We're gonna go ahead and kick off our second of our fiscal year twenty-seven City of Columbia budget work sessions.

Um this one is focused on our enterprise funds.

A reminder for those who uh were at the health department on Monday or watching online, or however else, we talked about the general fund on Monday's work session.

Uh today we're talking about enterprise fund.

Friday is the rest, as well as any follow-up and the new decision items conversation.

So I'm gonna kick it over to Matthew Liu.

Okay.

Um of providing service.

Similar to a private business, they generate revenue through user fees and charges for service, but all of those revenues must be spent on activities that are directly related to the enterprise they're collected for.

So that can include operating expenses, capital improvements, debt service, um, vehicle and equipment replacement purchases.

Um, and other overhead costs like the cost for human resources, um, IT and finance.

Enterprise funds are supposed to be self-sustaining, so their revenues are really closely tied to their service delivery, and using funds outside of their intended purpose can violate GASBE or governmental accounting standards board standards, and it can also lead to audit findings or legal issues.

Enterprise funds cannot be used for any general government function like health, parks, or fire, and they also cannot be used to subsidize unrelated government operations.

And then these are our two groups of enterprise funds.

We have the transportation group, which covers airport, parking, transit, railroad, and transload, and then we have the utilities that we own, which are sewer, solid waste, stormwater, water, and electric.

Please let us know if you all have any questions at any time.

We can stop and answer those.

So just because they're sensitive microphones doesn't mean you don't need to talk louder and into the microphone, Matthew.

I feel like I was talking up.

I I need to get closer to the microphone with what you tell.

So uh where the money comes from, we will start off talking about transportation enterprise funds and where the revenue comes from for those funds.

And so with transportation, you have about 50% or close to 50% of your funds come from uh the fees for service, but you have a large chunk that comes from grants and the other type of revenue or other governmental revenue, and this is because the airport and transit are highly subsidized by grants, and also the transportation sales tax.

So first we'll look at the airport, and so the airport uh looks fairly good right now.

Um this does include a transfer to the vehicle and equipment replacement fund.

Uh here's your operating cash or your operating forecast for the airport.

Uh we do have a fairly significant amount of uh money that will be going into CIP, but we'll talk about that a little later.

I guess we'll talk about that on Monday.

Um with and how that looks and sort of how that acts as well.

Uh but we're looking at about 4.5 million cash above the required reserve at the end of fiscal year 27.

So that's what what is projected at this time.

So a couple of things that came from our internal budget review.

Um we decreased the marketing budget to sort of to offset some costs for travel and training uh in the airport department, and that was mostly because we had to get the uh air rescue firefighters trained up due to FAA regulations.

And so uh the department will utilize the communications department a little more heavily this year.

So that so be because of that, uh the outcome of the review, the basically what we will do to supplement that is go through the city communications department.

Can I ask a question?

Um, I know that a lot of our kind of um agreements with some of the airlines was in promise that we would do marketing.

Does this impact at all any of those um sort of guarantees or promises that we made?

Sorry, Mike.

No, it doesn't change uh what we will put into the marketing itself, and so this is really the only change that we're gonna do is utilize $15,000 that we cut.

We'll utilize communications, and so the quarterly newsletters we do, those extra things that we do, we'll utilize communications to be able to accomplish those to save those funds.

Okay, awesome.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Next, we'll look at the parking fund.

Um right now we're expecting about 500,000 um revenues over expenditures.

So the the parking fund looks as good as it looks right now because uh we ended up freeing up around a million dollars from that uh I can't remember exactly.

The RPPO program, the residential parking by permit only program.

So there's gonna we sent a report to council uh a couple sessions ago.

Um that's gonna get brought forward as a resolution to release that cash.

You should, I think it's on first read in this first meeting, and it'll be approved by the second meeting, provided council approves it.

But that will free up about a million dollars and operating cash, and that is going a long way to help the parking fund be a little more solvent right now.

And uh our PPO is residential parking and bipartit only that was used to be in 2018 budget.

We are trying to remove that program and free up the cash, which is that out 1 million 85,000.

And then uh we did some uh work last year about uh adjusting the um uh parking rate at the street now.

