Leaders Must Remember City's Poorest - Jackson Free Press

Based on everything that has been discussed, the people of Jackson may well be staring at yet another increase in the amount they pay for water.

The hiring of an out-of-town consultant to study whether the rates are sufficient, when mayoral officials have already gone public with the fact that the Department of Public Works has a $12 million revenue shortfall, seems a lot like a smokescreen.

City officials have already said that the water department needs more money and that the consultant we're paying $200,000 will tell us how much more we could collect "if" rates rise.

And maybe they do need to rise. As Jackson's newly minted Public Works Director Kishia Powell pointed out to the council last week, there are other American cities with infrastructure problems comparable to Jackson's. However, those cities, such as Baltimore and St. Louis, have bigger populations, more people over which to spread the financial pain.

What doesn't sit well with us is that Jackson's citizens have already felt the sting of water rate hikes once in the past year. In fact, Mayor Tony Yarber told us during his campaign that while he admired Mayor Chokwe Lumumba's bravery in building steeper water and sewer rates into his budget last year, he believed the rate hikes to be politically suicidal.

It's unclear to us why budget forecasters—assuming the city has good ones, if any—did not more accurately anticipate public works' revenue collection. What is clear is that it would be unfair to hit ratepayers again with another hike so soon.

We are especially concerned about the capital city's poorest citizens, including City of Jackson employees earning minimum wage. Those employees recently received crushing news that pay increases the city council passed may not be implemented after all, even as some top administration officials received pay increases.

Keep in mind that people who shop in Jackson are also paying an extra 1 percent in sales tax, which, even though food is exempt, is still regressive for people earning the least.

To jack up people's water bills would not only be politically unwise, but simply unfair. If rate hikes are unavoidable, Mayor Yarber should get out in front of people and carefully articulate the scope of the problem and drill down into the most minute details so that people understand exactly where more of their hard-earned money is going.

At the same time, the city council must do as they promised and hold the mayor's feet to the fire on finding a way to implement minimum wage increase or shave it off some of the salaries of his top advisers.

We look forward to seeing a plan from the mayor and city council very soon.