We're gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order.

It's a public input meeting for the water and light advisory board.

Uh my name is Jennifer Coleman.

I am the chair of the board, and I'm gonna kick off with introductions for the rest of the board members.

Philip Rosika, board.

Tom Jensen board.

David Switzer, board member.

All right.

We're gonna go ahead and get started.

In terms of format for this meeting, I wanted to address a few items.

We have several topics on the agenda, which you can see after each topic.

If you would like to speak, you are able to for a total of three minutes.

Then at the end of the meeting, there will be an open call for comments, and you would also have three minutes to address any items that you would like to at that time.

All right.

And for our agenda today, I'll go over that quickly.

We're gonna talk about the utility customer service results, a pay Como update, the community solar and energy efficiency programs, then we're gonna talk a little bit about the revenue and rate increases on the water and electric side, and then public input opportunities.

I'm gonna now turn it over to um oh, and the next slide had the introductions.

I guess I took it a little uh too quickly.

And we're gonna turn it over to Tom for updates pertaining to the customer survey.

Okay, so um how do I control the slides?

Are you some?

Erin?

Okay, thanks.

Um I thought we would uh just go through this uh very quickly.

It won't take long.

Uh just to kind of I don't know if anyone show of hands, anyone seen the results or found them online.

Uh okay.

Uh then it'll it'll uh it should be helpful.

Um the the survey was designed by ETC Institute um and we had a lot of uh you know we we talked about this for quite a while within our within the board and we finally got it out.

There was a lot of input from from the board and uh from staff.

Uh and ETC kind of uh crafted the questions in a way that allows for them to subject the results to an evaluation for accuracy and how reliable it is as a reflection of of the community.

The goal was to understand what uh how people feel about issues that we've selected for them to consider.

Um, but also to have a feature in the in the survey that allowed people to say, well, here's what's on my mind.

So that uh there was there was no risk of people being stripped of their voice just because we weren't asking the right questions.

Um the goal was to uh get 800 completed surveys.

And we ended up with like 800 four, I think.

So that was very close.

Uh which allows them to establish a level of confidence of 95 percent uh as a reflection of of the community.

So on drinking water.

Uh and and I think the survey was circulated when a lot of the the discussion of the water treatment facility expansion was topical.

71% of of uh the respondents believe that we have safe and quality uh drinking water.

26 uh don't, and three percent said had no response.

When we say 71 percent, we're combining the uh strongly believe with the firmly believe kind of the the the two extremes of of the spectrum and then the 26 percent believe somewhat agree or somewhat disagree and firmly disagree.

On the water service, 58 percent thought it was excellent or good, 25 percent average.

Um 11 percent below average or poor.

And we'll see when we switch to electric the numbers in terms of the public perception of the performance of the utility are a little stronger.

But on water conservation, uh 84 percent are very willing or somewhat willing to change lawn watering or otherwise engage in conservation, and that was part of that's gonna be part of our goal with the new water rates per pertaining to uh irrigation.

Um the on other actions, the sprinkler heads, 73 percent willing to replace uh sprinkler heads and and install rain sensors.

Anyone who who's been through a neighborhood that has a bunch of uh houses and businesses with sprinklers will see uh sometimes they're on when it's raining, um so which is just you know waste.

Or uh another problem that that is prevalent in my neighborhood, uh the sprinkler heads get bumped by mowers and they'll just shoot into the street.

You know, the the water stream will go directly onto the pavement, gets washed away, that's wasted uh potable drinking water that we use on lawns and we're not unfortunately in a situation where we have the a sophisticated system that allows us to have different gradation of water, where there's you know, gray water that might be suitable for lawns, but you know, we either have drinkable or storm, essentially, or waste.

Um moving on to the the next slide.

72 percent of respondents describe the electric utility as excellent or good.

Uh 12 percent say it's average, three percent rating it below average of poor.

And I I gotta believe that some of this is is testament to the the fact that we've had some pretty extreme heat days for suspended uh successive periods of of time uh successive days, and we still haven't had the the brownouts that have been part of the the prediction and fear that that you know we uh we understand our system's a little bit inadequate.

But somehow it's it's held up, and that's reflected in the public sentiment as well.

Uh community solar, uh 27 percent would sign up for community solar, which given the the history of the program, that's a huge, a huge number uh of the public relative to the people who have participated in the past.

And we'll see as we go through more of the results that it's possible that there's a there's a lot of uh untapped interest that isn't uh realized just because uh we have to do a better job of uh public outreach.

Um 30 percent would possibly sign up, 28 percent unlikely or wouldn't, uh 15 percent with no opinion.

Uh the positive there is that there just weren't people who were uh vocally opposed to community solar, particularly in the open comments where people were allowed to talk about what was important to them.

On renewable energy uh sources, this is and this is gonna be key for particularly some of the comments that we received ahead of time.

Uh uh an appreciable majority of our residents are in favor of moving toward 100 percent renewable, and we go down to the f the bottom box, it looks like there's within that 64 percent, there's a lot of uh different grades of how much more people would be willing to pay.

Uh so uh that's that suggests that there's a stronger emphasis on keeping an eye on the costs and the market movement.

Unfortunately, some of that is gonna work against us with the the uh the recent legislation that it will uh provide set uh rapid sunsets to the subsidies that that are driving these programs.

Um 5 percent would be willing to pay 20 percent or more for clean energy uh and that's uh the question is based on relative to what they're already paying.

12 percent at 10 to 20 percent more, uh 35 percent, five to ten percent, forty-five percent, um less than five percent.

So there seems to be a big number that is interested in clean energy if it's available, but maybe less interested if it if it means uh paying more.

Next uh slide, please.

And this is uh the a summary of the most important values to respondents.

I drafted this so that it resi is obviously residential, comm is uh commercial.

Uh big big emphasis on reliability and affordability.

Um public health and safety uh is coming in at 23 percent efficiency and renewables are kind of uh rounding out the bottom uh in terms of uh the values or priorities, but uh I the way I read that is not necessarily that um you know, if if renewable if for instance if renewables could be uh made available uh and you know perhaps at a reasonable price, uh we might end up having more.

