Water/Sewer commission sorely needed

461

Editor,

Eureka Springs needs a water/sewer committee. Several City Councils and several Mayors have misunderstood the city utilities and mismanaged the finances to an extraordinary degree. In the last four years, City Council has wasted over $1,340,568 of city money.

Starting in 2013, the City Council realized that the water/sewer revenues were not sufficient to cover the expenses of the water/sewer system so they transferred money from the City’s General Reserve Fund to the Public Works funds. They did not look at why there was a shortfall, nor did they consider raising the water/sewer rates to reduce the deficit. They did the same thing in 2014, 2015, and 2016, transferring out $874,407 from City Reserves, to the point where the reserves are now depleted. This misappropriation of taxpayer money to user-supported utilities has nearly bankrupted the city.  

In the spring of 2014, the City Council listened to the Finance Director’s speculation that old, faulty water meters might be part of the reason why Eureka Springs was losing 50% of the water it purchased from Carroll-Boone Water District. The Council myopically adopted this outlandish suggestion as a panacea for the financial shortfall and allotted $466,161 from a depletion fund to replace every water meter in the Eureka Springs system. Well, the figures are in. Three years later, after changing out 88% of the water meters, the water system is now losing 60% of the water it buys from Carroll-Boone. The $466,161 was a poorly made decision chasing a hunch. It didn’t work.  

It wasn’t the water meters. In fact, the water system is profitable; water revenues exceed costs by almost 20%.  It has always been the sewer bond payment that wasn’t properly factored into the sewer rates. The sewer rates have been too low.  

Arkansas State Law requires that city utilities have to have rates that are fair, equitable, and sufficient. Over the last decade, the City of Eureka Springs had water and sewer rates that do not meet any of these requirements. It also has city councils and mayors who have not understood or acted to create fair, equitable, and sufficient rates. Citizen mayors and city council members have too much to do to become expert in the highly detailed field of utility law and rate setting.

A water/sewer committee should be a group of interested citizens appointed for 8-year terms which would focus on city utilities, create budgets to spend the public utility revenues, set priorities for the Public Works director, and recommend rate changes to City Council. Ideally, this committee would not include any of the people who got us into this situation.

Had a water/sewer committee been in place a decade ago, the City would not have wasted more than $1,340,568 and would have water and sewer rate structures that are fair, equitable, and sufficient. We can’t afford not to have this committee!

Eric S. and Joyce E. Knowles