By China Cassidy On Tuesday, June 9, the city council met and approved a resolution to change the yearly CPI (Consumer Price Index) increase effective date from Jan. 1, of every year to June 1 instead. Councilmen Mark Jackson and Mike Nilsson were not in attendance. Following the approval of the resolution, Councilman Earl Kester asked City Manager Ted Soltis to explain to residents what exactly the CPI is and why it was necessary to change the date. “I think it would probably be good that the people in town know what our losses were over the years and stuff and how much money we should generate with this new increase,” he stated. Manager Soltis offered an explanation as to what the resolution entailed when it was originally passed early last year. “The city passed the resolution which would increase water and sanitation rates by CPI. The idea behind that is so your rates don’t fall behind; for example, the sanitation department. For 10 years, there has been no increase. That hurt the contractor we were doing business with and it hurt the city.” Soltis continued, “By having a CPI in place, which is already in place, you’re going to have gradual increases over the years so that you don’t wait 10 years and have this big steep increase.” Soltis said that although the CPI rate will increase by a percentage each year, he confirmed Councilman Dixon’s statement that the city has no control over the CPI. Soltis explained that although the resolution was already approved and has been in effect since 2019, the effective date is six months apart from when he does his other calculations at the beginning and end of each fiscal year in June and it makes more sense to do the calculations closer to when he calculates the rest of the budget. Soltis also said the new date would align better with the budget. “I suspect the reason why it was put in January is that was as quickly as the city could get the CPI in place at the time. But from a budgeting standpoint it makes more sense to have it correspond to our budgeting time, correspond to our fiscal year.” Both Councilman Adam Marsh and Mayor Merrill Young reiterated Soltis’ clarification. Marsh offered, “We put this in place 17 months ago. This is only changing the calendar date that we’re using to calculate these for the sake of ease on his job in calculating the budget every year.” Young stated, “Resolution 19-05 was passed last year, Feb. 19, 2019. This is not a new resolution, this has been in effect for 17 months; all we’re asking is that we change the effective date of it for budgetary purposes.” In closing, both Mayor Young and Vice Mayor Francie Payne commended the Holbrook Volunteer Fire Department for their effort in cooking and selling out all 2,500 pounds of pork that they cooked for this year’s fireman’s barbecue, which had to be done drive-thru style due to COVID-19 restrictions; and for putting on the fireworks display for the Fourth of July Holiday. Payne also thanked the Holbrook Foundation for hosting the Fourth of the July Bike Parade. In other business, the council designated Randy Sullivan as Chief Fiscal Officer for the year 2021 for the purpose of submitting the Annual Expenditure Limitation Report and approved the fiscal year 2021 tentative budget. A public hearing will be set to discuss the fiscal year 2021 budget. Also, in other business, Manager Soltis reported that although there were a few glitches during the first week of pickup since switching to Waste Management Inc. from Larson Waste. That was something that can be expected during transition and improvements can be expected as well. “Overall, we are very pleased with Waste Management staff and we believe that it’s going to be a very good partnership.” With monsoon season approaching, Soltis reported that staff have been out cleaning ditches across town where they have been affected most. “The ditch that goes out to Buffalo (Street) all the way to Leroux Wash has been accumulating materials for some time now and so our guys are going to get over there and remove some of that material so the water flows a little better to Leroux Wash,” explained Soltis. He also reported that the city’s Vac Con truck received repairs last week, but that it will need to be replaced eventually. He added that the Holbrook Volunteer Fire Department received equipment repairs that were required by Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. Soltis also reported that the water department will be receiving training on the city’s new leak detection equipment on July 21, which should help them locate the leak that’s been causing deterioration on Eighth Avenue. They are also looking to purchase a new backhoe. The sidewalk on Buffalo Street in front of the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office is almost complete and that the cemetery expansion is now complete. Soltis also noted that the city is exploring options to purchase or rent a street sweeper rather than continue to contract to have it done only four times a year. He also reported that the area between the old hospital and Barrow Little League Field along East Iowa Street has been cleared of the debris that had been accumulating.
