uh with consideration to current costs, and these the you you guys have already raised some of these, with considerations to current costs, should the city implement measures to reduce collection and processing costs and increase residential participation in order to improve uh program efficiency.

Those opportunities exist.

So that's an answer to one of your questions.

Uh question two, with consideration to the very high cost of collection per ton, uh, should the city suspend the residential recycling service?

Now I don't think that would be a very popular move, and again, I'm not a public policy person, but uh it's an option.

And if if that's a service that you chose to suspend, it's a uh cost that you wouldn't incur.

It's a no in my book, so let's continue.

I think the I'll speak for the board.

We're not going to suspend residential.

That's uh or or it's recycling.

That's a non-starter, let's just continue on.

With question number three, excuse me.

Uh with consideration given to limited participation generated by the city's subscription only approach, should the city or the city could consider moving to universal service where every household is provided carts.

Every household is provided carts.

And the trucks that are going down the street, if people have carts, uh it's more likely that they're going to participate in the program.

If you generate enough additional material, it means it's going to be possible for you to internalize this recycling processing operation, thereby reducing your costs even with additional participants in the program.

So that's uh the that becomes an option for you.

So what are the takeaways?

Um Ms.

Kat Savas, am I pronouncing that correctly?

Cat Savas.

Um I think are direct response to the concerns that you raised.

And that the f first takeaway is to perform a billing and equipment and service audits.

Um I can tell you, having worked for municipal uh municipal governments over the course of the last 30 years, it is often that we come into a city and we find out that it's been decades, maybe never since a billing audit has been performed.

And what does that do?

That means that you go out and you actually drive the entire routes and you make sure that the equipment that's there and the service that's being provided on a weekly basis is what's being billed for.

Because if that hasn't been done in a long period of time, it's highly likely that you're given away a lot of service and that you're providing service that's not being paid for.

Now, and I'll give you examples of how that happens.

Um somebody calls up and it's an emergency because we got a little league tournament at the baseball field, and it's going to be this weekend.

And uh we need some trash dumpsters out there.

And so somebody at the yard delivers some trash dumpsters out there and they get left out there, and maybe the city wanted to provide that service free for the tournament, but they didn't expect for that service to be continuously provided on an ongoing basis.

But the and by the way, I'm not saying this has happened here, but it happens.

Um that uh uh the the bins get left there, they get filled, they get serviced, and there's nobody ever gets charged for them.

That's the kind of thing that happens.

That's why you want to do billing equipment and service audits.

And then follow with route audits.

That's another efficiency measure where you look at the time in motion that the trucks are on the route, you look at the time between uh you look you look at the curb cuts in the street, the time in motion, the lift cycle on the truck, and you make a determination as to whether or not you can reduce the number of routes that are servicing the city.

Uh those are all things that can be done.

They're not easy to be done, they're they're laborious, they take a lot of time and effort uh and personnel, but they can be done and should be done.

Uh number two, I said bring all service rates current and keep them current with scheduled annual adjustments.

Uh this again is a public policy issue, but it's our recommendation.

And uh I said I wasn't going to make a recommendation, but if I could say anything other than keep your landfill, I'd say get your rates current and keep them current.

Uh number three, charge all customers for collection and disposal services that are rendered.

Everybody that's getting service should be paying for it, and that's for all services, including the ancillary services that we listed.

And then number four, uh as I said, take measures to protect the city's most important asset, your solid waste landfill.

So with that, I'm happy to take questions if you have time.

Thank you.

To the board, any questions, Lee?

George?

Not really.

Um, not really.

I mean, I think that as this comes back, I'm going to have some questions.

Uh, especially as we talk about budget and our budget hearing and look at this and think through I think I think we have to think through, and I think that's the sentiment I'm seeing sensing here tonight, the full picture of rates and different things of that nature.

And even if we couldn't do as proposed, is there a scaled back version?

You know.

If if for instance, if you said I need 5 percent, could you do 2 percent?

You know, could we hold back on some other items?

And so I I need I need to think about it more, and I'll have a lot more questions as we go forward.

Neil?

Okay, quite George.

Yeah, sir.

Did did you did you figure on commercial rights?

The yearly CPI, what their increase would be versus residential?

Uh what I'm saying, if we don't if we didn't raise residential but it went with commercial cost of living index, what would that generate?

The uh the study that we did, which generated the revenues for the it's revenues generated for the entire department, which also included uh uh commercial rates.

Okay.

So the the commercial rates were included in the uh in the state.

So you don't see commercial rates offsetting the residential.

No, I don't, but I mean I can tell you that in some cases in some municipalities, that's what's done.

They you know they raise the rates on the commercial as opposed to the residential, and that's a possibility.

But that's not what we did.

We looked at the entire uh operation, your roll off operation, your bin operation, and your curbside operation, and we kind of evenly spread those costs across all three sectors.

Did you did you run across any any Atlantic bills that did uh that uh did dog dunk dog bounding?

I'm sorry, the uh what do you call it given the like the the the sanitization takes care of the animal uh control?

The sanitation is careful, animal services.

Do you run across that?

Um, I I I I haven't.

I mean, it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

I'm not I'm not familiar with it.

We're talking about as well.

Thank you.

No.

Neil?

Well, the one thing that I would look at is um is that 75 percent of the users that are using the landfill, they're not Fort Smith residents.

Well, the one thing that I would look at is um is that 75 percent of the users that are using the landfill, they're not Fort Smith residents.

Um I don't know what the breakdown is of those landfill costs like what what that generates.

I'm not for just I'll just say it.

I'm not for raising rates.

