Agenda Highlights 6/23/26
At the Fort Smith Board of Directors study session meeting to be held 6-23-26, the Board will discuss sending a letter to the Arkansas General Assembly requesting them to make a law requiring all hospitals to give City and County officials 180 days notice before discontinuing major services. The request was inspired by the recent announcement that Baptist Health will be reducing their hospital services in Fort Smith, including a sudden closing of Labor and Delivery. This issue was discussed at the 3-31-26 meeting and tabled to allow area State legislators to be invited to a meeting to speak with the Board on the issue and was tabled again at the 4-28-26 meeting because legislators were not available to attend the meeting while the legislature was in session. Several legislators will be in attendance at the 6-23-26 meeting.
The Board will review the five year Consolidated Plan for 2026-2030 that is required by the federal government for participation in the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME grant programs.
Five year goals included in the plan include…
Rehabilitation of 60 owner-occupied homes
Assisting 41 households with homeownership
Creating or preserving 5 affordable housing units
Benefiting 3,190 residents through facilities and infrastructure improvements
Assisting 1250 persons experiencing homelessness
Assisting 6000 residents through public service programs
The Board will discuss replacing the current Computer Aided Dispatch and Records Management System (CAD/RMS) from ProPhoenix with one from CentralSquare. Fort Smith contracted with ProPhoenix in 2023 and their system went live in 2025. In February of 2026, there was a breach by ProPhoenix that violated the terms of the contract and of FBI security policy. ProPhoenix is no longer trusted to continue and has been informed that when their contract is up for renewal in September of 2026 that it will not be renewed. The River Valley Communications Center and Fort Smith Fire and Police departments have selected CentralSquare, the provider that scored equal to ProPhoenix in the 2022 evaluation process, to replace ProPhoenix. The new system will cost $379,272.46 to implement. Funds for that implementation will come from the RVCC 911 fund balance and those funds will be replenished with money recovered from ProPhoenix through a settlement or litigation.
The Board will discuss whether to enter into an agreement to provide Fort Smith Housing Authority with up to $1 million for streets and drainage for the Bailey Hill redevelopment project. The former reservoir site is being developed by the Fort Smith Housing Authority into 34 residential housing lots to be sold to low and moderate income families. The funds for the streets and drainage in the agreement would come from the sales tax for streets and drainage. The spending for the project was included in the already approved Capital Improvements Plan.
The issue was discussed and tabled at the 6-16-26 meeting.
