A task force will help the Maumelle City Council decide whether to move billing for the city's quarterly community service and trash collection fees to monthly water bills handled by the independent Maumelle Water Management.
City aldermen approved a resolution Monday night, 6-2, to authorize creation of a task force that would include staff members from the city and Maumelle Water Management. Aldermen Steve Mosley and Caleb Norris voted no.
About 8 percent of the city's approximately 7,800 households are delinquent on their community service bills, with some estimates putting the city's average lost revenue at almost $190,000 annually, a problem that has been building in recent years, aldermen said. The city has more than 17,000 residents.
The $18 community service fee is charged to households quarterly on trash collection bills to help fund fire and police protection.
Recent efforts to increase collection by the city -- and an independent listing of those delinquent residents and their addresses published in the weekly Maumelle Monitor newspaper -- resulted in $69,778 collected this month by Monday, with $31,673 of that total from accounts more than 120 days late, Mayor Mike Watson said.
"We do have a lot of people who haven't paid," Watson said.
By moving those fees to water bills, the utility could immediately shut off a home's water for nonpayment, Watson said. He added that efforts such as using a collection agency or placing liens on delinquent bills would take months to see results.
The approved resolution "doesn't mean anything has to happen," Watson said, adding that the vote Monday was only to research the possibility of the billing change to help with collections. "This is to set up the task force."
Aldermen concurred that the city must do something to increase collection of the delinquent fees. If the water utility does become involved in billings, however, it would only be for future billings and wouldn't involve currently past-due accounts, Watson said.
"We think it's a useful idea and the sooner we can get started the better," said Alderman Jan Hogue, a co-sponsor of the legislation to create the task force along with Aldermen Marc Kelley and Preston Lewis.
Norris and Mosley said they'd rather the city explore its own means of increasing collections.
"I am in favor of collecting the money," Norris said. "I just don't know if we should be going outside the city at this point to do that."
Metro on 08/20/2014