I know what our our citizens have have gone through with water and sewer.

But if you look at water, and this is this is a big frustration that we had related to water.

Was it 40 percent of our water gets no uh Yes, 42 percent of our water is goes to people outside the city?

Goes to people outside the city.

We we were talking we some of us were talking about that need there needs to be a higher cost there because you would ask the question.

If we didn't have 42 percent of our water going elsewhere, would we have a problem with water?

Would we have an issue with in the summertime not having uh uh you water shortage, things like that.

And and so um so I I look at this and say, are we are the citizens of Fort Smith, according to this, if the citizen of Fort Smith the ones bearing the burden when there's 75 percent of the users to that landfill, and I don't know what the costs are, but the 75 percent of those users are are getting a better deal because they don't live in the city of Fort Smith.

I don't I don't believe that's that should be an advantage to live in borrowing, uh greenwood somewhere else to use our landfill.

So uh I'll give a short answer to that, and that is it's just simple it's it's actually fairly simple math, and that is it costs you about I'm I'm I'm not looking at the study, so I think it's like twelve and a half million dollars a year to run the landfill.

You just all you do is you divide that twelve and a half million dollars by the two hundred and ninety-eight thousand tons that came in, then that's how you come up with your your disposal costs per ton.

So if you lose tonnage, your rates on everybody else goes up because your your your disposal costs aren't going to go down proportionally.

There's got to be some break-even.

That's what I would like to see.

Yeah, there is, but the the fact is that you're still gonna have to have the same landfill operators open the same cell.

It it's the same deal with water.

We you raise you raise rates, usage goes down.

I mean, I I I think I think we see that.

I would I would like to see what that would look like.

But again, I don't want to penalize residents of Fort Smith.

Um I don't want to incentivize someone to live to live outside of Fort Smith.

I think that's that that bothers me greatly.

So I think I want to I want to hone in on that that those numbers.

Neil, you good?

I'm good.

Christina?

I would just say um, you know, I'm on the audit committee.

Maybe this is something that we should talk about a route audit or billing audits, things we can do in-house.

But I'm not for raising rates.

That's that's a great that's an excellent point.

That's an excellent point.

Anything else, Christina?

Lee?

Sir, are you saying by the math that I just crunched in my head with the numbers you just said on this calculator here, so it may not be no, we're just talking here.

But conceivably like a five dollars and ninety-four cents increase on those 75 percent users are paying $36.

It was like $41.94.

So five dollars and ninety-four cents a ton every time they come out.

Is what you're proposing that we would need to to increase.

Uh the rate increase are or the I shouldn't call it a rate increase.

The cost.

The cost of of running your landfill is a fixed number.

Now, there's there's fixed costs and there's uh but it's a fixed number.

And I I I wish I don't have the report in front of me.

I actually have it on flash drive.

But I th let's just say it's 12 and a half million dollars a year.

And the way that the fee that we've described, or the cost that we've described per ton, is simply based on dividing the total number of tons that come into the landfill annually by the revenue requirement.

Or dividing, yeah, by the revenue requirement.

And so that is But if we know that we can fix 75 percent of our usage without raising rates on residents on their monthly bill, and we're ride sizing to recapture the real cost, at least at 75 percentage of our users.

So I know we're saying we're not for rate increases.

I know what we're talking about, we're talking about the bill that the people are getting in the mail, but I think we do need to look at some of these things being right-sized.

Um that being particularly one.

Um I also think that there is some sentiment of me that thinks that at some point finding some way to not just get in the game of we don't touch rates until we're at absolute desperation, and then we fix these rates.

I would love to see us do something more of a low actual realistic number percentage every year so that we are not in this game of catching ourselves.

Otherwise we'll be just like the boards that ignored the infrastructures and things of that nature.

So I uh I just want to make sure where where can we do it though without impacting the wallet of working families, you know, that are hard.

I mean, if there's a company coming out and they're dumping, and I've I've done this, I've brought a trailer load out there and pay the tonnage.

If I had to pay five dollars and ninety-four cents when I'm actually working on a project more for the tonnage for while I'm there, I don't think I would notice that.

But if if you're talking about putting it on a residence bill, I think that's the one that we need to be protecting.

Uh but there has to be, to me, in this discussion, some ways of efficiencies and increases that can be actualized without feeling the weight of what we're talking about.

So if you'll look at that slide right there, this is the one this the the uh look on the right column.

You'll see if you look oh I'm sorry.

Um the 4710 rate is the rate that we have calculated, the cost that we've calculated per ton for uh use at the for disposal at your landfill.

If you look at the second number, look look over in the c second column from the left, the uh option number two.

City residential, commercial, and industrial customers are exempted from paying landfill costs.

Okay?

So if they're exempted from paying landfill costs and those 75 percent pay all of the cost of operating the landfill, your tipping fee goes from 47 dollars up to 627.

So those those 75 percent would have to pay 6279, not forty-seven dollars if you don't charge your customers anything.

So one final follow-up question, because when I have been out to the landfill, you got a lot a load tarped, you're bringing out extra stuff.

The first thing they ask me is where are you coming from?

All right.

So are we charging people that aren't from the inside the city of Fort Smith?

Uh are we charging those people less than we are the outside people?

No.

Uh why do we ask the question?

It's not set up at this point uh so that one is being subsidized by the other, I don't believe.

I you know, the the point of the the pie chart was to show people coming from or entities coming from outside the city are potentially paying the majority of the cost.

But in the current ordinance, we have a tipping fee for everybody who comes in.

Typically the reason you're being asked uh uh what the source is, first of all, we're required to record that for regulatory purposes.