This is one of those or more uh respondents in favor of it.

This is one of those uh questions where it's it's competing with just the staples of do the lights come on.

So that's that's kind of a hard metric uh to me.

Uh next slide, please.

And then there's uh some uh additional observations that weren't necessarily part of um some of the bigger picture, these are kind of zeroing in on a few.

On energy efficiency, uh some uh respondents actually noted that there is little engagement with uh almost everyone below five, you know, the engaging in the energy efficiency programs representing less than five percent of the ratepayers who responded.

So this is a this is an opportunity for us to you know kind of get the word out again.

These things are kind of cyclical.

I I don't see it as as uh necessarily a failing of staff.

It's just another opportunity where people uh can we can we can do something that will uh put the put it more in the public eye and and have some uh some public outreach so that people know to focus on it because it's it tends to be the kind of thing that's out of sight, out of mind.

There's a lot of people buying appliances and certainly HVACs, every the recycle uh on a regular basis for for a lot of us, and there are subsidies available, there are rebates available for heat pumps, for instance.

Um EV adoption uh 4.8 percent among respondents with uh 7.8 percent responding with likely to purchase an EV or plug-in hybrid.

Um I I think given the age of uh or given how new EVs are to mainstream residents in in the country, I I read that as 7.8 percent in addition to the 4.8, instead of just uh repeating, you know, where people in the 4.8 are saying, yes, I'm prepared to buy another one.

Um 67.2 percent are unlikely.

Uh and there's uh there could be a lot of reasons for that.

I I know I'm I sound like I'm uh making a lot of excuses for clean energy.

Uh but uh for instance, I'm not in the market for an EV because I spend so much of my driving time uh engaged in distances that outpace ranges that are reasonable relative to charging stations since I spend most of my time in rural Midwest.

Uh so it's it's an impractical thing for me, though I support it.

Uh an open-ended comments uh with water, multiple expressions of concern about hard water fluoride and PFAS.

Um an electric, the comments are a little bit all over the place uh covering a bunch of different issues, uh so there wasn't uh kind of a common ribbon that flowed through.

Uh and uh a lot of uh comments among the open uh the open comments saying how do I learn more?

And I think Como.gov is is sometimes challenging to find things.

Um if I look up an ordinance, it's sometimes a miracle uh if to if I'm able to locate it in the in the first 90 seconds.

But those programs are available.

And uh if there's you know, obviously the utility has public outreach.

If you reach out to them, they can plug you into a whole bunch of programs that will help defray costs and uh and help you become aware of uh additions to your house that you can make or your your business that will save you money.

And I think are we next slide?

I think we're at the end.

Um then there's some det you know, Como.gov for the survey results and um and there's just you know you can reach out to us at our second Wednesday of every month at 8 a.m., which I know is not easy, but if you can't, uh and most uh people can't because we get more comments by email than in person.

Uh don't hesitate to reach out by email.

All those emails come to us in almost real time.

So we are always able to uh address every email we get, the very next meeting we address it publicly.

And then we also have some meetings because we ever any time we meet and we have uh more than three, or we're uh two people are even going to talk utility business, it has to be a public meeting, which means as we gather for the training we get, those meetings are also public meetings.

And before I joined the board, I I went on a a long journey of attending a lot of board meetings, chaired by John Conway.

Um when not only was breakfast served, lunch was also served.

That's how long though some of those meetings went.

And um so I got a lot of uh free training by attending some of those meetings, and it was fascinating to give you a good glimpse of what are the issues the utility is facing, and it's uh it's super educational.

Uh so you you feel like you come away with uh having spent your time well.

Think about that.

That we have one of those coming up uh soon.

In December.

In December.

Anyway, that's that's it for my presentation.

Thank you, Tom.

At this time, we'll open the floor for any public comments regarding the survey itself.

I don't take that as a reflection on my performance.

All right.

Next we have a presentation regarding Pay Como.

Good evening, members of the public and members of the board.

I'm Chelsea Miller, uh City Treasurer, and they have asked me to provide a staff update and a little bit of a refresher on the utility payment website, Pay Como.

Um just gonna do a brief refresher and catch people up since we've had some turnover and give you an idea of our original goals and where we're at, and then uh keep you in the loop of some upcoming changes.

Uh so one of the biggest questions I get is the difference between pay it and pay Como.

Pay.com.gov is a city sponsored, it's a finance department website.

It's you can navigate to it from Como.gov, and that will always be our website.

PayIT is the vendor that we partnered with out of Kansas City, Missouri to provide this service.

So PayIt is out of uh Kansas City.

They've partnered with many other governments.

You can go to Payitgov.com and see and learn more about them.

Uh Pay.como houses utilities along with other city payment uh services.

So originally we set out with the intent of being a one-stop shop.

Um reminder I'm from finance, not specific to the utility, but just a one-stop for payments.

Um so anything from payment services that included phone payments, one-time or manual payments, as well as the automatic or recurring payments.

Uh back in 2022 is when we signed the original contract, utility phone payments went live in February of 2023.

Auto pay went live, January of 2024, and then we took a break from utilities and moved on to a couple other city services.

So outside of our enterprise fund with utilities, we also offer home energy loans and general billing.

Um, so any city staff that's got uh a retired insurance payment, for example, runs through PayComo, as well as our solid waste roll-off containers.

And so we added those in in 2025.

Our most recent addition to the Pay Como website was parking citations, and the the idea is that similar to like an Amazon website, you can cart these payments all at once.

So as despite who or which city department bills you for a payment, you can pay them in one payment.

Uh so that that's where we're at so far.

Um another goal or a pillar of our implementation was to streamline reconciliation for staff.

So just like customers, they had to go to several different websites to get that.

It was not very efficient.

And so now our staff is able to reconcile those banking payments in a few minutes versus a couple of days to do month-end close.

