Colorado Springs Utilities Board Meeting - August 19, 2026
Colorado Springs Utilities Board Meeting - August 19, 2026
Colorado Springs Utilities Board met on August 19, 2026, to discuss customer satisfaction scores, adjustments to electric and gas cost adjustments, the water outlook, a proposal to expand lien authority to all utility services, and bond issuances for capital projects. The board unanimously approved several items for recommendation to City Council.
Consent Calendar
- Approved the July 20, 2026 working committee minutes and July 22, 2026 utilities board meeting minutes.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public provided comments during the meeting.
Discussion Items
- Customer Satisfaction Scorecard: Staff presented on customer satisfaction metrics. Chair Donaldson emphasized the need for tailored communication and requested to see how the brand survey aligns with satisfaction scores. Board member Rainey inquired about phone service improvements. Staff explained that digital channel optimization is a focus, and customer satisfaction is high in direct interactions (e.g., in-person post-transaction surveys) but lower in digital ease of doing business. They noted that scores are reported to the CEO leadership team four times a year, and full scorecard results will be presented to the board in March 2027. Chair Donaldson addressed a common concern about higher summer bills, attributing increases to higher water usage (17% more electricity in July), longer billing periods (up to 33 days), and time-of-day rates. He encouraged customers to call 719-448-480 for bill assistance.
- Electric Cost Adjustment (ECA) & Gas Cost Adjustment (GCA) Preview: Scott Shirola, Pricing and Rates Manager, presented projections. The ECA over-collection balance is about $18 million (projected to maintain ~$20 million). Despite a hot summer, fuels and power purchase teams moderated costs. The board anticipates a proposal next month to decrease the ECA rate by October 1, resulting in a typical residential bill decrease of $1.75. The GCA balance is around $15 million; staff recommend holding the rate flat and re-evaluating in March 2027.
- Water Outlook: Justin Zeisler, Supervisor of Water Resource Planning, reported that local precipitation in July was much below normal (year-to-date at 60% of normal). Water use averaged 102.6 million gallons per day in July, 13% higher than July 2025. Reservoir storage is at 69% (2.7 years of demand) versus a long-term average of 82%. Board member Henjam asked about triggers for further restrictions; Zeisler explained the 1.5 years of storage is a planning threshold but not a strict trigger. Board member Lineweber inquired about water sharing with other municipalities; Zeisler noted several requests this year (Manitou, Triview, Donala) and an agreement with CWCB for instream flow for fish health.
- Lien Authority Expansion: Patrick Malone, Manager of Customer Revenue and Billing, and Hannah Garardi, Associate Attorney, proposed amending city code to allow liens for electric and gas services (currently only water/wastewater). The tool is rarely used (one lien in eight years for a $90,000 commercial debt) but helps protect ratepayers from large unpaid balances. Currently, two commercial customers owe over $100,000 each. The board voted unanimously to recommend the ordinance to City Council.
- Bond Ordinances (Items 9 & 10): Adam Hegstrom, Treasury and Finance Manager, presented three bond series: Series 2026A (up to $280 million tax-exempt for general capital), Series 2026B (up to $125 million taxable for fiber network project to boost liquidity), and refunding series (2026C, 2027A, 2027B) to refinance Build America Bonds if favorable market conditions arise. The board voted unanimously to recommend both ordinances (A and B combined, and the refunding series separately) to City Council.
- Board Member Updates: Board members provided no significant updates. Chair Donaldson thanked customers for water conservation efforts and reiterated the phone number 719-448-480 for bill questions.
Key Outcomes
- Unanimous (9-0) vote to recommend ordinance amending city code to allow liens for all utility services to the September 8, 2026 City Council meeting (not on consent).
- Unanimous vote to recommend bond ordinance for Series 2026A and 2026B to the September 8 City Council meeting (placed on consent).
- Unanimous vote to recommend bond ordinance for refunding series (2026C, 2027A, 2027B) to the September 8 City Council meeting (placed on consent).
- The board entered closed executive session to discuss the 2026 mid-year performance review of the Chief Executive Officer.
Meeting Transcript
Tailored communication specifically to usage is going to be really key, and that that's part of what you know some of the actions are on the small business side. Just wanted to talk through some of those because they were obviously um outlined here, but I think the more important aspect to this is the action plan. Any questions on what I've said uh any board members? Um Crank, this is Nancy. Just one other question. I I made this request in a work session, but um uh I am curious to see. I know you just did a brand uh survey, and I I am curious to hear how the brand survey kind of fits with uh with these customer satisfaction scores. Yes, you're looking forward to seeing that. Yeah. Yep, we'll be sharing that. Okay, thank you. And now uh board member Rainey. Yeah, um thank you. Uh I just wanted to, I guess, to your points that you have already made. The phone service part, is that a part of some things that you're of course correcting or addressing or looking into or is it something very specific that customers are just not? It's really a digital channel now. The phone systems are all digitized, so we we kind of aggregate in that in that digital space. So there is basically uh potentially some routing efficiency there. But these are really small adjustments when you look at you know the actual interaction between our customers. And I think when you look at the uh customer satisfaction, when customers deal with us, work with us directly, and that's why Natalie called that those specifically, like for example, when you end a phone call with us, when you have a service technician or a field technician come to your house, it's known as a person post-transaction survey, which obviously if the customer wants to take that survey, we tend to do very well in that when customers interact with us directly. When we're compared to obviously other utilities in terms of is there a way to more optimize the service channel, especially on the digital side, there is definitely some actions that we're taking to improve that experience. And a lot of it is is really tied to the ease of doing business. If we tell customers click 17 times, I'm not sure that's ease of doing business. So that's where we're really trying to focus on our efforts on making it easy, one click to pay, those types of things. Outstanding. Thank you. Other um board member questions at this moment. I don't I don't see any, Natalie. Do you have anything else for us? Because it don't leave before I'll have something to ask. I think we pretty much covered it on the next step slide. Mr. Frankelino covered kind of what we're doing to adjust the um customers that scores. So um I guess the only thing I would just add is that we'll be back um to in front of the board in March of 2027 to bring you the end of year scorecard results. I do just want to mention we do, although the board only sees these numbers twice a year, we actually report on them four times a year to Travis and his CEO leadership team so that we can make course corrections if we need to. So I think that's important for you know our neighbors, our the citizens, the ratepayers, to be informed of that we we track this closely because this has been a very hot summer, and uh my bill and a lot of other citizens' um utility bill has gone up. And I think citizens have tried to figure that out on their own. Why why has that happened? And they've maybe looked on social media and they've seen uh some posts on there. I would encourage citizens to call our uh customer representatives at uh 719-448-480, and have someone go through your bill with you and really help you understand it. Um my bill, it's largely water, is the reason my bill has increased. I know I have grass and we're we're watering it three times a week like we're supposed to to keep it alive. Um, but it's been so hot that uh you know we're lot watering it for longer periods on those days. Um something that uh a lot of times we don't think of is is our bills aren't always the same number of days. Like my bill this month is th a 32-day period. It can go down to 28 days, and I think it can go up to 33. And so if you're comparing a 33-day bill to uh 32 to a 28-day bill, I mean there's more than a 10 percent difference just in the number of days. And then if the the temperatures have been a lot higher, uh you if you have air conditioning, you're probably running that more. And so it's just the number of kilowatts which are being used. And I believe on average, you know, our residential customers have used 17 percent uh more electricity uh this July than last.
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