For more than a decade now, the city of Fort Smith has been facing growing pressure to improve its sewer system. However, voters will soon have a say in how that critical and long-awaited project is funded.
A small group of residents gathered at the Fort Smith Senior Activity Center on Monday evening to learn more about what they’ll have a chance to vote on this week and next week. It’s a proposal that city leaders say would rearrange existing sales taxes and authorize a bond issue to fund the wastewater upgrades that are mandated through the consent decree. This would be to help fix things like broken pipes.
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“We’re trying to do this without raising taxes and without raising sewer rates,” Lavon Morton, chairman of the committee of clean water and infrastructure for Fort Smith, said. “And, sales taxes, which we’re trying to use, is a big advantage for us because Fort Smith being a kind of a metropolitan center city has people coming in from all around to work and shop and dine.”
The city said it is estimated that 40 percent of its sales tax comes from people who live outside the city. Leaders say the proposal on the table now would allow those visitors to help foot the bill to upgrade the infrastructure that they too use, instead of placing it all on the backs of residents.
“Because sooner or later, who knows, they might move into Fort Smith,” resident Linda Harrison said. “So yeah, good deal!”
Officials say the city has already spent about $200 million on upgrades, and roughly another $600 million is needed to proceed. But not everyone is on board with the proposal. Some are concerned about major sewer rate increases after 2030.
“In 2022, we agreed that there would be no sewer rate increases for three years,” Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen said. “That takes us to 2025. And then, we had an agreement with the city that sewer rate increases would not exceed 3.5 percent annually until 2030.”
The election has been scheduled for Tuesday, May 13. Early voting will start on Tuesday, May 6. Local officials mention that should it not pass, the sole alternative for raising the required funds would be to enforce substantial hikes in sewage rates.
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Residents of Fort Smith attended an informative session before the upcoming tax vote.
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