But the other thing is there are some, like on the first Saturday of the month, Fort Smith residents do get a discount on trash.

Um that's the other reason that that might be.

You know, as well.

Thank you.

These are, if I may, these are kind of the boundaries that that Joe is presenting, and there are some possibilities in between too, I think.

So this feedback is very helpful.

Christina?

Well, I would just say to compare this to the consent decree is a false equivalency.

I mean, that was something for decades we knew that needed to be done.

That was the kicking the can down the road.

Up until this moment, we believe this department was solvent.

We're talking about over a 30 percent increase for one year.

I think we're right to push back on that and say where can we cut costs, where can we create efficiencies, let's not jump to an increase.

And that's all I'm saying.

But I I just think that's a false equivalency to compare it to something that was decades of neglect.

I think it's right for us to pause and you know spend some time getting into the weeds on this.

Thank you.

I appreciate that very much.

I I I haven't made any comments.

My question for Joe is Joe, do you know the voters voted on a automated sanitation in 2012?

Was that part of your study?

Did you know the voters actually voted to have automated pickup in the city back in 2012 or 2013?

I I knew that the program was implemented then, but I didn't know it was voted on.

The other thing is I'm gonna say this is and that's what I told Neil.

Neil knew I was thinking because I've said this.

It's our landfill.

We should charge whatever we like.

And the residents should be not be charged in my book.

I think I think it's time for residents to be uh get a benefit from our landfill that they have put up and and done all these years.

Other side is this I don't care if it's 116 years, how do I make it 116 years ten years from now?

How do they make that thing grow so that way my kids, kids, kids, kids have something here instead of it being like Tauntown, because I'm hearing there's major issues up there with with growth and and not having anywhere to go.

So I would go back and ask the question is put it on the 225,000 tons, put everything on that and see what it is and no rate rate increase to the residents.

That's right.

And that's where it should go.

Thank you very much.

Anything else on the board?

All right, Joe, Duane, thank you very much.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay.

We'll go back to item number one tonight.

Uh we'll go to Jeff talking up.

I don't do I don't know in order at this.

Item one.

All right.

The uh this item this evening is proposed uh as is the proposed loan personnel agreement with Burns and McDonald Engineering for staff augmentation services for the engineering department.

This item was tabled at last week's regular meeting pendings to the session review.

Uh from the staff's perspective, this action is needed as with the retirement of the previous director of engineering.

We currently have no professional engineering supervision on staff to oversee our streets, bridges, and drainage CIP projects, not even on an interim basis.

We are in process for recruiting a new director and also project engineers, but in the meantime, the staff augmentation agreement would assist in moving projects forward that are currently on hold.

The proposed contract amount is the maximum amount paid to the vendor for a six-month contract utilizing the vendor's employee on a full-time basis.

It is not the amount paid to the employee.

With that introduction, I'll defer to the board's discussion.

So the board members any comments or questions?

We would like to go first.

Do we have any idea of an expectation of how long to we could have this position filled?

Because I know it says up to, so you know, we're not locking in that number to be spent.

I mean, is there things that we could be doing within HR to spin this to an aggressive level, knowing that this is the kind of money you pay to a private company?

Yes, and we are doing those and we have we have interviews lined up, and so we are actively recruiting for that position.

Uh but even so if we get the right person may come in, I mean we're recruiting all over, but it presuming that person has a uh uh lead time to get hired and started here.

In the meantime, we have projects that are still on hold and and not uh progressing.

Because we could get two or three engineers at this price point.

Yeah, yes, right.

Yes.

But yes, and and so and that is why it's at a not to exceed in so if the if we get a director hired uh and started, then uh then we can change the.

Is there a measure of confidence where we are with like within what that we could beat this timeline?

This is a a higher number.

And when we brought it up and talked about it, I uh you know, I just felt it again.

Is there a confidence of how soon we think we could bring someone on?

Well, like I said, we are actively recruiting and we are interviewing the the candidates that we think are are suitable and qualified.

So in terms of uh how long that might take, I mean, it could be you know, we could have a decision by the end of the week uh to make an offer, or it could be it could still be several weeks, but but it's still a it still is an act of recruitment.

Could you walk us through if we did not approve this, what is all hindered and impacted by that?

Mostly it is the streets, bridges and drainage CIP projects.

So the overlay projects, um street uh improvement projects and drainage improvement projects that we have in that CIP.

Those are currently on hold until we have a uh professional engineer to oversee them.

So quite in fact, well, currently we we do have the the remaining part of a staff augmentation services that for a project engineer uh that that we are fat uh quickly exhausting, and this this particular agreement would replace that.

But that that soon will be expired and and we won't have any hours left on that agreement.

How many projects are out already that we know we've already put out that we're going to be working on?

I mean, we've got quite a bit of work still ahead of us, don't we?

That you know we're still that everything's green-lighted on, correct?

And now we've now shipped it to outside engineers.

Yeah, I'm gonna defer to to Ben who knows those numbers.

And so this is this is Ben Marts.

Hello.

Yes.

Okay, maybe not.

Went away.

Okay, there we go.

Um so the current number of projects we've got going is uh 58 active projects at the moment in various stages, whether it be designed.

Did you say 58?

58.

Okay.

Sorry, 58.

Yeah.

And various stages, not just design.

Some of them are in study phase, some of them are in active construction, some are in close out, and so yeah.

And are those 58 that I mean we're already handed it to an outside engineer, or those 58 that we're having handled in here?

Uh they're in various phases.

I mean, some of them, you know, we've closed out a study on one, and and so we're getting ready to do a design phase on it, or it's an act of construction.