Uh and then we had some regulatory changes that are coming next year from NACA that would have led us down a path for this specific to autopay.

So auto pay uh has some strict rules that are coming when you sign up, they want proof as a city that we are capturing that authorization and can produce it if anybody asks.

We were doing that in paper.

It's not very efficient, it's not very trackable, it's really hard to find.

Something happened to that paper, we wouldn't be compliant.

So we wanted to make that more accessible, more self-service.

Um there were a lot of people that don't live in the city that wanted to be on auto pay.

Uh and so this gives them the ability to do that from their phone or a computer.

And that applies to any service, utilities, home energy loans, and retirees, uh, auto pay.

This is a screenshot.

I apologize it's really small, um, but I think you the slide decks are online.

This is a screenshot of the Pay Como website.

So once you get an account registered with Pay Como, you can use that payit login anywhere you go.

If you move out of the city of Columbia and you go to another pay it city, um, for example, the city of St.

Louis is on pay it.

It's gonna look very similar, and you can link multiple services.

So you can see the city services here.

We have utilities, home energy loans, general billing and parking tickets.

And then once you get it linked, it's gonna get give you notifications about those bills when it's overdue or upcoming notifications.

And then every time you see something here, you get an email for your PayComo account.

Before, because we were doing those manually and in-house, we weren't able to process those emails.

So customers, I think the a bonus, not our original goal, but a bonus was improved utility customer communication about upcoming and past due bills.

And then my last slide today is just upcoming changes.

Uh so our very next change is a redirect.

There will be customer communication specific to utilities.

My utility bill is not going anywhere.

It is just redirecting when you click the pay now button.

So right now, if you click manage your auto pay, it goes to Pay Como.

When you click pay now in the future, that will also redirect you to Pay Como.

Um that uh impacts about 20 to 25,000 customers per month, so it's about a third of our utility customer base.

Uh the next phased project is what's called EnerGov, and it's used for permits and licenses, and it has a lot less count per month, but uh in terms of dollars, it's also a large project.

And then our last phase of Pay Como as we wrap it up is for any unbilled payments.

So I specifically listed this one on here because of utility assistance.

We have a utility assistance fund, and right now that those payments are not processed through Pay Como, so we're gonna finish that up.

We hope to have that done in the next couple of months.

Um, but there will be large customer communication for any impacted customers.

And then even if you're not impacted and you want to know more, if you have questions, you're welcome to come to our office.

Um Treasury specifically has an office on the first floor in City Hall where what's known as the cashier office is where you pay your bill.

And our staff is equipped with iPads and can walk you through the Pay Como site.

It's not to convert anybody, it's just to educate.

It's just one of our many payment channels.

Our job is just to help customers when they need it and meet them with their payment method of choice.

Um, some future goals I've listed.

I'm not going to read them all, but um I don't think this is an ever a completed project, and I want to see more customer communication and um input.

So as we go through these transitions, we've made a point to try to capture communication.

So when you come into the office, if you need help, uh expect to be asked, hey, what brought you in today?

How can we help?

How can we do it better?

Uh that's one thing I really like about the PayIt partnership is that they really listen and incorporate those changes.

That's all I have, and happy to answer any questions.

Does the public have any comments or questions?

Do we go up to the podium to ask?

Please come up to the podium to ask your question.

I have auto pay for utility bill.

And I got some pay Como thing, and I like to look at my utilities and see what it's about.

And Pay Como, and then there was like this surveys.

Like, how do you rate our service?

I'm like, yeah, pretty good.

You know, I like the charts that show me how the temperatures and how much I've used over the years.

I like all that.

That's great.

Yeah, well, gave you five stars or whatever it was.

And then I go in and it's like, well, where's my and I it took me, I was on half an hour later.

It's like, what the heck?

There's no utility bill with Pay Como.

It's a completely separate gizmo.

Okay.

There's Pay Como, and then there's my utility bill.

Right?

Sure.

So it's two separate, and it was just frustrating.

I want to take back my five-star rating, give me one star.

Frustrating.

That's it.

Thank you.

Any additional comments?

At this time, we'll have Todd come up for a presentation regarding community solar and energy efficiency programs.

Hello, Borden.

Hello, members of the public.

My name is Todd McVicar.

I am the utility services manager.

I'm going to give a brief uh presentation on the programs that the utility offers for community solar and our different rebate programs.

We're going to talk first about community solar.

So community solar, we have a program that's available that's supposed to emulate for the public who are not able to put solar on their houses.

A community solar program that is as close to that as possible.

It takes existing solar from the Truman and Bernadette solar fields and allows people to buy a block of solar of 1.5 KW.

In total of this, there's a total of one megawatt available of solar for customers to sign up for.

Customers can sign up for one block of solar, and again, one block of solar is 1.5 KW.

And when a customer signs up, they're signed up for the program through December of 2044.

It's an automatic annual renewal for the program on a yearly basis, but the customer can opt out of the program at any time and at no cost.

From there, they have a bill of $24.77 on the utility bill each month.

$14 of that is for the solar subscription and $10.77 for utility operations.

Solar subscription fee is a fixed rate that doesn't change over the course of the course of the program through 2044, but the utility operations fee can change if deemed necessary.

But if significant things have to be done to the solar fields to keep it operational, that maybe have to look at in the future.

So the way the program works is we look at every single month what does the actual system of solar produce for the 1.5 KW.

On average, over the course of a year, it's estimated that 1.5 KW of solar between these different solar fields will produce approximately $3,280 kilowatt hours over the course of a year.

But that's an estimate.

It will vary based upon weather, how much the sun shines every single year.

So there will be a little bit of variance from that one.

When it's all said and done, at the end of a year, it's anticipated that on the average year, a customer will pay about $5 in premium for participation in the program.

Next I'm going to talk about energy efficiency programs.

So the utility has had efficiency programs since approximately 2008.

We began water conservation programs in 2020.

We revamped the energy efficiency programs starting this last fiscal year on October 2024.

So we just wrapped up our first year of the new programs.

