A city should give back more than it takes

An organ and a parasite have one thing in common. Both draw from the body. The difference is what comes back. A liver takes blood and returns it clean. A heart takes blood and sends it everywhere it is needed. A parasite takes and gives nothing back, and the body gets weaker for it.

A city government lives on what it draws from its residents: taxes, water bills, trash fees, fines. That is how it should work. The test is what comes back. Clean water. Sewage that stays in the pipes. Police who come when called. Streets, lights, and a town people want to stay in.

I don't believe anyone at city hall sets out to be the second kind. Most of the people who work for this city are our neighbors, doing hard jobs with too little. The problem is a habit. When the city comes up short, the first answer is to draw more from the people who are left. Over time, that habit turns an organ into something the body can't afford to keep.

The body is shrinking

In 2010 Helena-West Helena had 12,282 people. In 2024 the Census Bureau estimated 8,462 Census. We have lost almost one in three residents in fourteen years.

Part of that is bigger than us. Phillips County lost about the same share over the same years. No council can stop that alone. But a council can avoid making it worse.

Here is how it gets worse. We still have the pipes, pump stations, streets, and payroll of a city built for many more people. When there are fewer people, each household carries a bigger share of that cost. Bills go up. Some families can't carry it and leave. Then the next increase is spread over even fewer households. A city that answers every shortfall by raising what residents pay is speeding up the thing that is hurting it.

What the city takes

Water shows it best. In 2023 the city charged $2.73 for each thousand gallons of water after the first thousand. Today it charges $7.58 0:07:35. Sewer went from $1.82 to $5.00 over the same years rate ordinances. And in January the water rate goes up again, automatically, by up to 6 percent, unless the council acts.

Some of those increases were required. The state loans that are rebuilding our water system came with rate conditions, and I said publicly in 2024 that rates had to rise. I still believe that. But "some increases were necessary" is not the same as "every increase is."

The fees add up too. In 2025 the commercial trash rate for a weekly two-yard dumpster went from $46.24 to $126.44 a month city rate sheet. That is a 173 percent increase for every small business on that plan. Late fees land hardest on people living check to check. In July, Nathan Robinson told the council he is on disability and gets one check a month. A $77 water bill he paid late became $177. He asked, "Why are we paying $100 late fee on a water bill that is less than $100?" 1:50:20

To be fair, not everything has gone up. The property tax rate has held steady, and the residential trash fee has been $28.25 since 2019. This is not a story about every tax. It is about the bills residents can't avoid, and about the habit of reaching for them first.

When "the math" says raise the trash fee

The same habit shows up with the street and sanitation fee. Raising it keeps coming up as the answer. In March, when the council needed to cover a new landfill fee, one of the two options laid out was to "increase the citizens sanitation fee" 1:13:03. In August, at a special meeting called because the trash trucks were broken down, the council heard that if the city contracts out pickup or buys new trucks, "you're likely going to have to increase the rates" 0:23:40. Later that night it was put plainly: "Sanitation rates have only been raised twice in 20 years," and an increase is "going to be a necessary discussion" 0:57:44.

That case is made as if the math leaves no choice. The city's own books say otherwise. From January through July of this year, the sanitation fee brought $778,313 into the general fund. The sanitation department spent $426,273 treasurer's report. The fee brought in $352,040 more than the department spent. Part of that gap is because trucks were down and pickups were missed. But the fee is on pace to cover the department's entire budget for the year.

The fee has also been paying for more than trash. On July 7 the council was told, "sanitation fees have always funded other departments" 0:54:34. The city's own records show it. In 2024, sanitation money that was owed to the general fund went instead to a truck payment, a pension payment, and a police grant payment along the way. And the water fund's August balance sheet still lists $2,018,208.79 "Due to Sanitation" city records.

If trash pickup truly needs more money, the city should show what the department costs and ask for that. A trash fee should pay for picking up trash. It should not be raised to cover gaps somewhere else and then called a necessity.

What comes back

If the bills had bought steady improvement, people would feel it. Too often they haven't.

The city has rented emergency sewer pumps for at least four years to keep the system running. Our water superintendent told the council it is "atrocious how much we are spending" to keep them going 0:20:59. Rentals keep the sewage moving. They don't fix anything. When they fail, residents pay in another way. In June a resident of Oak Forest told the city there had "been raw sewage, toilet paper" running on the ground for over two weeks 1:07:09.

The police department is stretched thin. Police overtime passed $199,000 by the end of August, against $110,000 budgeted for the whole year payroll report. Overtime is what a city pays when it can't fill the jobs. It wears out the officers we have.

The resources are there

This is the part I want people to hear. The answer is not to stop spending on the water system, and it is not to cut the police. The answer is to find the money that is already within reach before asking residents for more. Some of it is sitting on the table. Some of it is leaking out. Some of it is sitting still.

Money we may be leaving on the table

In 2021 the city won a $1,019,756 federal grant to hire 10 police officers. As of this week, federal records show only about half of it was drawn. The grant period ended September 30 federal award record. That is money meant for exactly the problem that is driving the overtime bill.

This year the state turned down the city's $14 million sewer request. But the state's own draft funding list still shows the project as eligible, and it marks Helena-West Helena as a disadvantaged community. That is the status that qualifies a town for loan forgiveness state funding list. That door is still open, and we should be pushing through it.

Federal rural water and sewer programs are built for towns of 10,000 people or fewer. They take applications all year USDA program. Our size, which works against us in so many ways, works for us here. We should be first in line.

The city can do this. In July the council voted 6-0 to ask the EPA to waive the local match on a $4.5 million federal water grant 1:31:08. That is exactly the right instinct: use every lever before asking residents to cover the gap. It should be the rule, not the exception.

Money that buys no lasting fix

Every month a pump is rented is a month of money that could have gone toward a permanent repair. In 2023 and 2024, the city was also charged $244,063 in penalties and interest for paying its bills late state audits. Penalties buy nothing. Overtime that fills empty jobs costs more per hour than filling the jobs.

Money sitting still

At the end of August, the water department had about $1.9 million in its operating account. In eight months it earned $226 in interest treasurer's report. Arkansas law lets cities invest public money safely. Even a conservative investment would earn many times that. That money should be working for the people who paid it.

Feeding the body

Feeding the body means the city gives back more than it takes. In practice it means a few plain habits:

1. Chase every grant we qualify for. Track every award, know its deadline, and draw the money down before it expires. A small town can't afford to leave federal money unspent.

2. Stop paying for things that buy no lasting fix. Rentals with no end date, late penalties, and cash that earns nothing. Each one is money residents already paid that did not come back to them.

3. Savings and outside money come first. Before any rate or fee increase, look for savings and outside funding, and use what we find.

4. Every new fee or rate increase answers one question. What else did we try first? Residents deserve to see that answer before they see the bill.

We are a smaller town than we used to be. We can't afford a city government that only draws from the people who stayed. We have more resources than we use. Let's use them before we reach into the same pockets again. Feed the body, and the city gets stronger with it.