We've got three that should be having a um a final pay coming sometime in the next month or so that we're going to be closing out.

And so really it's just they're all different phases, so they're not just one at this point.

Um that makes sense.

Does I'm just trying to feel like what I'm trying to ascertain here is that the idea of if we think we have some engineers that are right here on the hopper were hopeful and expectant that we're going to be making them an offer, and you pause on this for a minute, you know, are there projects that are already moving and that are scaled into its plastic that won't even stop.

They'll won't even miss a beat.

And then what projects are going to begin obviously missing a beat.

Um and so that's what's in my mind.

One of the big things, especially for the active projects that are in construction.

Um, we'll have to get some better language from the engineering board on this, but engineering inspection is a engineering function according to state law.

And so, and that's through Arkansas Board of Engineers and all that.

And so the inspectors that we have for the engineering department are currently basically running under my stamp on that at this point.

And so if if I am not there, then somebody from another department will have to step in and be the direct manager oversight for those departments.

And I think we're down to five professional engineers for the entire city at the whole at this point.

And so starting to get into fairly limited resource, and so if you're still in one from another department, then you're taking away the ability for them to also do work and whatever that capacity is.

Well, thank you.

It starts to show me, help me see some of the narrowness of the options.

Thank you.

Any other director?

Christina?

Well, you know, I just want to speak into a little bit the mismanagement that went into this, because you know, here we are again, operating in crisis mode.

Two years ago, I told Carl, I said we can't get anyone to work for what we're paying.

And we went back and forth for over a year about guys said these engineers coming out of school, I mean, they're making 20, 30,000, 40,000 more than we're offering seasoned engineers.

This could have been avoided had we and we've done that.

You know, we we've changed the pay scale, we've done that now, but I just want to make sure, you know, going forward, we're mindful of this, looking down the road and seeing this is the outcome we're going to get.

Because we knew Stan was close to retiring, or you know, maybe thinking about it.

Um see I believe Ben, you used to work for us, didn't you?

That's correct.

I used to work for the utility department.

Okay.

Well, I just that's something going forward I just think we need to be mindful of.

Um so we're not always operating in crisis mode.

Leal?

So so the way the way I understand it, if we if we find somebody in a month, um there'll be some lag time, but we could end this contract early.

Not to say we're yeah, I told you last week this has nothing to do with you.

Um but we could we could end this agreement early.

Uh we're not we're not agreeing to six months.

We're uh we're agreeing uh there's not a timeline on this, I should say.

That's that's correct.

Okay, it's just a period of time at a not to exceed price.

That's correct.

And that at some point that'll run out.

We might have to renew it.

But if we find somebody and they can jump in in three months, then we can end this thing in three months.

Yes, that's correct.

All right, thank you.

Any other comments or questions from the board?

I mean, is there an action item that we need to take on this?

Just to move it back to the next regular uh meeting, which actually at this point is October the 14th.

We might have we might know some additional things by then that uh we'll need a motion.

Sure.

Yeah.

I and I hope we do.

But I will make a motion to put it on the next regular meeting.

Thank you.

I second it.

I've got the only.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ben.

Thank you.

All right, we'll go to item number two.

Uh although Andre and Jared put it on here.

Not here, we'll go there and get some information.

I know we've got a visit here, so I'll be a quick update and then we'll go from there.

This item denied is further discussion of the Fort Smith Cemeteries.

Uh we have attached the information provided to by the Fort Smith Cemeteries Inc.

Board for the July 15th study session that's in your packet.

Um additional information exhibit A on page 44 of your packet is a comparison of cemetery practices from other Arkansas cities, as well as a report from exploring alternative methods of maintenance.

Exhibit B on page 45 of your packet is a budget comparison submitted by Fort Smith Smith Cemeteries Inc.

comparing the budget city staff provided at the August 19th regular meeting with an alternative proposed by Fort Smith Cemeteries Inc.

It shows an annual operating expense still of 404,000 offset by cemetery revenues from plot sales and interments.

This would be entirely a general fund expense and could only be done if the city owned the property.

So with that I'll turn it to the discussion.

We have we do have uh visitors here.

I see Marty Clark here.

Uh I made presentation in July on from Fort Smith Cemeteries, Inc.

and uh I presume makes some statements and available for questions.

Welcome, Marty.

Thank you very much.

First of all, before I uh make an opening statement here, I just wanted to thank you guys for considering this issue again and keeping the issue alive.

I think it's an extremely important issue that's beneficial for uh future generations of Fort Smith citizens.

Uh also I'll I was not at the actual board meeting uh where this was considered a resolution was considered on August the 19th.

I was out of the out of town, and you know I understand the reluctancy that you guys had at that time because the budget that you were looking at was not one we had seen, and it was grossly overinflated.

I'm not blaming anybody, it just was.

And so what we did is we went back to the drawing board and actually provided a rebuttal budget to that, and that's what you are looking at right now.

So I appreciate your time.

Number one.

As far as uh an opening statement, I just want to say, you know, we're here tonight to revisit this request just for the City of Fort Smith to assume the ownership of Fort Smith Cemeteries, Inc., which includes Roselon, Holy Cross, Forest Park, and Washington Cemeteries.

Together, these four cemeteries are the final resting place of more than 55,000 Fort Smith citizens, thousands more will join them in the years ahead.

These cemeteries are not just burial grounds, they're sacred places that carry stories, sacrifices, and legacies of this community.

When we last presented the resolution was tabled, as we mentioned, because the budget numbers that were in front of you were far higher than I think you expected.

We heard you, and then we went back to work, as I mentioned.

