Council approves raising trash fees

PRESCOTT – It was a busy night for the Prescott City Council Monday, as the panel voted to approve an increase in trash collection fees.

The council approved an ordinance to raise trash collection fees on residential customers from $10.50 per month to $15 per month, an increase of $4.50.

Prescott Mayor Terry Oliver said the city had been working on the budget for three months, focusing on where cuts could be made. The end result, he said, is it’s no longer feasible for the city to collect trash for what was being charged as the cost of everything else has gone up. He continued, saying the city held off as long as it could, adding there will be no change in the charge for business and industry, which remains at $22 a month. Oliver told the council he’d checked with surrounding cities as to their trash fees and, with the increase, Prescott’s will still be less expensive.

The increase will provide around $56,000 more for the city. “We’ve studied this since October,” Oliver said, “and figure there’s no other way.”

Councilman Susie Meeks asked if the public had been polled to see whether or not it would prefer a sales tax to a fee increase. Oliver responded, saying a sales tax would be discussed from the 2021 snowstorm.

The ordinance was passed and will go into effect next month.

Questions were raised about a section of the ordinance which stated non-payment would result in the customer’s water meter being turned off until the bill was paid and a $22 reconnect fee was also paid. Larry Jones, Jr., electric operations manager, said this typically isn’t a problem because if someone doesn’t pay their bill, the meter would be shut off anyway. He reminded the council the trash fee is on the bill with the electric, water and sewer bill.

In other business, council members Howard Austin and Meeks were sworn in prior to the start of the meeting.

Blake Rodgers, with Turner, Rodgers, Manning and Plyler, of Arkadelphia and Magnolia, presented with council with the 2021 audit report. He said the city received an unqualified opinion with no material misstatements or areas of concern. It was a good report, though it showed decreases in net assets of more than a million dollars and the proprietary fund was also down while the utility department’s assets increased.

Rodgers said the city needs to address its accounts receivable which shows more than $320,000 uncollected in accounts no longer active. The uncollectible accounts should be written off. If it weren’t for the SWEPCO issue, he concluded, the city would have had a pretty good year. The council voted to approve the audit report.

Kiron Brown, with A.L. Franks Engineering, was on hand with an update on the sewer project for East Elm and Webb streets. The bids, he said, were opened on Dec. 22, with RBIS having the low bid at $392,270. However, with change orders, he said, the city could save $110,250, reducing the project cost to $280,020, with construction beginning as soon as possible. RBIS will have a 75-day contract to complete the work, depending on the weather. The council voted to move forward on the project.

City Accountant Carl Dalrymple presented the 2023 budget, saying he’s been doing this for 50 years and this was the hardest one he’s ever gone through. When all was said and done, the city will have a surplus of $65,000 after all the cuts. He pointed out when the budget committee began working on this, there was a $400,000 deficit. “We didn’t want to do this, but we had to for the people of Prescott.”

Dalrymple said the city will have to monitor its spending closely and department heads will have to stay within their budgets as $65,000 isn’t much of a cushion. He continued, saying every bond issue requires the city to have an independent audit, and the city can’t undergo a legislative audit from the state as these deal with turnback funds, something the city doesn’t get for its general fund. He said the firm the city now uses is competent, does its work and doesn’t bother anyone. He added the city needs an audit done in the middle of the year to show where things stand so moves can be made to correct problems.

The panel approved the budget.

It also approved meeting dates and times for 2023. With the exception of January, February and June, all council meetings will be held the third Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. On the other three months, the meetings will be held at 6:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday as the Mondays are holidays.