We are proposing to adjust that or make it at the power for the street and the garages.

Right now we are paying the street meters at one dollar per hour while someone who parked at the garage garage is two one dollar per two hours.

Uh I would like to remind that within that two two hours, the fast one hour at the garage is entirely free.

And also if you see the enforcement hour for street meters this Monday to Saturday while at the garage, it's a Monday to Friday.

So we did the internal study to see what if hap would hap happen if we implement this uh street enforcement and the rate, and we found that it would increase uh um uh our revenue by around uh uh three hundred fifty thousand if we readjust our rate So we're planning on collecting fees for parking in garages on Saturdays as well now.

Uh no, so they're gonna enforce parking.

So Saturdays they weren't enforcing parking uh in the garages, so they'll if they'll be ticketing people in the garages or enforcing parking, so they'll make sure they charge them when they go park there, I guess.

Uh Shane or Lee, you guys could probably explain that better.

Yeah, they weren't doing that in Saturday.

Sorry, maybe because parking was free in the garages on Saturday.

So the change is that it's no longer free on Saturday.

We would we would we currently don't do any enforcement in the garages on the weekends.

Wait, I'm sorry, but Shane clarification.

When you say enforcement, that means that there's a rule that says that you have to be paying to park on in if you're paying if you're parking in the garages on Saturday.

It was my understanding that we didn't charge in the garages on Saturday.

Isn't that what the signage says?

Uh yes.

Okay.

But there are hourly and permit spots.

Okay.

Enforcing for forcing the hour.

Okay to to improve turnover of hourly spots.

One one complication of that is historically, because it's always been free, we have to have a real conversation about how we handle game days because we're encouraging people to come down, park for free in permit spots if you really want to talk about it.

And so the permitted spots are gonna be the troublesome part of this.

We can we can enforce on Saturday an hourly spots to continue that turnover and and uh obtain that revenue.

What I would tell you is if we're going to continue to have bring buses to the garages for game day and things like that, we will either need to on game day have the garage continue to be free hourly and permit, or what we'll do is we'll encourage people to go to the permit spots like they do now and save that hourly for to get to um ensure turnover like we do on meter spots now.

So out of those options, what you're recommending with this is that we begin charging on Saturday and begin enforcing on Saturday.

Is that correct?

Hourly parking spots in the garage, yes.

Yes.

Correct.

Okay.

And I want to say that there was a lot of consideration given to having them free on Saturday based on shoppers downtown, based on encouraging business downtown, as well as encouraging people to utilize garages as opposed to on-street parking.

Um I want to say even just public knowledge of available garage parking.

Um I don't know that that's something that I want to change.

Um especially if it means more burden on enforcement.

And enforcement's already occurring on Saturday, so it would just be a matter of already I thought it was at metered at metered spots.

So that we're already working, we're already out there, we're already doing enforcement.

This would just be in the hourly, the hourly spots in the garage.

We would we would increase the enforcement to that in those locations.

When do we know that there has been a recommendation for um license plate readers at garage for enhanced technology to know who's utilizing our garages and when is that do we have any plans to move towards that technology?

We do as you might imagine that there's a cost to that.

Um the gate arms that exist today causes quite a bit of problems.

They're a little bit outdated.

They they break at the worst possible time.

Um folks break them, you know, coming out of the garages, things like that.

So I'd like to get away from that.

It also would improve enforcement in that you wouldn't have the gate arm, you would use license plate reading technology, they would drive through and they would know whether you have a permit, whether you're supposed to be there, whether you've paid to park in an hourly spot, but that has a cost.

So we would need to do more study into what that would cost to outfit vehicles to be able to do that, to ensure the garages are clear about you know, wayfinding signage, what to tell you exactly what we're going to do and how that works.

Um a minor thing is right now I give you a tag, and so if you drive your significant other's vehicle, I I'm not worried about that.

If I go to license plate reading, I either have to say there are ways to put both of them in there, but I can't have both parked in there, if that makes sense.

I think the technology is there to stop that, but we'd have to do that research to make sure that was the case.

But you wouldn't bring two vehicles and park in the garage every day.

Yeah.