Tonight we're presenting a realistic and sustainable plan that shows that this can be managed affordably and responsibly.

What we did and the major differences in this are number one, instead of building a large in-house staff, we prop we propose outsourcing maintenance where it makes the most sense.

Instead of buying expensive equipment and fleets, we would rely on uh local contractors who would bring their own.

And this approach cuts annual personnel costs in half and reduces capital expenditures by 80 percent.

Okay.

This request also includes Washington Cemetery, as I mentioned, which is not actually part of Fort Smith Cemeteries, Inc., but Washington Cemetery is a very important cemetery in our community.

Until now it survived only really through the extraordinary generosity of one individual that's Bobby Woodard Andrews.

She has paid bills out of her own pocket to keep it from falling into neglect, and that level of personal sacrifice is not sustainable, nor should it be the long-term plan for something that belongs to all of us.

What we are asking for tonight is simple, that the city step in as the proper steward of these cemeteries and ensure that they remain maintained, dignified, and cared for, not just today, but for generations to come.

So the budget's in front of you guys, and any questions you may have, I'll answer the best of my ability.

Neil.

Um Mr.

Clark, I I did uh I would ask, I know that I asked Ed for the 24 and 25 budgets for the cemeteries in and of themselves.

And you sent those to me.

I appreciate that.

I think the could you guys send that to the rest of the board as well?

I think I did.

Did you guys get it?

Oh, okay.

Uh okay.

I'm I'll make sure that everybody does.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure that we had I hadn't had a chance to look at it yet, but I I want to uh I think that's important for us as we move forward making these decisions.

Well, I'll just say, you know, I'm I'm someone that typically tries to be very mindful of the city's money and you know making sure it's allocated properly.

This is something that I feel, you know, we have a moral and a civic obligation to take care of.

Um, I mean, these are our historical archives.

And uh I think I just I firmly believe in my heart that it says a lot about who we are as a society, the way we honor our deceased.

And if these were to fall into disrepair, the amount of money it would take to go in and bring them back up to where they are now is um is gonna be exponential.

So, you know, this number certainly looks a lot better than what we saw last time, and I hope everyone will give it some consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um we look at this outsourcing, the the thing that I'm I'm wondering is the city has gone through the phases where we was better to outsource mowing of medians in the city of Fort Smith, but then and then also contracting out the interstate exchanges, and then only to find out, well, we really could do that better in-house.

So they've and they and I don't know how that's worked for Matt and his team, but I know that what they've taken back, they've done exceptional on a mowing.

And so it was cheaper as time progressed because the companies continue to invoice and that invoices grow, it was cheaper to do the mowing in-house.

Uh when we talked about making these cuts, which is an interesting approach, uh, because I did feel like the number originally was high.

Yeah.

Because even I ran some numbers and I thought I was expecting more like a quarter of a million.

Yeah.

And so to see a million felt stunning.

But I also know government's not going to do anything at a level that a private person can do.

But a company, my concern is that the companies might are they giving realistic bids where they're making good dollars enough to hold that line, or is there going to be that the bid goes was here and then it goes here?

Um so did you guys get bids to get this number?

We did.

We have three different bids.

Um 75,000 was the average.

Um I think it was King irrigation that provided that one.

They have a great reputation in the community.

They've assisted us for several years uh with our mowing endeavors, of which the city has also assisted us in helping fund some of those.

Um, you know, what I found surprising to be honest with you, as an outside business person was the incredible expense that was reflected in this budget based upon 17 and a half people, and that's insane in my opinion.

It's just and not only that, but the rate is probably 40 percent higher than what our actual market is currently for those positions.

So we're carrying over the same cost per employee.

We're just cutting the number of employees by two-thirds.

But we're still we still have 78,000 allocated for an on-site supervisor.

We still have 57,000 a year for an on-site maintenance person, which is 40 percent higher than what we currently pay.

So we're actually using the numbers that the city is suggesting as far as rate, and maybe if they are city employees, they have to be at that prevailing rate.

I don't know how that works.

But what I found ultimately surprising from this was the huge capital budget.

So we're talking about, you know, and a large amount of money here for capital purposes that would all be almost all be eliminated.

We still carried forward 159,000 of capital expenditures, including a truck, a couple of trucks, a mini excavator, but most of that can all be outsourced.

And I would suggest to the city that they maybe look at the way that they're running Oak Cemetery to see if there's ways they could save money there by outsourcing.

There's a specialty type of cut that has to be done on these cemeteries because we have headstones and a lot of wheat eating, and uh the the firms that we have gotten bids from are experienced at doing that, and I think that's helpful also.

So and how much was the revenue that is that inflicted on this sheet here?

Yes of that you guys bring in?

220 is the is the historical average for plot sales and uh openings and closings.

Um that I would be very adamant about creating is a friends of Fort Smith Cemeteries, which is an adjunct fundraising arm to help support the cemeteries, and I feel that you know 100,000 a year would be would be very obtainable.

That would also cut this 184,000 annual deficit significantly.

Well, so the other thought I'm just throwing around is in my mind is that what I would rather give you an offset as the city has done before, if you're 95,000 short, versus the city taking it on and assuming all the liability going forward.

I would rather give an offset of the budget money to you so that you guys maintain that in perpetuity.

Um but I mean, you I know Jeff, could you speak to that?

Yeah, the problem with that is that it is not public property.

And so that's not an off that's not an constitutional use of city funds.

We can't give money to nonprofits.

We've done it already.

We do it every year in the case.

And I'm just sitting here, I'm like, I guess where I'm at is uh is this something that we need to ask our state legislators to fix?

