Fort Smith utilities, sanitation departments scrutinized by city directors

The utilities and sanitation departments drew fire from City Directors Tracy Pennartz and Kevin Settle at the Tuesday (Sept. 20) meeting of the Fort Smith Board of Directors.

Interim Utilities Director Bob Roddy of Burns & McDonnell was the first under review after submitting a plan designed to save the city $289,625. Pennartz corrected the projections were not “savings,” but “unexpended allocations” related to the $480 million consent decree leveled on the city for years-long violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

Roddy’s plan noted the 2016 budget – developed and approved before his arrival – had earmarked the purchase of more than 60 hybrid vehicles for use by the Utilities Department.

“Because many of the vehicles originally budgeted for do not meet the proper job application and are not suitable for construction sites and rough terrain, it was determined by staff that changes were necessary,” Roddy wrote in a memo to the Board ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.

Roddy provided the Board with changes requested by staff prior to soliciting bids for the fleet purchase.

“As noted in the spreadsheet, you will find the original budgeted item and where appropriate, the requested replacement along with the budgetary impact for each program. The overall impact with these changes results in an anticipated savings of $289,265,” he added.

However, Pennartz spotted what she considered unusual discrepancies with a few under-budgeted items. One example was for a 5-ton, diesel-powered cab/chassis with utility bed that was budgeted at $54,000 just last year but had in the department’s projections gone up to an anticipated price of $82,000. Pennartz called the difference of $28,000 “significant” and found it unusual that someone could be “that far off in budgeting for these items” just one year earlier.

Roddy acknowledged it was “not a purposeful mistake.” Pennartz agreed but said, “I guess from an overall standpoint I’m not totally convinced of the listed equipment here.”

Settle’s two main concerns with the equipment report were the hybrid vehicle fleet had a depreciation max of only 100,000 miles and that it assumed too much regarding gas prices.

“My concern is that you are using today’s gas prices and that you are assuming that vehicles will not go beyond 100,000 miles. To assume that a hybrid is only going to run 100,000 miles is a bad assumption,” Settle said.

He continued: “My hybrid is at 110,000 miles and it’s still chugging along. I realize we can’t be sure of gas prices, and that’s why this Board set a goal of looking at alternative fuels, using gas hybrids, natural gas — we want to move towards that, and I think this goes against the Board’s goals.”

City Director Keith Lau “changed the tone” with praise for Roddy’s direction, remarking that while some mistakes were made in the presentation, it still resulted in a savings of 8% – something if extrapolated across the entire $480 million consent decree would cut close to $40 million off the overall bill to Fort Smith taxpayers.

“In the big picture, this is moving in the right direction in controlling costs,” Lau said. “To come up with an 8% savings, by including the analysis of whether or not we need a particular vehicle for its use, that is exactly what we need in the water, sewer and utilities department. I think we owe it to the citizens to give them that kind of detail in everything we do from this point forward in complying with the consent decree.”

Roddy followed the tense exchange with some positive news for Board members, noting the Mill Creek Interceptor improvements, also part of the consent decree requirements, finished approximately 11% lower than anticipated at $400,000 under budget and 41 days ahead of its deadline.

SANITATION EQUIPMENT DISCUSSION
Capping off the night, Pennartz and Settle questioned Fort Smith Sanitation Director Mark Schlievert on his plan to add four new pieces of equipment to the city’s landfill operations – a D8T bulldozer, 836K compactor, and two articulating dump trucks. The three pieces of equipment are a combined expenditure of $2.106 million.

Pennartz said she was concerned there wasn’t “any overview picture on how these fit into any schedule of replacement with the other 107 pieces of equipment.” She also requested a spreadsheet that “contains a schedule of replacement on all pieces of equipment so that from a budgeting standpoint, the Board can look at this and see what revenue is needed over a period of time rather than just be hit with one of these requests.”

“There’s no sense of where these belong in the total picture,” she added.

Settle asked Schlievert to decide among the four different items which he “needed the most.” Schlievert said the landfill is at a critical point where it needs all four equally and anything less would put the department in danger of a violation with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), “and that’s not where we want to be.”

The Board did pass Schlievert’s requests as part of the consent agenda, but Settle voted against the dump trucks, while Pennartz voted against the compactor and dump trucks.

Also Tuesday, the Board authorized a partial payment of $1.75 million to Forsgren, Inc., for the construction of the Jenny Lind Road and Ingersoll Avenue widening project.