Um, and that would give us, I assume, better data on who's using the garage when when our peak usage is and what types of events have different needs.

We do get some utilization data, but it's only as good as the gate arm system in the garages.

Yeah.

And so when we have a gate arm system break or have problems, and we've got to raise the gate arms because we don't want trap anybody in the garage, then I'm no longer collecting that data.

And so we have a we have a we have an issue now with folks that can be in the garage for you know, if we knew we're opening them up every game day, if every game day it's free and you park in there in an hourly spot, you go in, you get your ticket on Saturday if I open the gate arm because they're free, you go out and you didn't pay anything.

So I've got to find a way to get to the bottom of that.

And so enforcing hourly in the garage is one way to help with that, and so we've just got to work through that.

Jane, can I ask you a question?

Um, just clarification.

So when you mentioned um enforcing the hourly that makes me believe we're not enforcing the permitted, but I'm assuming that we're doing both like if you have purchased a permit to park in our garages, like we're checking those Monday through Friday, but also Saturday or not Saturday.

Not on Saturday.

So this proposal is only going to help with the turnover the hourly.

Um if we're gonna be charging on Saturday, wouldn't that also mean the permitted people should be checked?

We we can do it that way.

And I think almost every day of the year we can handle it that way.

I think our our biggest issue is game day and maybe graduation, something along those lines.

But yeah, I mean theory, the way we're set up today, when you paid for that permit, if everybody that parks in that garage during the week came down on Saturday and Sunday, there ought to be a spot for you on game day.

I will tell you that there absolutely is not.

Okay.

So you're planning to review both the capital improvements needed or the gate arm, you know, the license plate technology things that are needed, as well as maybe a separate program for game days.

Possibly.

Um probably the easiest first step would, you know, until we had all that technology in place, probably the easiest first step would be we would do exactly what we do now on game day, like we're doing on the weekends.

We would raise the gate arms and say it's free because we don't have the system in place to be able to handle that.

Unless we wanted to go away from how we're handling that now, and I don't think we're prepared to do that, bringing buses and encouraging people to park in them and taking them to the to the football field.

So what's the next steps or what are the barriers to produce to pursuing this technology?

Um we have already done a little bit of looking at if we move away from the gate arm system, what that would entail.

I don't have costs for you today on that.

Um there's just several technology issues associated.

You've heard each one of you heard me say the meters that we have on the street right now, that's really old technology.

It's gonna be hard to get that equipment, it's gonna be hard to replace it.

And so the quicker we can get to either kiosks or you know, the app that's on your phone that we do now, or license plate readers allows us to get better data, which I know that's some a desire of the CID, but it has a lot of cost to it.

And so right now, really all we're trying to do is get what you pay in the garages for hourly the same with the meter.

And if you remember last year we got rid of the the fee you pay to use the app, I'm trying to encourage the use of the app so that I can find more places where if 80% of the people on that particular block are using the app, maybe that's a location I can get rid of meters.

I need to come to you all and and make sure that's okay, but I can start to reduce that, and that helps us with our data.

I I like driving people to the apps.

I like new technology.

I it sounds like ALPR readers for parking garages isn't in the near landscape, but perhaps in the future.

Um keeping that as a goal as we move forward.

I'm concerned about beginning to charge on Saturdays because there was a calculated rationale for having that parking available on Saturdays.

Um while I understand the push on the game days, I I would rather have more of a peak pricing for game days and free on non-game days if we had the technology to pursue that.

Um I want to make sure that we're moving towards the technology to approve that um to pursue that.

I'm not sure that I like losing the advantages of free parking for our downtown businesses and for our commuting needs.

Um the incentive to move towards garage.

Um that was a significant choice that we made.

Um, comfortable losing that.

And the only thing I would add to that is the reason that you see garages being one price for two hours was the same thing during the week.

The idea was they were trying to get people to use the hourly spaces in the garage so they wouldn't be on the street.

I would tell you that the parking utility would tell you we really have not seen that move the needle during the week.

Saturday, what you see in the garage is more long-term parking for free or free parking.

We don't necessarily see it as pulling people away from the business to encourage that turnover.

