Little Rock staff urge utility-rate increase to avoid missed garbage pickups and meet landfill obligations

City staff told the Little Rock Board of Directors on Dec. 9 that a proposed solid-waste and combined-utility rate increase is intended to prevent service failures, replace aging equipment and meet legal landfill obligations.

At a presentation on item 15, a city presenter said, "If we don't do this, first and foremost, the issue is gonna be failure of service," and warned the city would be unable to replace equipment or implement routing software vital to reducing missed pickups. Grant, the utility presenter, said his analysis shows the combined monthly utility bill for an average customer would rise from about $92 to $107 in 2026 under the proposed plan, and he described a preferred scenario that front-loads capital investments.

Why it matters: staff said the city must both fund landfill post-closure liabilities and maintain a local 15% reserve. The presentation identified $13,100,000 in closure and post-closure costs and proposed a scenario (scenario 1) that combines a larger first-year increase ($10.39) with smaller annual adjustments thereafter to preserve capital capacity.

The presentation included a regional comparison and three scenarios for phasing the increase. Grant said the first-year jump is intended to allow the city to buy and deploy replacement trucks and routing software; he added that the average fleet age is "about 6.3 years," which staff tied to higher breakdown rates and service disruptions. The staff analysis showed scenario 1 yields a lower total five-year cost than spreading increases across two or three years because delaying capital carries higher long-term expense.

Board members pressed staff on several specifics. Directors asked how the city classifies out-of-city loads at the landfill and whether it can refuse other municipalities; staff said state law and regional solid-waste agreements limit the city's ability to exclude municipal customers, and municipal gate fees were noted at around $22.10 per ton versus an estimated $37 per ton cost to operate. Staff said the plan proposes adjusting municipal rates in 2027 to better align charges with operating costs.

Directors also sought clarification on bill-estimate assumptions and franchise fees that affect customers' total bills. Vice Mayor Wyatt said she struggled to reconcile sample bills with her own statement and asked staff to produce low/medium/high impact examples and to confirm the franchise-fee percentage used in calculations. Staff said they used utilities’ average usage assumptions but acknowledged variation by customer usage and billing add-ons.

On operations, directors discussed route-optimization software that staff proposes to buy under a three-year contract. Grant described the system’s features: real-time routing, ability to photograph and log blocked carts, automated reassignment of missed stops and tools to audit customers with multiple carts. Staff said realized savings from the software will be measured during the first contract year and are not yet fully quantified.

Staff discussed financing: the city’s policy calls for roughly 5% PAYGO with the remainder financed; proposed 2026 capital was described as substantial (roughly $26 million in the presentation), and staff said not all projects would be debt-funded if revenue shortfalls forced scaling back.

What comes next: the board received the presentation and asked for supplemental details on franchise fees, bill-impact examples and municipal gate-fee adjustments. No final board vote was recorded in the Dec. 9 discussion; staff said contract and ordinance steps remain before any rate change takes effect.