The first time they've been updated since they were implemented back in 2008.

Energy conservation programs are available to all of our customers, residential, commercial, and industrial, both for owner-occupied and rental properties for most of our programs.

Over the course of the year, we saved approximately a little almost six and a half million kilowatt hours of power, which is approximately 582 homes worth of energy use for one year.

And for an avoided uh greenhouse gas emissions and about 6700 metric tons of greenhouse gases uh were not produced due to the energy conservation that was that happened because of the programs.

The residential programs, we have a handful of programs.

There'll be several slides on this.

Uh the first one is our home performance with Energy Star.

This is kind of the flagship program.

This is going into a house, doing energy audits on a house, and then having the customer make those upgrades to the house to reduce energy usage and then they get rebates after the work has been completed.

Um we do offer up to 1200 depending upon the work that is done at the house.

In association with this, the city does offer home performance loans.

So we can offer up to $15,000 for to qualified customers and for doing the work, and we have interest rates associated with that of as low as 1%.

Uh other program after that, we have the Attic Plus program, which is a newer program we revamped, which is focused on doing attic insulation to houses, and so you can get $500 doing attic insulation and $300 if you do duct insulation in the attics as well.

We also offer an air conditioner heat pump replacement program for installing uh qualified central air conditioners and heat pumps.

Those rebates can be up to 1,200 uh dependent upon the efficiency of the system that is installed.

This last time we started an efficient electrification program, which is to incentivize the installation of heat pumps at houses.

This is available at new and existing construction.

And depending upon the system at the house, uh we have a rebate of up to $1,400 for that installation.

We also have a smart thermostat program for the installation of an Energy Star certified smart thermostat, again available at new and existing construction, and a customer receives $50 for the installation of a qualified thermostat.

Heat pump water heaters, one of our other programs for the installation of an energy star heat pump water heater available at again new and existing construction and a $500 rebate for installation of that water heater.

We also have an electric vehicle charger rebate program.

So if a customer installs a level two EV charger, uh that's one that takes uh 240 volt systems, so not just a plug into a regular wall outlet.

Um we'll offer them up to five $500 for the installation.

We also have a rebate for making a brand new construction home EV ready, which what that means is if in the garage or parking area they install a 240 volt outlet for the future installation of an EV charger, we'll give $100 for that as well.

We have a free residential energy assessment.

While there is no rebate associated with this, any customer of ours, either water or electric, can contact us, and we will have a uh certified individual come out and do a free energy assessment on the house.

We don't do any diagnostics, so we don't do, for example, the blower door test or combustion testing on the appliances, but they will come out, look at the house, look at the usage, sit down with the customer and make recommendations based upon the actual house conditions and what people can actually do at their house, be it involved in other programs or what other things they might be able to do at low or no cost to help save water and save energy.

And again, that's available to all of our customers, renter or owner occupied properties.

We also have a handful of income eligible conservation programs that we offer.

So income eligible conservation programs are available to those customers who meet either 80% of or below the AMI, the area mean income, or is it median income?

Median, thank you, income for that.

So we have the advanced, the enhanced home performance program that is like our home performance with energy star program.

However, the individuals can get double the rebate for any work that is done if they meet the income qualifications.

We also provide funds to CMCA or Central Missouri Community Action to actually go to homes and do weatherization for qualified individuals.

Those individuals actually have to meet the 200% of poverty guidelines, not the 80% of AMI for that program.

Uh but that program actually will go out to the house, they meet the qualifications, and the Central Missouri Community Action will do the upgrades at the house at no cost to the customer.

We also have a program for we partner with Voluntary Action Center for those customers that have window air conditioner units.

If they have an inefficient one, they we do an exchange once a year and sometimes twice a year on that one.

Come by and we will provide them with a new Energy Star uh efficient window air conditioner unit to replace the one that they had at their home.

We have commercial and industrial programs as well.

Uh one of the most common ones we have is a commercial lighting program, uh, which is to go in and replace inefficient lighting with more efficient LED lighting.

It's based on uh demand reduction.

We also offer some rebates now for kilowatt hour reduction.

This has historically been the most successful program for energy conservation that we do within uh for our commercial customers.

We have a new program that was available as of this last October called Daylight Harvesting, and we provide rebates for lighting controls that will automatically dim lights when there is enough natural light that the lights don't need to actually be on.

We offer an air conditioner and heat pump rebate as well for installing uh HVAC systems that are more efficient and ground source heat pumps, and it depends upon the size of the system and the energy savings on what actual rebates that we'll get for that.

We have a variable speed drive program, so replacing drives for refrigerators and other commercial cooling systems to replace those with more efficient systems that'll save energy, and usually those are associated with some kind of engineering design from the company or the organization that's providing the information to us.

And dependent upon what the energy savings are, we'll make a difference on what the rebate is.

Uh custom rebate programs, another one that basically if the industrial or commercial customer can come to us with basically any program or any idea they have for energy conservation.

If it will save a certain amount of energy, we can provide a rebate for it.

So it leaves a lot of open opportunities for creative solutions to try to reduce energy consumption at some of these commercial and industrial customers.

We also have a heat pump water heater program for commercial industrial customers to if they go off and install an efficient heat pump water heater.

A new program we also put in this last year was the commercial kitchen equipment, looking at if commercial kitchens will go and install energy certified equipment, they can get a rebate for those what the rebate is will depend upon what the actual kitchen equipment being installed is because it varies in amount based upon refrigerators, dishwashers have different amounts for the various things they are looking at.

We have a commercial EV charger rebate for commercial properties and industrial properties for the installation of a level two charger stations.

It is up to $500 for nonnetwork chargers and then up to one to two thousand dollars for network chargers.

For commercial properties we also offer energy efficiency loans a commercial customer can receive up to $30,000 for the installation of energy efficiency measures per meter for up to three meters with interest rates as low as one percent we also offer several services that are not in they are not rebate programs to our commercial customers.