I think that's already been addressed.

Is that I know y'all were planning to reach out to the state?

Can you perpetual care cemeteries, which means that funds are paid, 20 percent of all proceeds are paid annually up to a state escrow fund, of which we have about $850,000.

Those funds are very discretionary, you're not really uh able to use them for maintenance related issues or operations, although the state did pass legislation two years ago that allows you to access 20 percent of those funds every 10 years for capital improvement needs.

Um the reality of it is, and I talked to the state.

If the cemetery uh fails and falters, and we revert it back to the state, because I know George, you had mentioned that at the last meeting.

The process for that would be the following.

Number one, a local judge has to re has to um declare us insolvent.

And then number two, a receiver has to be appointed by that same court.

So there would have to be a willing receiver.

Okay?

And I don't know who that person would be, but it would probably be the city that would be requested to be that receiver.

So you've got then you have that issue, and then once it's become remanded back to the city or whoever that receiver is, you have the ability to access $35,000 a year per cemetery from the state.

So that deficit is going to continue, and it's not sustainable.

And what I want to tell everybody, you know, is that we need to look outside of our box and understand that cemeteries are a terrible business model.

Okay, they just are.

And less people are getting buried now, more people are being cremated.

That's going to be continuing constraints on future revenue.

So we can kick the can down the road.

What's going to happen is that these cemeteries are going to go insolvent, and then they're going to be remanded to the state, and the state is going to uh appoint a receiver, and then that receiver is going to have to deal with the fallout and the issue.

But the city is going to have to deal with the fallout anyway, even if the state is takes it over theoretically, you're going to be the ones getting the complaints, and you're going to be the ones that get the eyesore situation.

The nature of my question is that I think the idea that the city can't give to nonprofits needs to be looked at.

And a few particular cases that come to my head are taking care of the unhouse population or burials.

To me, there should be some sort of discussion and petition from us to the state to consider a permission for this for municipal governments to do this to take this on.

Another question I have is if we were to take this on, is there any use of the park sales tax dollars?

Is there sales tax dollars dedicated to capital projects only?

Capital projects only.

So this is a true general fund expenditure.

Yes.

The $600,000 lien that's out there.

Um the city was to take this on, we have to pay that lien.

No.

No.

It's not a lien.

It's not a lien, it's a loan.

It was a loan made to a nonprofit that is personally guaranteed by two individuals.

Um it was a horrible loan.

You know, the bank made that decision, though, and they granted that loan.

And um and I think they understand that the possibility of that being paid back is is basically nil.

And uh because the the ability you're talking about drawing onto the funds to the number of cemeteries and things of that nature.

Yeah, there's no collateral with the cemetery.

But if you're offering that, you know some of that pot of money to uh to the bank to have to pay off the note, well then now you're talking about 200,000, not 600,000.

Yeah, you can't you can't access the uh the escrow funds of the perpetual care cemetery to pay that loan.

So that loan, I'm sure has been fully written off a couple of years ago, but uh that's not going to convey an obligation to the city.

So the city, just to for great greater clear and come back, we were assuming this we will not be required to pay back a $600,000 loan.

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah, and there's also um some long-term liens that the cemeteries also have that are from the city, and those are from the previous services that you guys provided.

And so we have liens against us, which affects us in any other kind of a potential private sale.

Uh but it's just uh there's the uh obviously if it convaded the city, that would be part of the issue that they would relieve the liens.

Have we seen any cemetery that had to be can uh release back or is the state ever taking care of any cemetery?

Have we seen any cases?

I asked I called Amelia Vestal, who's the head of the cemetery's division at the State, and she she said that uh there had been one that they had taken over in North Little Rock twenty years ago, and that it is now uh as of the last year been conveyed to another entity and is no longer under their purvey.

So I have no I mean what is it what is this say about us to the rest of the state that we don't take care of our own?

You know, I mean we this community is full of good, wonderful giving kind people, and you know, to see us painted with that brush that we can't take care of people that can't advocate for themselves, I mean to me it's just shameful.

So how but but to the point that I think we have to discuss, we talk about the general fund being in a deficit, and we're talking about growing it further.

Well, I mean, this building is gonna be paid off what at the end of next year, how much money does that free up?

27, I thought.

Was it the end of 26?

That's roughly what, 5800 a month.

Um but that about 20 only about 25 percent of that is general fund dollars.

I mean, you know, we find money for everything else.

Let's, you know, I'm willing I I am willing to get into the budget and go line by line and make the cuts to offset this if needed.

And I know we can do it.

We're getting into budget season, I know we can do it.

And I'm someone that doesn't advocate for spending money frivolously, but I I just feel like this says a lot about who we are as a society, how how we treat people, I mean, how do we want to be treated after we after we're gone?

You know, do we want to be in the ground with weeds grown up and uh you know I I just that's my thought.

Maybe you know, maybe my fellow directors don't don't share that same passion.

I understand that, but I think if we want to, I think we can get in there and find the make some cuts to offset what we need to offset.

And you know, we're talking about outsourcing.

I mean, we saw what it looked like a couple of weeks ago if we didn't outsource, that looked like 1.5 million.

So I think outsourcing was the way to go here to bring that cost down because we were looking at all those new um equipment cost.

Neil.

So um uh I think when I read in one of the emails uh about how we we came to this, um the way I understand it, it was you and Ed and Jeff and was there anybody else involved in cr in coming up with this?

They they proposed this to us.

I mean we're Sarah involved at all?

Uh not in that particular meeting, but Maggie and I met with Ed and went over this proposal.

