JACKSONVILLE, Ark — On December 7, the Jacksonville city council approved a multi-year increase in water and sanitation bills for Jacksonville residents, and since then residents have been sharing their frustrations on why the this has been hurting their pockets.
"I feel that is too much of a burden and a hardship on the citizens and the people because we have a lot of bills, prices are going up for everything and wages are not going up," said Jacksonville resident, Linda Thurston.
The increase will go into effect as soon as January 1 and both Jacksonville Waterworks and Jacksonville city council members explained that it's all because of ACT 605 that legislators passed back in 2021.
Act 605 mandates that all water companies or water providers perform a rate study, simply because the state found many cities were behind. According to Jake Short, the General Manager of Jacksonville Waterworks— their city was one of them.
"First year is a 35.5% increase and so what that looks like for an average bill in town for 4000 gallons, and I'm talking water only today, a bill is $30.30 it'll raise $10.75 to $41.05," Short described.
He said that another reason why we've been seeing the increase is due to inflation.
Jacksonville hasn't done a hike rate since 2012 and Short explained how the 2012 prices don't reflect the cost of things now in 2023.
"A lot of ways, you know, we've been dipping into reserves and trying to pull it off we know it's a hardship when bills go up but, we've got a duty to provide a service here and provide not only a quantity of water, but quality water, and meet our regulatory requirements, and it takes dollars to do that," Short said.
Mayor Jeff Elmore who approved this hike, alongside other city council members said this mandate was unavoidable and to stay in the right standings with the state's regulations they had to follow it.
"We can be put in financial distress or physical distress by the state, which means that our water provider would be taken over by another approved provider by the state you don't want that in any situation, you know, within a city government, you want to be able to take care of your people," Mayor Elmore said.
According to Short, this increase will continue over the next five years to try and get the City of Jacksonville's water system back on track.
"It'll be 35.5% in 2024, 6% in 2025, and then 4% for the next three years after that. We have to do another study and then we'll see what comes out of that," Short said.
However, some Jacksonville residents like Thurston who has lived there her entire life have explained that the financial impact is simply just too much to bear.
"Right after the holidays, you know, so I barely had a chance to look at the bill and I saw this notice that we would be getting an increase so I didn't even get a chance to add it all up. I understand it's going to be substantial, $10 to $15 I thought maybe $2 or $3 you know, we could probably live with that but that's quite a bit I think that's asking a lot of the citizens," Thurston described.
Short explained that this is not an ideal situation for anyone but as we enter the new year, he wanted to assure people in need of help that they should check in with their offices.
"This utility is not immune to that, this is not enjoyable, and nobody likes it. We're here to help at the end of the day so if there are folks who find themselves in a unique situation, or facing a hardship to where they're unable to get their bill paid, give us a call at the office, and we will do what we can to assist and help because at the end of the day, that's what we're here for," Short said.