We offer free commercial energy audits uh which typically we refer to ashray level one audits uh we offer infrared inspections for different commercial customers and we also will do compressed air leak detection because there can be a significant amount of energy loss at a commercial industrial property due to leaking compressed air solar we offer rebates for the installation of solar panels at homes and businesses.

The amount the rebate is depends upon the size of the system and what direction the solar system faces.

The average system in Columbia is approximately a 10 KW system and gets a rebate of approximately $5,000.

We also offer water conservation programs for commercial and residential customers.

We offer an efficient flush program.

So if you install a water sense certified toilet uh you can get up to $75 for a residence for the installation of a toilet or $100 for a commercial toilet being installed.

We also offer rebates for irrigation and that is the installation of smart irrigation controllers, rain sensors, and sprinkler heads and those are available for both residents and businesses.

Future of programming we are currently in the process of evaluating our water programs based upon the recent cost of service study that was done that was just presented to the water and light board a month or two ago that is currently in progress and energy efficiency programs are on a three year cycle to be reevaluated.

So we'll be looking at bringing those in front of the water and light board sometime for fiscal year 27.

And if anybody ever has any questions regarding any of the efficiency programs that we have water programs or solar programs, please contact us at efficiency at coma dot gov or call us at the number on the screen or you can visit Columbia PowerPartners.com which is just a link that will take you directly to the portion of the city website regarding our rebate programs.

That's what I have.

Thank you Todd that was a great overview of the programs that the city offers.

Does anybody from the public have any input or questions please come to the podium it looks like there's several so we'll allow this gentleman first.

Hello John Conway 4902 Thornbrook bridge on the energy efficient loans uh what security is given for the loan taken for the loan what security is taken for the loan?

That would be I have to defer to our finance department on that.

Unfortunately I'm not with the finance department the loan is from the utility but it's through the finance department.

I do not have that answer for you but I'll be happy to get that answer and try to provide that to you though.

The interest would be is uh is it a second lane or first lane.

Oh okay.

It is taken as um a first lane on the property with anything if they're going to do they have to um I have to go through a subordination request thank you.

Yeah.

Drawing a blank on the wording Carolyn Ampron speaking for the Mid-Missouri group of the Sierra Club first I want to thank you for the handouts very helpful since this type is small.

Very appreciate that regarding energy efficiency programs, I know um that the water and light programs are recognized and that's great.

But we can always do more and one of our concerns is uh expanding programs that make it uh easier for low and middle income families to participate.

So we're very interested in getting some kind of pay as you save program that would allow because those are great, you know, double rebates is fantastic.

But people have to have money up front to be able to invest in those.

And if they could, you know, somehow get a loan that allowed them to pay it back out of the savings on the utility bill, uh, that would make a big difference.

So that is uh one of our concerns is to uh move forward as rapidly as possible uh with low and middle income expansion of programs.

So thank you.

Good evening.

Peter Schneeberger, 605 Tilly, Columbia, Missouri.

I just have a question about slide 21.

It says regarding the community solar program subscribers will pay an estimated five percent five dollars in premium.

I didn't understand what it means by five dollars in premium.

Okay.

Um so over the course of a year, because the actual on the bill they pay a solid uh $24.77 every month.

Some months they're going to receive a credit higher than that because of the production, and some months they'll receive lower than that because there's not as much solar production.

So over the course of a year, it's going to cost a customer approximately five dollars for participation in the program.

Beyond the 2477.

Yeah.

So they'll basically, when it's all said and done, the 2477 will basically break even outside of when it there'll be five dollars in total over beyond uh with with the program after the year, after they've gotten their what they paid every month and the um solar rebate they got uh rebate, but the solar uh premium they got back.

So you're saying that they will get back five dollars, or they'll pay.

They will pay an extra five dollars over the course of a year on average.

At this time we'll now transition to an overview of the rate adjustments for fiscal year 26 and future plans from David.

Okay, great.

Um so I'm gonna briefly go through kind of what we did or recommended and what the utility moved forward with, and then um some thoughts on future plans.

So we can go ahead.

So in for fiscal year 26, and and both of these were adopted by council um in over the summer.

Um we recommended a 12 percent increase in water revenue and major changes to the rate structure that uh uh I'll go over those in a in a second, as well as a 2 percent increase in electric revenue.

Um I I want to note that uh the recommendation made by the consultant um as well as and supported by the water and light advisory board at the time, also recommended a 10 percent increase in water revenue in fiscal year 27 and uh uh smoother increases after.

So the idea is um to move to three percent uh rate adjustments rather than these these large increases for for the future.

Um and so just uh like I said, we we did this based off of a cost of service study by Stantech, um, the summary of the results.

Um the the big thing is that not only did it um increase revenue by 12 percent, but we m they there were some major changes to the rate structure itself.

Um there is no longer a summer uh versus non-summer distinction.

Um all uh all water uh will be treated the same throughout the year.

Um that's crucial because there was essentially shoulder usage um during uh you know months where people were using excess water or or non uh kind of um consistent water usage.

So you know, you in months of April and October you still had people watering.

That wasn't really being captured in the previous rate structure.

Um and so the tier structure is is now implemented year-round as of October 1st.

Um crucially, uh the recommendation was also to reset the tier one maximum volume to be 100 percent of the winter average consumption by the users.

Um this was really important because under the previous structure, if you used the same amount of water during the summer as you were using during the winter, the exact same amount of water, you were being charged higher during the summer.

Um this doesn't make sense from a cost of service perspective.

So this was rectified with the rate adjustment.

Um I think one of the better things that that as we will see uh is gonna end up saving most customers um significant amount of money or some amount of money.

Um so you know the the big changes of the structure uh involve recovering more peak day and peak hour water supply costs in higher rate tiers.

So uh tier two and tier three costs have increased, um, and that is because according to the water uh cost of service study, um these these customers contribute more to the cost of the system.

And so if you use more water um on peak day and peak hour, you will now uh pay more water or more for your water use.

Um and then finally um combined we the the uh recommendation combined the fire flow charges with the monthly uh base rate charges and really this was about simplification um when people are are looking at their bill.