But but I but I totally understand where you're coming from.

How do we know that it's long-term parking for free?

I thought we did not have that data.

We do have anecdotal.

It's yeah.

Because that's something that yeah, we brought up on a separate item.

Yep.

Um how do we discourage long-term parking for free?

Besides, I guess enforcement on Saturday.

Okay.

Interesting.

Thanks.

So I'm just a quick question I had.

Um so with the um partnership that we do with like the the buses that go to Mizzou, do we get any sort of offset for that for basically because that's not part of our shuttle system that we have for like their existing outlier, is it?

There is some there's some money from CVB that comes to transit associated with that.

But as far as I know, that's the only offset.

Okay.

Might be another partnership willing to explore for it.

While I'm up here, the move from 60 minutes free in the garage to 30 minutes.

The reason it the reason there needs to be some amount of free time is because historically, the way we've handled things, there isn't the technology or the signage in place that I can tell you at every garage that it won't be full.

So I don't want somebody pulling the ticket coming in there and I charge you on the way out and you couldn't find a spot.

So I've got to have some period of time.

I also think that 30 minutes in a case like the courthouse, they have they have a significant number of folks that come in, park, go over there, they aren't very there very long and come back.

So I think that still provides that opportunity, but doesn't end up in a situation where I've got lots of people that are parking for an hour for free in that location that I that you wouldn't be able to do at the meter.

So just to clarify why it's going from 60 to 30 and why it didn't go down to zero, I wanted to talk about that.

Appreciate not getting stuck and having to pay to get out.

Correct.

Yeah, yeah.

I've got yeah, I do.

Okay, no, you're good.

Okay.

Um so I see I see the 93, and I appreciate you maybe have to fill me in a little bit since I got in here late.

So um the 93, did we have a split for the three different proposals that are being kind of put into that 93?

Am I did I see data on that or there was there was some scenarios that were looked at.

I'll probably defer to finance for that piece of it.

Okay.

Um that will help me make a decision.

Understood.

And then Value, you had another follow-up.

Yeah.

So I heard this presented at the CID board meeting yesterday.

Um was the 30 minutes presented yesterday?

Okay.

Yeah.

I thought that they I thought that the following discussion was presuming there was still one hour free.

Um, I mean, this is not the last time, but yes, thank you.

I can always walk back up here.

I appreciate that.

We'll get your steps in.

So back to the top.

So we did uh analysis the number for multiple scenarios.

Uh is this from the parking report or this report because of our ADA, uh, we were not able to release this yet.

Okay.

Once it's a brand new study we did for the garage.

Because last year we did the parking and then this year we didn't get it.

We also have data when somebody parked, get the ticket and get out, then we have the time is recorded, and based on that data, we can see how long they park one hour, less than one hour, even more than four, four hours too.

So in reality, we are missing a lot of uh uncaptured revenue even more as Shane was telling when the gate was open.

We don't have any record of that.

So we realize even the we are missing 20% of the data itself, the fees.

So this is just for this study, and then if you guys approve the we'll implement that in January 2027.

Just wanted to make point out.

Would you be able to pull data of people who got a ticket as they were or got a whatever we call that as they were entering the garage and then never scanned it again because maybe they left on the Saturday when the arm is open?

We do have would that be able to tell us how many people are long-term parking?

We have both.

So for example, if someone more than four hours more than four hours, and then we have some missing, but only thing we cannot capture if the getam is open if because some something wrong happened with the get um, and also if there were um up like I've done it.

I lose my ticket between when I park and when I leave.

And so like it could be somebody that had to get a new ticket because they have to pay that like 14 dollars or something.

I don't know why I remember that number.

Yeah, there is there are lots of loopholes like that.

So someone parked and then they claim that they lost the ticket, and they only pay $14 if they can say, for example, in some situations they can park for months, and they just pay $14, say that we lost the ticket.

There are lots of loopholes that is no way we gotta fix until we use that ladder system.

So the ALPR system would prevent the loophole that we're looking at now.

Could right?

Well, they don't want to promise anything.

Yeah, but it would help, but we would be aware when someone has left, yeah, and not paid for yeah, the Friday, Saturday when it was open.

