FORT SMITH — The city Board of Directors recently revised the city’s water utilities assistance program, Project Concern, to include users making up to double the poverty line salary for their household.
“There’s money coming in, the sales tax collections are good, and to the extent we can afford it, I always think we should give low-income people a break,” Director Lavon Morton said.
The city established Project Concern in 1983 to help low-income customers with their residential water utility bills. Program participants can receive a 50% discount on water and sewer services and a 25% discount on solid waste services.
Prior to the revision, city residents could enroll in the program if their income was at or below 165% of the federal poverty level. Directors Andre Good, Jarred Rego, Kevin Settle and Morton called for a special board meeting to discuss changing the requirement to 200%.
The board unanimously approved the change in a specially called meeting Tuesday.
The directors voted 5-2 on July 11 to raise water rates by an average of about $2 per month, making the new average bill $13.98 or $15.75 with fees and taxes, compared to $11.81 or $13.37 now. The increase takes effect Aug. 1.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Director Christina Catsavis said she understood the reason the city raised water rates for residential users was so it could also raise rates for commercial and industrial users.
“I don’t want people deciding between getting groceries and paying for water,” Catsavis said.
The water rate increase is the first in Fort Smith since 2011. City Finance Director Andy Richards said in a previous interview the city needed to increase the rates to account for the increased cost of operations and maintenance of the water systems and to meet its debt service requirements.
With the new acceptance requirements for Project Concern, Fort Smith residents can make up to double the poverty line for their household and still qualify for the program. Director Neal Martin said there are 750 active participants in the program and he expects the extended qualifications will bring in 250 new participants.
During the discussion of the ordinance increasing the qualification, Catsavis indicated a possibility for future expansion of the program.
“I will say I am fully supportive of the 200%,” Catsavis said. “But I’m wondering if we could go even further. We have a whole class of people here who are the working poor. They get up and they go to work every day and they still can’t make ends meet, so I’m wondering if we could look to different percentages up to 1,000%.”
Fort Smith residents can apply to the program using a form linked on the city website.