Um and so the necessity of the uh increase was essentially um that uh revenues were not keeping up with expenditures um and so this is what it would have looked like if there was no revenue increase essentially the debt service uh coverage would have have fallen um you know the utility would have been spending cash out so uh a revenue increase was necessary this is kind of what what it would have looked like with no revenue increase and then this is the recommendation the 12% was adopted for fiscal year 26 um with the recommendation of 10% for fiscal year 27 and 3% thereafter um with the idea of revenues keeping up with expenditures and making sure that um we meet our cash targets and our debt service coverage um and this is in opposition to what what kind of had been the way that that had been business as usual in recent years which was kind of a just in time approach where uh the the um utility and and council and finance would make kind of recommendations that would would just meet the the the uh recommendations and that would kind of result in this like very kind of bumpy um uh revenue um plan where you'd essentially go years without an increase and then all of a sudden you have a big increase and then years without an increase and then a big increase.

And so the idea is to um work our way back to the point where there are more consistent uh revenue increases in the future.

And uh as I mentioned, right, under this new rate structure, um 65% of customers are estimated to see a decrease in their water bills over the course of the year.

So their annual bill change 65% of customers will are expected to see a decrease in their bills despite a 12% increase in revenue right and so you know obviously that means 35% of customers will either see no change or an increase right so 35% expected to see some increase.

Again this is going to be the users who primarily are contributed to those peak hour and peak month demand.

That's where that that money is is coming from so uh one thing we did last year is the the water and light advisory board made recommendations for uh the city to move forward with um uh affordability metrics whenever water uh rate adjustments are being considered or water revenue adjustments are being considered um this was included as part of the uh cost of service study and so the two metrics that we we proposed were hours worked at minimum wage in a month how many hours it would take to pay for um five CCFs of usage versus and then also how much um that would cost a a person what percentage of a person at 20th percentile income the water bill would be as we can see under the new rate structure both of these metrics um improve so you need to work fewer hours at minimum wage to pay for five CCFs of usage and it takes up a smaller percentage of of income at 20th percentile um moving to to electric um we we also recommended a 2% increase in the electric rates um this was because of this slide essentially that if um the the electric utility did not make changes to the the plan for electric utilities um there was a chance of um falling below the cash target reserve by fiscal year 29 um under kind of the previous way sometimes we would have approached this we would have said well let's put this off till 2029 um however they the all of the training that the water and light advisory board has received over the years as well as council and all of council's recommendations are to be more proactive in terms of small uh rate adjustments um to avoid having to do larger rate adjustments in the future um and so we recommended a 2% uh we actually recommended a 2.4% increase um but ultimately council move forward with a 2% increase um and and so um with the idea that this will prevent larger increases in the future so we we won't need you know those big 10%, 12%, 14% whatever it is increases if you if you are more proactive in in the the intervening years.

Next slide and so this is what it would look like with that 2% increase included you can see it's still the case that if nothing else were to change the the utility would not meet its cash reserve target in 2030 but in 2029 it still would.

And so you know this doesn't solve the problem certainly or not problem but this doesn't you know change everything in terms of in terms of revenue right um but it it helps.

Um, but it it helps.

Um so um as part of those those recommendations, we were also given information on what it would look like with a 2 percent increase every year.

Um I think that's the next slide, Aaron.

And so, you know, this hasn't been talked about yet in terms of recommendations, right?

Not not like the um 10 percent uh water revenue increase, which is something that we we did recommend um for for the future.

Um this is you know just what it would look like if we did a 2 percent increase each fiscal year instead of just sitting around and waiting um for those expenses to keep growing without addressing them.

And and you can see, right, um that the cash reserve target um is is met and actually stays pretty steady uh if if this were um the plan moving forward.

So that's just the the um kind of a bit of a background there.

I don't remember what the next slide is, but I think oh, okay.

So that's that's all I've got.

Um and I guess that's open it up for or I'll leave it to Jennifer to open up.

Yeah, no, we're now open for public comments or input.

Um Christine Dorr, uh I guess I was supposed to tell you who I was.

2510 Brookside Court.

So I live kind of low, and our water pressure is too high.

And putting in a water regulator in every house, I don't know, the with this day cost might cost $800 per house.

Why can't the city just put one in for the whole neighborhood?

Because we're wasting a lot of water.

You turn it on, it's shh.

So just a thought.

And then there was one other thing.

Um, well I'm I'm I I'm an artist, I use paper a lot, and wow, I love your paper.

It's so rich and thick and perfect.

And look, it's blank on one side.

I mean, wow, that's valuable.

And I'm thinking even this booklet here, this paper is really nice.

That's top quality.

And I wonder how much who pays for I mean, I guess we pay for that, right?

I'm I'm I don't mean to be I'm serious.

Uh my daughter used to complain because I wouldn't let her use all the good paper to draw when she was little.

She should have used newsprint.

So it's just a thought.

We could save a lot of money.

Thank you.

Hello, Carolyn Ompron, speaking as myself, 4804 Shale Oaks Avenue.

Uh on the uh electric rates, one thing I wanted to suggest is that the utility or the board recommend that the utility offer short tutorials to explain the rates better, and also to explain how to use the nice tools that you have online to look at your bill and compare it from this year to last year and things like that, because I'm on two social media platforms, next door app and Facebook.

And there are so many people who don't understand their bill.

And the it even to the point that they do not understand that their electric bill is going to be higher in August than March because of the weather.

So I I mean there's just a lot of basic misunderstandings out there.

And I think, you know, this day and age, everybody seems to love the one, two and three minute videos.

So I think those things would go a long way to helping.

And then the other thing I just wanted to say for the future on electric rates is I definitely support, you know, small increases over time versus one big one.

But it does seem like um that the at the rate that they are suggested in your plan that sometimes maybe we don't need like a three percent rate, for example, because we're getting debt coverage up into the ratio three ratio, whereas debt coverage really doesn't need to be that high.