Yeah.

All right, Matthew.

Okay, next we have transit.

Um right now we are looking at uh somewhat of a um revenue under expenses of about 1.2 million dollars.

Um here is the operating forecast.

And so a lot of this has to do with uh the city not receiving as many of the the grants that we received over those uh pandemic years.

And so we're starting to see our expenditures outpace those.

Uh then we have railroad.

And this is the operating uh budget for railroad.

We're looking at about 14,000 of revenues over expenditures.

And so one thing we wanted to put uh uh to point out here is that the railroad receives uh subsidies from utilities at around $500,000, and so that's what basically keeps their cash above target.

Next is transload.

Um we do have uh $70,000 under uh revenues under expenditures uh for the budget for transload.

Uh but one thing, one good thing about transload is that we have been able to decrease the subsidies uh from the utilities with transload as they start to uh bring in more revenue, and so um we uh if you take a look at the expenditures, how they've kind of increased that is us releasing those subsidies uh year over year as they're able to to basically hold their own here in the the last few years.

Okay.

And now we will look at uh where the money comes from for the utility enterprise funds.

Okay.

So as this graph shows that basically utilities are almost entirely dependent on uh fees for service charges.

It's almost 90 per 95 percent of all their their income they receive.

All right, and so we're gonna kind of do the same thing we do with with uh the transit enterprise funds.

We're gonna go through all the different utilities.

Um this portion, we're not gonna talk about any rate changes, we're just gonna look at the budgeted numbers and then the forecasted cash.

Uh there'll be a section after this where the the rates will be discussed.

So sewer um in FY27 looks to have revenues over expenditures about 3.6 million.

And then on the next slide, uh we have um cash staying relatively uh flat with a little a little bit of decreas, decrease in our cash above target.

Uh solid waste, um, we have uh a revenue under expenditures of a little under two million dollars.

The main driver of that is the uh capital outlay.

Um I think that's mostly vehicle purchases.

So that's what's really kind of make pushing that uh revenue under expenditures for solid waste.

And then the forecast as um you can see it's still staying above a target, but it has it's decreasing pretty rapidly.

We're thinking it's gonna go from uh four million of cash above target to uh about six hundred and eighty thousand.

So uh we're seeing a pretty sharp drop-off in solid waste cash levels in 27.

What's the what's the biggest driver on that?

The the CIP purchases, though.

So it yeah, which is vehicles, um okay.

Is that also related to the automated collection for recycling?

Um that could be part of it.

Uh we do have uh about three million dollars that we anticipate to spend this year to purchase carts and then more money to to purchase additional vehicles this next year uh to go toward the automated recycling.

So um when we first went to automated collection for trash, uh there was discussion around I forgot who it is uh that has that grant for purchasing carts, and it was only for purchasing recycling carts.

So are we looking into that grant for our carts?

Yes, I think.

We will we're we're waiting until uh we'll get some of the vehicles in October, but we won't get all of the vehicles till March.

And so we're gonna wait to purchase the carts until we're closer to implementing the program because we have nowhere to put the carts otherwise.

Because the transload is more successful, and we can't just fill it for translators.

Okay, doesn't have room.

Okay.

Thank you.

Sure.

All right.

Stormwater.

So storm water uh is looking to have uh revenues over expenses of a little under two million dollars.

And as the cash forecast shows, that they're in a pretty much a cash stable uh environment right now, their cash above target is is is hovering around four million dollars and with the budget projections, we think that'll stay around relatively the same for 27 water, so water is looking to have revenues over expenditures of a little over four million dollars.

Um and then we can go to the next slide.

But as you can see by the this next slide, um their cash above target.

We are thinking they're gonna fall below projections this year and continue to head in that direction in 27.

Um although the budget has their has it above target, the CIP, the next year's CIP, the big the big 4.9 million and uh 5.9 million, those are really are what the CIP moving money from operations to CIP to fund capital projects uh is really what's driving their cash below their targets.

And what is driving like what are those capital projects?

Are those I mean we're we're talking about AMI, but that's not included in these.

Um so what are some of those email for since we're talking about CIP on Monday, I wouldn't ready for that.