I mean it's important to think through that.

That was I I I probably looked at it and said I thought it was high, but um that that that is the original one was high, but I'm not doing the work every day.

Right.

And and and to be fair, but what we asked of uh Sarah in the price department was to build a budget that was so that we could have a comparable level of service to what we tried to provide at Oak Cemetery.

So that did include and just the operating piece of it was, you know, it was I it is eye-popping in terms of what what the staff recommendations were and such, but that is assuming a a desired level of service.

I mean, I'm I'm I'm not sure if I am on the same page that the proposed is what it's actually gonna be.

I figured it's gonna be north of that and maybe south of what was originally proposed.

So um so I think we've got to look at that and um and and truly understand what that is and what that's gonna look like with the general fund because you are 100 percent correct.

We are looking at a deficit in the general fund, and that's well, that's with all I uh I will do the caveat that that's with all um uh capital purchases, which those aren't all gonna happen.

So um, we're not passing in ten and a half million dollars.

Uh yeah, I would 100 percent agree.

But we still have to work that in to where we're positive or even.

I would uh I mean even is the the floor for me.

Evens the floor for me.

We've got to take in more money than we than we spend out with the general fund, in my opinion.

Um so I I do have some concerns about the the floor and the and the ceiling, which I don't think we're seeing either one of those here.

Um the question that I have, and I think this is a logical question that this board needs to think about.

If the model doesn't work, the the cemetery model doesn't work, it doesn't work for anybody.

And if we do it here, what comes next?

What other cemetery comes to us and ask for it?

Um I'm not saying we don't need to take care of of uh of our dead, but are we setting a precedence that we are now in the cemetery business?

I that that concerns me.

I don't know how many there are.

I'm there's one at the end of Texas Road.

If anybody if anybody's around there, I don't even know if it's in Fort Smith or if it's in our coma.

I'm not 100% sure.

But it's off a gravel road.

Stateline's got one.

Oakland Cemetery.

What's that?

Oaklawn Cemetery.

Is that what no, uh it's off of a dirt road.

It's not in our coma, it's it's uh just straight, you continue Texas Road all the way down.

It is I've I've driven by there and I look at that and said, My gosh, they might come to the city of Fort Smith to keep this one up.

And I I look at that and it it just it causes me concern that uh that we're opening up ourselves or setting a precedence for being in the cemetery business across the city.

The last thing that I'll I'll ask is j I just wanted to clarify and make sure that I'm right.

Based off of this the proposal that that you guys have put together here, the total loss is 174,000 a year.

Is that correct?

184.

Well, I'm I'm looking at the 10,000.

Well, that's that's the first year correct.

Okay.

Okay, so it would be one eighty-four year of so we'd be budgeting in a hundred at least at least a hundred and eighty-four thousand dollar loss every year.

Right.

I I would I would uh suggest that private fundraising could also be obtained.

I also think, you know, in my opinion, the city's already in the cemetery business.

Um and I think that you should take a look at I don't know what the oak budget looks like, but if it looks like this, there's probably potential recapture of savings from that.

Maybe, maybe.

I mean, I'm uh willing to look at that, but just we may be we may put ourselves in the cemetery business.

Anything else now?

Excuse me.

Yeah.

I'm Bobby Woodard Andrews, and I'm the one that operates and functions out of Washington Cemetery.

The debt that you're looking at is not nowhere near what Washington owes.

Right now, Washington Cemetery is in the black.

We have no debt at this point in time.

The only thing that I ever asked for was assistant with grass cutting, because we have an extremely long grass-cutting season, and because I don't have nearly as many burials as the other cemeteries, then that causes a hardship.

But somehow we make it through.

A year or so ago we had some private entities who came in and took care of the finances to have the cemetery cut for the entire summer.

And we had an extremely long summer this year because we started cutting as early as February and we're still cutting and we almost in October.

So that's the only cost that we have at this point in time.

When we have a burial out there, I'm able to pay the gravedigger and I'm able to pay the person who cuts the grass.

That's pretty much where all my revenue goes.

So don't get me wrong, and I know that uh when they first approached me from uh Forsmith Cemetery, Inc.

and it told me what they intended to do in this that another, I asked him, please do not include me in the whole process because I didn't like the way it sounded from the beginning, and I asked them to even remove my name, Washington Cemetery, even from their letter head.

That's what it was.

Yeah, it was created 20 or whatever.

Yeah.

But uh I saw was c going awry.

And I like I said, I did not latch on to that store.

Thank you, ma'am.

Lee.

Yes.

And thank you for being here.

Thank you for speaking.

Yes, sir.

Because uh my question would be to you, do you really want us to take your cemetery then?

No, sir.

I didn't think you would.

None whatsoever.

And I and I'm wondering if you're making it, why can't these others make it?

And or how do we find ways to offset it?

I mean, if the city gave dollars before, and we weren't sued then, why were we not sued then?

All due respect to Mr.

Marty and what they're making an attempt to do now.

He didn't create this monster.

No, I don't think he did.

He inherited this monster.

And that's why I saw it necessary to separate myself from that entity in its entirety.

I have a strong community where the cemetery is.

I have people who volunteer.

I have children who come out and help pull grass.

I have had churches and organizations who have paid into keeping Washington Cemetery exactly what it is.

I have gone as far as to go to the Arkansas preservation society and ask them for them to help us to get our uh historical you know setting.

I don't like dealing with the Arkansas Historical Society because every entity that we have had, as far as African Americans, the Arkansas Historical Society have diminished.

The houses are empty, the houses are torn down, all of that history is gone because we have to sign off to give them an easement of whatever entity that we have.