So in this day and age when people are coping with so much inflation, it would be nice to just take the minimum that we need, but still continue with those small increases.

Thank you.

This is Peter Schneeberger.

I'm speaking on behalf of the Columbia Renewable Energy Coalition.

Um I would like to make two suggestions or recommendations.

I think we should move towards a goal of replacing Saigston with renewable energy.

I know that we've recently given some suggestions from the Water and Light Advisory Board to the City Council.

I don't think that particular aspect was mentioned.

But as far as we know, Sykston will be replaced in the very near future by 2030.

And it would be great if that would be a focus of intent for this board and for our city.

Secondly, I would like to suggest that the target for 2035 needs adjustment.

I know that you recently recommended essentially a 2 percent per annum increase in our renewable energy proportion of the total power that we're providing as a city to the citizens, but 2 percent is essentially standard growth.

That's not actually doing anything in addition to what we are regularly growing as a city.

So we need to be a little bit more proactive.

And I think 5 percent would be a reasonable target and give us time to achieve that.

If you set a target by 2035, that would add about 35 percent, we would be at about 60 percent by 2035.

I think that would be a good target for Columbia.

Thank you.

And uh so then you look at the actuals for fiscal year 24, and as published in the city's uh trend analysis manual, that the debt service coverage was 3.75, and uh as compared to the minimum bond requirement of 1.1.

And uh I did not hear any discussion that disputed what Prime Group had recommended to the council, and that uh what uh what had gone awry that uh would cause the electric rate increase of 2 percent that uh given the uh robust financial success of fiscal year 24 at 3.75.

And that uh it seemed like that should have been a consideration.

Thank you.

Sarah, in terms of that comment, I don't I don't know if we can respond directly, but I believe that has to do directly with our transmission costs that we have been seeing.

Those costs were substantially higher.

Um but I I just didn't know if you had anything in in response to that.

Well, the the rate increases that Prime provided as part of the cost of service study did not include any personnel compensation increases that have been um applied by the city manager the last few fiscal years, and then we had a comp and class study that was done that moved a lot of people based on their number of years up.

So that was not included at all in that cost of service.

So then that uh incremental costs that she's uh cost that she's uh laid out there, then we would assume that that is uh two percent.

The only recommendation that was made that's that was informational.

The only recommendation that was made was two percent for fiscal year 26.

I am sure we will re-evaluate based on new numbers what is necessary for fiscal year 27.

I will also note that nothing necessarily the prime group didn't say you can't have revenue increases in that time.

And in fact, during the conversations with the prime group, we discussed might it be advisable to pursue smaller incremental increases during the years that you say you know we don't need an increase for the purpose of not having larger increases down the road.

So even if everything were exactly the same, it's quite possible we would be making a recommendation for smaller incremental increases in the intervening years in line with what was discussed with Prime at the time of that cost of service study.

Yeah, I could I could see how that would certainly uh be a reality.

And then uh the other thing there is a part of it uh you had uh it was the based on the CPI index, consumer price index, that that was a reason to increase the rates.

And that uh doesn't seem that that's directed to the reality of the way that uh the utility operates.

But anyway, thank you.

Any additional comments?

All right, just a reminder we have our regularly scheduled board meetings um the second Wednesday of every month at 8 a.m.

right in this conference room over here, and feel free to email any comments directly to the board.

And typically, as um we mentioned earlier this evening, we review those at the next board meeting from when they were submitted.

Thank you everybody for your participation.

We appreciate it.

Oh, we do open right open comments still.

They can't do that.

Okay, so I was gonna say most of those sounded like open comments, but I'll I guess we'll open it for the reading for it.

I will open the floor to open comments just generally.

Yeah.

Nope, that's okay.

Hi, Carolyn Ompron, uh speaking for the Sierra Club Mid-Missouri group.

Um I forgot to mention earlier that I wanted to compliment you and thank you for implementing the affordability metric.

That was something we advocated for and are very happy to see.

Um I also wanted to uh speak in favor of making plans to replace the Sykston power plant with renewable energy.

And we also would like to see a goal of uh much higher than 40 percent by 2035.

Um if we replace Sykston fully, that could get us probably to about 65 percent.

So I'd like to see you know, 75, 80, 100 percent by 2035, and so would Sierra Club.

Third, um, there wasn't really a spot for advanced metering infrastructure, but we're very much um in favor of moving forward with that.

And I know there's some discussion with Amheresco.

Um, so we'd be interested in an update on what's happening there because I've uh also know that may help with implementing pay as you save.

And then finally, I wanted to ask if there's a way to have an interested parties list so that people who are interested in being notified when you have a special calendar event, whether it's a training or a workshop or something, we could be notified by email because you know it's really hard to check the whole calendar every month.

And and you definitely have had some good trainings I would love to have attended.

And uh so I just wanted to ask it as a request.

Maybe that's a good that's a really good idea.

Maybe we could also add on the notices for the agenda stuff, hot button issues.

Like if we're gonna talk about something that's someone's I I would not be opposed to that.

That you know that we would have.

I know that you would have to do that.

Oh, sorry.

I know that you would have the you particular, Marilyn would come for a host of the things that we agree, I couldn't agree more.

Sometimes you can't read every agenda.

Um I would be in favor of that and to add, you know, get the public input on what some specific hot button issues are.

Right, it just could increase your uh connection with the public, I think.

So just for your calendar, we do have a training scheduled um hot off the press.

It just got sent out to the board.

Hopefully, I'm not speaking out of turn here.

Um on Tuesday, December 16th from 1 to 4.30 in the the conference room here.

That's a training opportunity um covering Sarah helped me my memory um cost of service.

I think it was a review of kind of how you conduct a cost of service analysis, right?

On the utility front.

Uh several board members and city council members were new, and so we thought that was an important training opportunity for us.

Yep, sounds like a good one.

Thank you.

Hi, um, Christine Dorgan at 2510 Brookside Court.

