A 25 percent increase in water rates will soon be on the horizon for Eureka Springs residents.
The city council voted unanimously at its regular meeting Monday, June 12, to ask city attorney Forrest Jacobi to draft an ordinance laying out a rate increase the city said is necessary to help offset increases in the amount the city pays for water from the Carroll-Boone Water District.
“Our water rates have gone up two years in a row,” council member Harry Meyer said of what the city pays Carroll-Boone. “We have not adjusted our rates to cover that, and unless we do, we’re going to go bust.”
The higher amount the city pays for water, along with a number of leaks in pipes around the city, have made an increase necessary according to Michael Akins, city finance director.
“It’s costing us 25 percent more to purchase the water than what it previously was,” Akins said.
Akins said he pulled billing accounts of a residential account, a small restaurant, a large restaurant, a small hotel and a large hotel in the city to see how a 25 percent increase would affect each.
The residential account selected consumes about 2,500 gallons of water a month and the recent bill was $59.26. The planned increase would raise that bill by $4.71, Akins said.
“When we talk about a rate adjustment, we’re talking about just the water portion of the bill,” he said. “The bill consists of a lot of things, your infrastructure and improvements, your sanitation charges, your trash charges, your clean water and your sewer fees. The only thing that we’re saying that we need to raise the rates on is the water portion of the bill.
“That $4.71 increase would be the 25 percent increase to match just what Carroll-Boone has passed on to us.” Akins explained that the 25 percent increase on a $505.22 bill of a small restaurant would be $38.59 and a large restaurant bill of $1,062.94 would jump to $1,159.98.
Furthermore, a recent water bill for using 138,287 gallons at a small hotel was $2,393.88 and a 25 percent increase pushes it to $2,630.45. A large hotel in the city recently used 486,834 gallons in a month and had a bill of $7,411.15. The planned increase would make the bill $8,222.77, or an increase of $811.
“This is not us just coming out and saying, ‘hey, we need to raise the water rates,’ this is an inflation that has gone into the water bill that is costing now and that we need to pass on,” Akins said. “In talking to Carroll- Boone, they’re looking at a 6.5 percent additional increase in 2024.”
Akins said through April the city had $296,000 in collections for water. A 25 percent increase would have pushed that to $370,000.
“So, we’re losing $74,000 just in four months,” he said.
Council members and Mayor Butch Berry acknowledged numerous leaks in old pipes around the city that are also affecting costs and the need for expert studies to find where the leaks are and a plan for minimizing them.
“Some of them are real obvious, some of them are not obvious because of our curved topography,” Berry said. “We’re talking right now about having a company from Fort Smith come in and try to do a water leak detection.”
The ordinance with the proposed rate increase will be presented at future council meetings. It will have to be read and approved three times to go into effect.
OTHER BUSINESS
In other business at the June 12 meeting, council members approved the city moving forward with an agreement with Civic Plus, an organization that builds city websites.
Akins said the city has been in need of a new website for many years and Civic Plus is well respected, “They do Fayetteville’s website and what they will put together for us will function a lot like Fayetteville’s,” Akins said.
Civic Plus also handles websites for several other cities in the state.
The revamped website will allow many city functions to become more automated and will allow residents to request and submit more information online, Akins said.
Council members tabled a proposed ordinance vacating a portion of Maine Avenue and Fuller Street, near Breezy Point, saying they wanted to schedule a site visit before making a decision. A public hearing on the issue was held before the council meeting.
The council approved a resolution to schedule a public hearing on the topic of vacating a portion of an alley between Blocks 5 and 2 of the Riley and Armstrong Survey.
The next council meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 26.
