Hire-fire authority, Arkoma sewer rate on Fort Smith Board agenda

The Fort Smith Board of Directors may soon change a more than 10-year policy on the hiring and firing of city department heads. The board also is set to vote June 17 on a sewer rate change with the Oklahoma city of Arkoma – a vote that could trigger legal action.

The Fort Smith board in 2013 shifted the hire-fire authority for department heads to the city administrator. In 2015 there was an effort to return that authority to the board, but the board voted 4-2 in February 2016 to keep the authority with the city administrator.

Fort Smith Director Christina Catsavis has advocated for the hire-fire authority to be returned to the board. She became more vocal for the change following the botched attempt to hire an internal auditor.

“These positions are too important to be left to one person,” she noted in a June 4 statement to Talk Business & Politics. “The elected officials should be shaping the leadership of the city government, because we’re the ones responsible for ensuring city leadership reflects the values and priorities of the community we serve.”

Acting City Administrator Jeff Dingman noted in a memo to the board that Arkansas has eight cities with a city manager or city administrator form of government similar to that of Fort Smith. Of those, the hire-fire authority rests with the manager or administrator, with the neighboring city of Barling having a process that requires concurrence from that city’s board to the administrator’s recommendation.

If approved, the resolution set for a board vote on June 17 would place “the responsibility of hiring, disciplining, and terminating department heads, deputy city administrator, fire chief, and police chief” with the board.

ARKOMA ISSUE
Two options for a sewer rate charge are well below the initial proposed rate of $8.75 per ccf (hundred cubic feet).

Fort Smith initially proposed the $8.75 rate, but Arkoma Mayor Joshua Johnson pushed back, saying the 350% increase over the $2.69 per ccf now charged was not something the city or its residents could afford. Johnson said during the board’s June 10 study session that a rate significantly higher than the existing rate may force the city to seek an injunction to block Fort Smith from enacting the higher rate.

According to a memo from Lance McAvoy, Fort Smith director of water utilities, the city is providing the board with two rate options. A rate of $3.48 per ccf would cover the city’s estimated $3.06 per ccf cost to treat Arkoma wastewater, and would include a 3.5% sewer rate increase for all sewer customers, and a 10% return on investment in Fort Smith’s utility infrastructure.

The second option is a $5.68 per ccf rate. It includes everything in the first option, but includes a $1.93 per ccf peaking surcharge for inflow and infiltration, or the entry of stormwater and groundwater into the sewer system.

Both rate options are part of the proposed five-year contract between Fort Smith and Arkoma.

“The Board may adopt one or neither of the proposed rates,” McAvoy noted. “If the Board chooses not to adopt either of the proposed agreements, the current sewer volume rate of $8.75 as adopted by Ordinance 18-25 will be in effect on June 22, 2025 for the Arkoma Municipal Authority.”

In a brief Friday (June 13) interview, Johnson told Talk Business & Politics that the lower proposed rate “would be a very difficult challenge” for the city to absorb, and the higher rate would likely not be approved by the Arkoma board.

Arkoma had proposed a 2025 rate of $2.78 per ccf, with a 3.5% increase every year for the remainder of the contract, Johnson said. As to the next steps, Johnson said whatever the Fort Smith board passes will be considered by the Arkoma board, and then “we will determine the next steps after that.”