I'm not as well, I don't have as good a words as the last woman who spoke, but um I've been watching Jamaica and I I don't feel like we have an uh a real appreciation for what's happening.

It's happening now.

We we don't feel that hot because the oceans are absorbing, the water is absorbing most of that heat.

Um I'm with the Office of Emergency um uh management.

I I mean with uh CERT Citizen Emergency Response Team.

And in the past few years, I mean, uh I've just done a little training, first aid and whatnot, you know, I don't know anything.

But about five people over um older people, not hugely old, you know, not old, old, you know, people like you and me, well, a little bit older than you, anyway, have had heat-related incidents, you know, out of the blue, and they were surprised as I and I happened to be there and was able to attend to them one time.

Well, only one needed an ambulance called, but it's scary.

One degree Fahrenheit, a couple of degrees Fahrenheit can make a huge difference in a human in a person's health.

And um it it's it's getting scary out here, and we really, really need to amp up our concern for um the 100 percent renewable energy, get the get the the pollution out of the air and and uh try to start slowing it down where it's going and replacing the Sykston um uh energy plant is is one step also.

Thank you very much.

Um, one thing with um in terms of kind of replacement of energy, where this the city staff is currently um conducting a review of the IRP.

And so from that, we will have a plan that uh the board will be able to review to make recommendations on what is potentially feasible, um, right?

Citing generation of any kind is a lengthy process.

And so that study will help us determine that the next steps and make recommendations to not only staff but council.

Yeah, I was I was gonna touch on on uh uh specifically the Sykston timing is a challenge because the sunset of the of the of solar is um I guess if it's it's July 4th of next year, you have to begin construction, and then you have four years to put it in service.

Anything that isn't begun by then has to be placed in service like one year later in the 27, which means that uh projects that aren't in the interconnection queue and and in the process of wrapping up the interconnection queue right now are not going to be built in time to have a subsidy, which means everything is going to become more expensive, and that'll that'll be that'll put pressure on you know how does that fit into budget and what would it do to rates.

But um, the I know that there are some people probably in the room who have who have done uh who are part of the solar industry.

I'm part of it.

And when the countervailing duties, which was pre-um pre-uh tariff, the the world of tariffs.

When countervailing duties were imposed on uh China or Chinese businesses, I guess now we call them Fiat uh foreign entities of concern.

Um that went up 400 percent on that one, but that gave room for domestic manufacturers, they doubled their prices.

So we were always going to be behind the curve on in terms of pricing coming down and becoming cheaper.

And one of the problems with the interconnection queue is they burden anyone uh who comes through with a lot of expenses beyond just the costs of of the eligible basis that uh give rise to the quantity of tax credits that are available.

And so sometimes a solar project can be priced out because of what MISO says this is what you must pay to put this on the grid to get it to wherever it is you're selling it.

And that so pricing can be really uh crazy and wonky, and with a little bit of luck, we'll see some changes in in Congress to restore some of these programs because I think you know, when when uh wind expired, the wind tax credit expired, the entire industry stopped.

There wasn't a single new wind project in any interconnection queue in any of the ISOs anywhere in the nation.

Like it just literally turned off like a faucet.

And all those companies to the extent they could just focused on offshore projects.

And it's it's possible that some of that might happen to solar, certainly in utility scale solar because the pricing will just go bonkers.

So my my hope is that yeah, it could be realistic with Sykes and also if you if you look at what the what's happening with the interconnection cues, the last time Carolyn, we talked about this three years ago, two or three years ago.

It was five years.

Now it's four years and it's getting smaller, and the goal is and exp expectation is that by 2028, it'll take one year because they're changing how the planning process works and how they allocate costs and they're trying to spread it out.

So maybe it could coincide with Sykston's closing, which I think is 2028.

I know you don't have an official firm date, but it's 28 slash 29.

28 slash 29.

And by then, may uh, you know, the the process to approve a new solar deal could instead of taking five years the way when we used to talk about it, it could be 18 months.

And suddenly there can be a really strong response to kind of shore that up.

And then and I and I wish Jim Windsor was here, because uh Jim doesn't like it when we post any uh RFPs about solar because uh he doesn't believe it's uh it's intermittent qualities are are bad, but there's a lot of new movement in sodium ion batteries.

And they're cheaper.

And th they're they have much greater potential for mass production than lithium, and they're less dangerous.

And I was a battery developer for a long time and we came up with the the euphemism thermal runaway is code for a fire you can't put out.

And that was a reality for how we were trying to persuade people we're s we'll stick the battery far enough away from your building that it won't burn your building down.

W which is a hard selling point.

I mean, that's it's hard to get to a yes when this is part of your dialogue.

But that could all go away.

And and uh if if you follow the sodium ion battery industry, as I do a little bit, maybe more than than uh some people um in in town.

They within three years, they could be up to serious uh market inroads uh in terms of you know production.

And then then uh that's why uh the the conver the the ideas about let's do let's let's make more of an impact in 2035.

There's hope, I think, to make more of an impact uh on that condensed time frame, irrespective of the setbacks with legislation, because legislation it changes, you know, and and maybe we'll have a different uh mix in Congress at some point.

But uh technology is finally kind of getting a little bit of a foothold.

Anyway, I I wanted to address that to say as of today, I'm pessimistic about doing something with Sykston, but with the passage of time, uh a bunch of things could come together where um these kinds of interested party meetings won't be talking in terms of 48 months.

Uh instead we'll be talking in terms of 18 months from RFP to signing a contract, which is a big change.

Yeah, I'll just add to that.

And looking at some of the recent um role making that's come out of SPP and MISO that we've seen and the regional transmission organizations that cover Missouri, uh, that we've seen a really high capacity value for battery storage and that they're saying it can be more reliable in some cases, even in the winter than what we're seeing from natural gas or new nuclear plants.

So if that continues, that can make that more feasible and hitting those goals sooner and being able to address the economic concerns.

So that is a area to be optimistic about any additional comments?

I guess we can move to adjourn, right?

Is that uh I'll move we adjourn.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you, everybody.