FORT SMITH -- Fort Smith city directors are considering using Sanitation Department funds to pay a contract with the Humane Society for animal control services.
During a four-hour budget meeting Monday night, the directors said they will consider transferring the Police Department's $298,000 contract with the Sebastian County Humane Society to the city's Sanitation Department as an aid to balancing the general fund.
The transfer would relieve the Police Department of about half of the $705,000 that it was ordered to cut from its already thin budget to help balance the general fund.
The other half of the $705,000 would come from attrition rather than an earlier plan to cut six patrol officer positions.
Police Chief Kevin Lindsey told directors that he expected as many as seven officers -- a corporal, two to five sergeants and a captain -- to retire by the end of next year. The problem, he said, is he didn't know exactly when during the year those retirements would occur.
Lindsey initially proposed eliminating 13 patrol positions to achieve the $705,000 in cuts, but five positions are vacant and won't be filled, and one is a senior clerk position that will be eliminated. He announced Monday that a detective had resigned Monday to take a job in Washington, D.C., creating another vacant position.
Sanitation Department Director Baridi Nkokheli told directors that his department could afford to take over the Humane Society contract if the landfill dumping rate was raised for commercial haulers bringing in waste from outside Fort Smith.
Nkokheli proposed to directors last week to raise the outside hauler dumping fee from $34.43 per ton to $63.87 per ton. The directors have not taken action on Nkokheli's proposal, but some directors have said they want to discuss it early next year.
Acting City Administrator Jeff Dingman told directors that he checked with the city attorney and found that sanitation money may be used for a variety of health matters, one of which is animal control.
Metro on 11/18/2015