Citizens in Eureka Springs may soon be asked to help offset a rise in the cost the city is having to pay for water service.

Michael Akins with the city’s finance department told city council members at a budget session before its June 13 regular council meeting that the subject could be brought to them soon.

“That’s one area that we will probably be bringing to the council pretty quickly,” Akins said. “… We are starting to run at a little bit of a deficiency with our water. That has to do with several different things, but one of the things is that we have absorbed an increase from [Carroll-Boone Water District].

“We’ve been absorbing that for the last couple of months and we haven’t passed it along to the citizens yet. So, that’s going to be something that we’re going to be doing a little bit more research on, and then we’ll be bringing it to the council to see if you all want to pass that cost on to the citizens.”

Eureka Springs Mayor Butch Berry said the raise in cost for the city is 15 cents per thousand gallons and started in early 2022.

“Which is about an 8 1/2 percent increase from what we pay now,” Berry said.

“I mean, it looks like we’re going to have to raise [the rate] some,” council member Harry Meyer said. “We’re going into the hole.”

Council member Terry McClung, however, said this isn’t the time to raise water rates, especially with citizens unhappy with billing issues that have put extra charges on recent water bills.

“With the problems that public works has had with the water billing and everything and the charges with the trash and all, it’s still a mess, and they’re getting it remedied,” McClung said. “I wouldn’t want to put anything out to the citizenry right now because they’re not real happy with the city and the water bill situation.” In other reports about the city’s budget,

In other reports about the city’s budget, Akins told the council that revenues are a little behind.

“But where we’re at this year versus last year, we are pretty much on track for where we were last year at this time,” Akins said. “We do have some funds that will be coming in that are not reflected in this revenue stream.

“We’re waiting on the other half of our COVID match that we received last year and should be receiving it anytime and it’s going to be about $218,000.”

Akins said the city is also expecting a distribution from the Carroll County Ambulance District sometime around the end of June or early July.

“And that should be between about $120,000 and $130,000,” he said. “So, we do have some additional revenue that will be coming in outside of our sales tax revenue.”

SWIFT MEETING

Following the budget portion of the June 13 meeting, the city council conducted an efficient regular meeting that lasted less than an hour.

Scott Miskiel, director of parks for the city, and L.B. Wilson, chair of the Eureka Springs Cemetery Commission gave reports to the city about recent findings of a 2020 legislative audit that showed shortfalls from each department.

“I’m happy to say that the issues addressed here have all been resolved and long ago,” Miskiel said. “I was appointed on Oct. 29, 2020, as interim director, and in a very short period of time, it became very apparent that our books were not as they should be. There were a number of — in fact numerous — issues that we decided to tackle.

“We totally revised our chart of accounts and made it much simpler. We put in provisions that prevent errors from being able to happen.”

Miskiel said the “most important” issue brought up by the audit were that bank reconciliations were not properly prepared or approved by someone other than the person preparing the reconciliation.

“That was just unfathomable,” Miskiel said. “We saw that literally for years the bank accounts had not been reconciled.”

That led Miskiel to going back and going through many months of budget, he told the council.

“In January 2021, I locked myself in a room for about three full days, went back all those years and found all the errors and had them reconciled,” he said.

Wilson told the council that things with the cemetery commission’s budget practices have also been changed.

“Please realize that most of all, if not all, of the current cemetery commissioners were not present in 2020,” Wilson said. “Regarding the bank reconciliations, I think that’s the one that’s kind of a highlight, the bank reconciliations are up to date, including 2021, and the requirement for a second signature is in practice.

“The cemetery has purchased a new computer, which is only used for the financial reports of the commission and the position of secretary/treasurer has now been separated into two positions. We have also eliminated the use of a credit card by staff or commissioners.”

In other business, the council approved the city to put out for bids for repairs to Black Bass Dam. The city recently received a FEMA grant of $300,000 that can help with the project, Berry said,

“We’ve done a lot of repairs in the past in trying to stop the damn from leaking and it really wasn’t successful,” Berry said.

The council also approved putting out for bids for construction of a chemical storage building, something Berry said city has been aiming for since before COVID-19.

Invoking an emergency clause and suspending rules to have a new ordinance read by city clerk treasurer Ann Armstrong three times, the council also approved altering voter wards to align with 2020 census data.

The expediting of passage of the ordinance, in part, was due to the upcoming filing period for 2022 city council elections.

Added to the agenda and unanimously approved, the council also accepted a $36,101 bid for the sale of a city-owned property on North Main Street.

The council also approved Susan Harman to fill a vacant seat on the planning commission.

“I mean, it looks like we’re going to have to raise [the rate] some. We’re going into the hole.” City council member Harry Meyer