The Fort Smith Board of Directors on Tuesday (Sept. 2) is set to official hire – finally – a director of internal audit. Votes are also expected on transferring property to a retirement facility, and adopting “strategic priorities.”
Board members on Aug. 12 agreed to hire Amanda Strange as the internal auditor director after she worked with the city’s human resources department on an employment agreement. The position has been vacant since April 1, 2024, when Tracey Shockley resigned after nine years with the city.
The director of internal audit is only one of two top city jobs directly hired by the board, with the other being the city administrator. The board in April was forced to reverse its decision to hire Rebecca Cowan as internal auditor when it was discovered she faced felony charges.
Prior to applying for the Fort Smith job, Strange was a director at Forvis in audit and consulting services for commercial clients from June 2022 to May 2025 and a director at BKD CPAs & Advisors from January 2008 to May 2022.
Strange’s salary is set to begin at $115,000 and her start date is Sept. 8, according to the employment agreement included in the board agenda.
PROPERTY TRANSFER
As part of an effort by the board to shed excess property owned by the city, Acting City Administrator Jeff Dingman is proposing the city donate the former Bost building at 1801 S. 74th St., to nearby Methodist Village “at nominal cost.”
The property was part of an Aug. 10 board discussion about the status of 18 properties owned by the city that could be easily sold or donated.
According to Dingman, Methodist Village Executive Director Melissa Curry said the nonprofit would like to use the property for a daycare center. Dingman’s memo to the board explains that the property was once donated by Methodist Village to Bost, so the proposed action essentially returns the property to Methodist Village.
“While we have not found a definitive statement expressing that Methodist Village donated the property to the city specifically to facilitate the Bost project in 1966, the facts that Methodist originally owned the property and that the deeds are only a few days apart indicate that this deal was in the making well before the first conveyance was made,” Dingman noted in the board memo. “Due to that, and the fact that city taxpayer dollars were not spent to build the buildings, I recommend that the city express intent to convey the property back to Methodist Village, Inc. for use as a daycare center.”
Methodist Village Senior Living opened in March 1961, and its services now include assisted living, independent living, memory care, and in-patient and out-patient rehabilitation.
BOARD PRIORITIES
Also on the agenda is a vote to approve the “2025-2026 Strategic Priorities” drafted by the board during a daylong strategy workshop held Aug. 24. The session was conducted by Kendall Ross, University of Arkansas at Fort Smith (UAFS) associate vice chancellor of Economic and Workforce Development, and included several hours of board members and city staff discussing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the city and region.
Following are the six priorities.
Priority 1: The city of Fort Smith desires to support the military missions in the Fort Smith area by creating a military and defense industry support officer as part of the city leadership team.
Priority 2: The city will work to fully utilize the riverfront by hosting a summit of property owners and interested parties prior to the end of 2025. This will allow the city to best assess how it can be a helpful partner to progress.
Priority 3: In the 2026 budget cycle, the city of Fort Smith will work to develop a long-term infrastructure reinvestment policy.
Priority 4: Market the geographic location to attract industry and tourism. This effort will include the following: Develop an economic development commission; Sending city staff to conventions; Expand the staff communication team; and formulate a collaborative effort between the city, Discover Fort Smith, and the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Priority 5: Reimagine the budget process by planning a budgetary workshop date, establishing quarterly reviews, and creating a zero-based budget.
Priority 6: Establish a public works department by reorganizing the city staff in the utility, engineering, and streets departments. As part of this, implementation of capital improvement projects with street dollars will be conducted in-house.
Link here for the meeting agenda.