Kyle Kellams: Let's get this Friday rolling with Michael Tilley from Talk Business and Politics. He's in Fort Smith on the phone with me. Michael, welcome back.
Michael Tilley: Well, thanks for having me. I just want to once again apologize to your listeners for me being the first thing out of the box, but here we go.
Kellams: All right, well, I think we're going to be fine. You know what? We're not going to get out of the box? A new water meter.
Tilley: No, no, there's the old Seinfeld skit. No meters for you.
So the Fort Smith city staff has for several months now pursued this plan to update all of the water meters and put in this new system, advanced metering infrastructure, AMI. It uses radio technology. You don't need meter readers. It's a substantial modernization of the system. The problem is it's kind of pricey. The price could range between $20 million and $48 million. And there are just under 40,000 water meters in the city.
The first part of this was city staff asking for $125,000 for an assessment of the overall water meter system. They're working with a publicly held company out of Massachusetts called Ameresco. The first presentation was June 24. The board kind of seemed a little concerned. It was the $48 million number that kind of started the board not being wholly behind this.
Now, I should back up a little bit. The city staff made a pretty good case. A lot of the water meters are aging out. They say there's about a $1 million leakage adjustment they had to make last year. They estimate around 35% of nonrevenue water loss. So there are some valid reasons to need to modernize the system. But the board eventually said, look, there's no question we need to modernize the system. They are aging out. But the directors largely balked at not only the cost, but the process. They argued broadly for a more limited approach to testing the existing meters and maybe targeting meters that are aging out.
One of the ideas was, why don't we hit some of the higher end commercial and industrial users, target those meters, and make sure those are up to date before we start hitting residential meters? So there are a lot of ideas floating out there. What I will say, though, this Tuesday when the issue finally came up again, it has been a long time. In fact, I can't remember the last time that an action brought to the board by city staff didn't even get a motion. When the mayor called for action on this, it was crickets.
So the issue is not going away. I guess the question now is what will city staff bring back to the board. They've heard all of the pushback. So we'll see. I will be very surprised if this company Amaresco has anything to do with it going forward. It may, but I think the board is looking for a substantially different direction to address what is a serious issue. Again, it's not going away. But the question now is what will be the next course of action proposed?
Kellams: It has been a while since the heyday of manufacturing in Fort Smith, but we sometimes get these items that more manufacturing jobs are coming. And one came from Trane Technologies this week.
Tilley: Right. Trane Technologies. I want to clarify, there were two Trane plants in Fort Smith a few years ago. The Trane plant that does the residential—just regular Trane units people have at their houses—closed many years ago. But there's a Trane Technologies plant, a smaller operation, that makes large commercial units for buildings. In fact, a lot of their HVAC applications are used in schools, office buildings, hospitals, and hotels.
So this week we learned, because there's a formality, one of Arkansas's economic development incentives is called a tax back incentive. It allows businesses to receive a refund on certain materials—not everything, but on building materials, new equipment, and other expenses related to an expansion that adds jobs. As a formality, the city, the municipality, or the county, whoever the governing body is, has to approve the program. That was approved this week by the Fort Smith City Board.
These 63 jobs, we were told by Trane, to have about $25 an hour average pay, which is about an annual salary of $52,000. That's not bad. Hopefully this will continue. We interviewed officials out there in November last year and they said at the time they were seeing demand growth from data centers, chip manufacturing facilities, and companies that make EV batteries. Those sectors of the economy aren't going away, so that demand should continue.
Quickly, you mentioned the heyday of manufacturing. The June 25 numbers, the most recent we have for the manufacturing sector, show an estimated 18,000 jobs. The peak of manufacturing jobs in the Fort Smith metro was June 1999 at 29,200. That gives you an idea of how many manufacturing jobs have been lost in the metro.
Kellams: It's been more than a few months since the city of Fort Smith had a vacancy for city administrator, the top official in the city. Still don't have one, but maybe we're getting some momentum toward a new hire.
Tilley: Well, finally, after more than eight months, the former city administrator, Carl Geffken, was fired mid-December of last year. So, Jeff Dingman, who was one of two deputy city administrators, along with Maggie Rice, have been the acting administrator for eight months now. The joke has emerged both in discussions and on social media that if you can go eight months without a city administrator, do you really need one? But yes, you probably do, because Dingman and Rice are essentially two people doing the job of three.
This Tuesday, finally, the board voted to post the job. They're not going to use a search firm. They don't like that cost. They're going to let the city's HR department post it on the city website after Labor Day. They'll keep it up for 45 days and see what they get. Several directors have said they'd like to have a director hired by the end of the year. That's getting close. Maybe Santa will bring them a shiny new administrator before the end of the year. We'll see.
Kellams: Finally, some first-year enrollment numbers from the University of Arkansas Fort Smith. Classes started this week, and it's the highest first-year enrollment in a while.
Tilley: Yes, and a surprising number. I think you know, you're affiliated with the university. There's been concern in recent years about an enrollment cliff and declining enrollment. Now, these are preliminary numbers. The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith reported that fall freshman enrollment was up 15%, and transfer student numbers—people who start somewhere else and come to the university—are up 49%.
Again, it's the 11th day of classes that are the official total enrollment number. What's behind this is, officials there—Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment, Brooke Magallanes—essentially overhauled the recruitment program with the blessing of leadership. They had over 2,600 direct contacts with prospective students. They launched the Transfer with Pride Roadshow, where they went out to different community colleges. They instituted a couple of tuition and fee support programs that made it more financially possible to attend college or to transfer there. Those are just a few of the leading factors. There are several, but it's obviously had an impact. Kudos to them for changing the system and seeing if they can get different results.
So again, the 11th day of classes will bring the total enrollment numbers, and it'll be interesting to see how they compare to previous years.
Kellams: Go, Lions!
Tilley: Right, Go Lions!
Kellams: Michael Tilley is with Talk Business and Politics. Details about all of this and much more at Talk Business. We'll talk again next Friday as we head into Labor Day weekend, Michael.
Tilley: Yes, indeed. The football season. Best time of the year.
Kellams: Thank you, Michael.
Tilley: You're welcome.
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