Utility Committee Agenda and Packet 2019 10 30

Home Browse Search

City Council Utility Committee Meeting Minutes Friday, September 13, 2019 Page 2 of 6 VI. Agenda Items and Date for Next Meeting • Next meeting date is November 8, 2019 at 2:30 — 4:00 p.m. VII. Dashboard Mr. Kowar started by going through the updated August Dashboard. He continued discussing consumption and stated this is one of the lowest years on record in the last 5 years. From a financial basis staff are assuming the utility will be about 20% down on revenue at the end of year. Tap fees are staying on track and will be reviewed in the coming years. Mr. Kowar reminded the Committee that this year's tap fees don't have an immediate impact as tap fee revenue is delayed a year within the financial model. Budget expenditures are looking good and projects are moving along as planned. Councilmember Stolzmann sought clarification on the wastewater operation budget shown on the dashboard at 50% if this was on track with typical expenditures. Mr. Peterson explained that wastewater expenditures are relatively consistent and water has greater variability and tied to closer to water production. Mr. Watson reiterated this is just operations and doesn't include capital or expenses. The Committee commented they like the new format on the sheets and had no other comments. VIII. Cost of Service Mr. Kowar started by saying Public Works is under staffed right now as we have lost two engineers and are in the process of filling those positions. As a result, cost of service analysis has been slowed as other priorities are shifted. Mr. Kowar continued with saying that Mr. Ahrens has done an amazing job and has done some exploratory data analysis and categorization. Mr. Ahrens said they were exploring two different data sets and explained the two different packets (one smaller than the other) where most data was done on 2018 for all users. He started with the smaller set which gets to the bigger questions. Exploring trends and explained the first graph is looking at commercial, residential and multi- family. Went on to explain the average use used in winter/summer and came up with Multi -family is paying the least for irrigation and the most expensive is residential. The common theme you'll see is residential is spending more as they are using more water and not able to jump through the tiers. Mr. Kowar explained how the different tiers worked. Mr. Ahrens commented it is buried in a graph that we will see later. Mr. Ahrens went on to explain the second page showing the data from 2010 to 2018 trending then continued to discuss the graphs comparing the commercial/residential. Third page graphs were put together from what the Committee asked for on how many commercial are paying less than the median residential. Mr. Ahrens said all of them and stated this is how it works. Explained the residential median is $20.83/1,000 gal but is deceiving and went on to explain how some people are barely using anything and turning it off. Those outliers are pulling up the costs. Committee continued discussing the usage from winter/summer months and how that is represented in the charts. Mayor Muckle referred to the top of the page and asked how you become a residential person who's using very little water but getting charged a