And I just think it's not necessary for you to tax someone to do something that they struggling to do as it is.

So Washington Cemetery, other than having a grass cut, that would be my only plight is to ask the city.

And when they're out sitting, you know, and I and the guys over here with the city, and sometimes my grass has gotten out of control, and they send me a notice, but they call me personally and tell me, Bobby, we had to put the notice up because we had a complaint.

And when we've had the complaint, we have always got back in compliance.

Not one time have they had to come out there and cut that grass on our behalf.

And see, I think what I think about listening to you, Ms.

Bobby, is you're a perfect example of not asking the government to solve the problems because what you're doing and it's working.

And I'm wondering on this situation.

I have a care for the for the living and the dead.

It's part of what I do professionally.

Just I'm I don't know if taking it on for the city of Fort Smith forever more in perpetuity expanding the acreage that the the to take care of is a concern.

The backhoe, the mini X that's cut out of this, is that to say that you guys have a backhoe in a mini X?

It's outsourced.

Okay.

It's outsourced in the budget?

Okay.

Because I know that we're gonna you're gonna need to dig a hole.

So I mean currently do that and we would keep the same practice.

But isn't Mr.

Ralston was saying it was his backhoe.

Is he planning to continue that?

Um that's I think that's different.

Or Treco.

Okay.

That's just a structure.

Um then on the infrastructure, there was some talk about the Fort Smith Cemeteries having some infrastructure issues as well.

Does is this budget taking on any of those blighted infrastructure issues?

The capital um release from the fund of 170,000 would go towards capital.

Capital improvements.

Yeah.

And then the other thing I thought of is is if we were to take this on, uh is there a group that is willing to be on a committee or something of that nature that could be formed to make sure that these are taken care of, because I don't want to presume that we take this on and we just think we're big brother that'll fix this.

I mean, we've already proven to ourselves tonight by the presentations we've heard that the city is going to have its eyes on something for a time and then realize they didn't catch this or they didn't catch this.

And uh then all of a sudden we go five years down the road and that infrastructure problem to get didn't get fixed at the cemetery, and now it's compounded and it's gonna cost three times as much.

Those are the things that are scaring me about having the government take this on is the fact that there's going to be dropped balls.

Everything the government does takes twice as much and costs twice as much.

And I'm concerned about that.

Whereas if we could even give you a one-time allotment of money to help right size things or figure this out.

That those are where my thoughts are.

I personally am I'm open to these discussions, I totally am.

Uh I think I want to see the budget conversation now, and I want to see, yes, line by line, how can we find a way to fit this in?

I don't think it's going to be the 300 number.

I think it's going to cost us more, and I think we'd need to make sure that we'd find more than that kind of money before we consider this.

But uh that's those are my thoughts and comments.

Thank you.

All right, Neil.

You good?

Christina.

Do we have a rough idea?

I know the library has a friends of the library.

Do we have a rough idea of how much that organization brings in?

I do not.

I do I mean I know that they have a pretty active fundraising arm for sure.

Yeah, I'm on the um endowment committee for the library, and uh, you know, a hundred thousand a year, I think is is attainable.

Yeah, you know, which would further reduce this cost.

Um, you know, I will say this is a board that went like that for four point two million on water slides, but we can't take care of our dead.

Not everybody, but lead to your comment, I would say that yes, there would be a committee group that would help in that initiative, and I also think as you had mentioned the church community, I think there's a role that they can play in this, and I I would I would hope that they became part of that process as well.

I mean I think they could.

Yeah.

I agree.

And and I it it just can't be we take this on and everyone just goes back think and and think that this stuff will be handled.

Absolutely.

I just don't I don't think that'll be the case.

I agree.

You know, and uh I mean unfortunately I didn't vote for water slides, you know.

I mean I wasn't on the board.

Well you did.

You have voted for things related to the water slides since and you said what are we gonna do?

Just let them sit on the ground, and I said yeah, because maybe if we don't vote for this, then we'll be forced to sell them, and everyone voted for it.

I mean not the three of us, but you all voted for it, and they're still sitting on the ground.

And they're a good investment for the future of our state.

Let's move on from that discussion.

And how much churches have reached out?

We've known about this for what, over a month now.

Have you had any churches that have reached out to take this on?

No, it and and we've had conversations with them throughout the years.

Um there's a lot of obligations that churches obviously have, and so to say that churches could carry this deficit budget on a go forward basis, I think is a stretch, but I think they definitely have a role that they could play, and we would definitely encourage any involvement from them uh to help um supplement.

So I think you know, like you spoke about creating a friends up would allow the churches to come in, and then maybe we can offset some of what we're outsourcing.

Maybe they can come in, do some of the mowing, do things like that.

So I think there's I think there's a way forward for that, but I don't think that you know churches are fundraising just like everybody else.

You know, it's it's tough for them just like everybody else.

I don't think that's where where this can land.

Everybody board good?

Appreciate you guys thank you.

I think we'll have a further discussion with Andre and the Mayor and and Jared Gibback.

Thank you all very much.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Oh, with that we go to the preliminary agenda for the October 14th meeting.

Any comments or questions?

I do for the city clerk.

Will we be uh there on October 14th?

Well that's the same as planning meeting.

Will they be in here?

The planning will be in here.

Okay.

All right, with that Jeff?

No, I just was gonna remind the only thing left to say is there's no study session or meeting next Tuesday, September the thirtieth.

So there's nothing no city meeting next Tuesday.

We will meet again on October 14th.

Motion to adjourn?

Second.

All of them say aye.

Aye.

Or adjourn.

So