FORT SMITH -- City directors unanimously approved the establishment of a Water and Sanitary Sewer Utilities Advisory Committee but were split on what they believed the committee should do.
Directors approved the ordinance Tuesday after a 30-minute debate.
The title of that ordinance, which Mayor George McGill proposed last month, says the committee would review or recommend projects or policies related to Fort Smith's water and sewer utilities.
McGill said he viewed the committee as a body to which department heads would regularly report about the utilities' projects and as a venue for the public to keep abreast of how tax dollars were being spent.
McGill proposed the committee March 12 in response to complaints from water customers after the city installed new meters, implemented new online billing software and transferred billing from the city's Finance Department to the Utilities Department.
Problems with one or more of those changes have resulted in residents receiving unusually high water bills.
"This is our fault," City Director Robyn Dawson said Tuesday of the confluence of issues. "This is no one's fault but us. It's not leaks. It's not adding a new-meter 15 percent to your bill. It is the perfect storm that we have created, and we need to tell the public we're sorry, we're going to fix it."
One resident, Morgan Baker, complained on a Facebook community forum that she received a $347.59 water bill that was more than double the $120 to $150 she normally paid.
"Now you tell me how in the heck it jumps that much," she wrote. "I don't care what the city says, I will not pay this when I know for a fact we did not use that much water."
City Director Andre Good proposed that in cases of obviously high bills, city staff refer to the customer's three or four previous bills and charge them the average of those bills until the city can resolve its billing problems. The remark drew applause from the audience.
"I know every person up here on this board has gotten phone calls, text messages, emails, stopped on our lunch breaks, after we're off work, at church about people's water bill issues," Good said.
The city has made billing adjustments for 1,253 water customers so far this year, according to statistics released by the city. Of those, 222 were made because of billing errors. Nearly half, 587, were made because of leaks in the customers' service lines.
City Director George Catsavis said he wanted the advisory committee to be an advocate for water customers who can't get the city to reduce unusually high water bills.
Deputy City Administrator Jeff Dingman told Catsavis that dealing one-on-one with water customers would not be the committee's prime responsibility. If customers could not get the city to respond to their complaints, they should turn to their directors, he said.
Instead, Dingman said, the committee would be more involved with finding improvements to policies and procedures that the directors could enact.
Director Neal Martin said the committee should review programs, propose policy changes and capital project planning so that directors can make spending decisions.
"I think having a dedicated committee that is helping to oversee a half a billion dollars is something that has to take place," he said.
Fort Smith signed a consent decree in 2015 with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice and the state of Arkansas agreeing to make comprehensive improvements to the city's wastewater system in 12 years to clear up chronic violations of the federal Clean Water Act.
To pay for the estimated $480 million cost of complying with the decree, sewer rates have been increased 167 percent, which Martin called the largest rate increase in the city's history.
State Desk on 04/07/2019