Um but it's annual projects uh is most of it, and then uh rehabilitating uh one of the wells out at the well field are the projects that we have for FY27.

Okay.

I do have a quick, as you can see, that little asterisk on the bottom.

This is unrelated to what Aaron was saying, but um we we did probably project our revenues to be investment revenues, excuse me, to be a little high for 27.

So you should see a revision to the budget that's gonna bring that number down just a little bit.

So then we've we discovered that after we submitted the budget, so we will be having an adjustment made to the budget based on that.

For fiscal year 26.

For 27, excuse me for 27.

We haven't seen it, so I don't you know.

Well, we submitted the budget already.

So did you have a question?

Yeah, uh microphone.

So Aaron, you mentioned it was for a lot of it was related to ongoing cost, not just new or capital, annual capital projects.

Yes, a annual capital projects.

So uh we have money that we set aside every year um for uh water main replacements, uh $750,000.

Um if I can get this to work here.

Um we have $51,000 for differential payments, and that's if a developer comes in and uh say only a six-inch line, they were only gonna put a six-inch line, but we want them to put in an eight or a ten for future development, that's for differential payments.

Uh we have a hundred and four thousand dollars for um main replacement under highways, and I know we put quite a bit in there.

We've got two million dollars for the I-70 crossings.

Um we've got a lot of relocation work that's gonna have to happen with the I-70 work.

We don't know exactly how much that's gonna be.

So we've got two million dollars in for that, and we've got two million dollars for the the well out at the well field.

Two million.

Uh this is probably a dumb question for the highway, but like since that is a I-70 highway project and you're having to replace that.

Is that due to the construction?

Or is that just as an opportunity because of uh it's for the locations where their construction work may get into uh where our mains are located, so it's more on the edges uh because of all the work that they're doing on the access roads and things like that, uh, that it could be getting into our mains or impacting and we may need to relocate.

A lot of times uh they may have us relocate uh if we're in their right-of-way and they need we need to move out of the right-of-way, then we have to pay for that.

Okay, and that so that does there's no like opportunity to cost share with them on that.

No, they're all about building highways, they're not about relocating our water mains.

Right, but yeah, if we if if we are in our easement and not in their right-of-way, then they then they have to pay for it.

Oh, okay.

But most of the times we're in there right away.

Oh, okay.

Was that anticipated or did we know did we already have an idea of those were coming?

We we knew there was gonna be some uh uh conflicts, but we didn't know how much it was going to be, and we didn't want to appropriate the money until we knew we were getting closer to the actual work.

Okay, thank you.

All right, moving on to electric.

So electric, you're seeing um in the budget, they'll have operating revenues over expenditures by a little over a million dollars.

Uh it's kind of the same story as uh water, though.

Uh their cash is falling below forecast.

We project that in 26, and it becomes substantially more so in 27.

Some of the biggest drivers of that are just the electric, the cost for the power purchase cost, and then as you can see, there's quite a bit of money, 10 million dollars in 27 that's gonna get restricted for in next year's CIP for uh capital projects.

So that'd be for 28, but that restricts the cat.

We we take that out of our cash for 27 at the end of the year.

So, Aaron, would this be a good time for you to talk about the power purchase?

You know, when we have these peaks like we experienced in the winter and what we're experiencing right now.

Okay, okay, between four and eight.

Yeah.

Okay, apparently you can go on.

All right, move on.

All right.

Oh, sorry.

Um all right, so electric, because of what you just saw with their cash forecast, they also made some decisions as part of our internal budget review to delay some projects and some of their initial requests to a future year, which is part of the reason why their CIP for 27 is lower than it is than we're expecting for 28.

Um, so they're gonna delay the landfill gas generator, unit block one replacement.

Um they also are going to delay the bull SAD feeder CIP.

And they also decided to delay a $300,000 request for roof replacement at the power plant.

Um and all of those kind of have some level of impact on the utility, but they also thought it was important given the fact that we're asking for some rate changes to show that they're also doing things within the utility to try and be fiscally responsible.

Sorry, can you go back one slide?

Yes.

On that first one, so delaying the gas generator unit one block replacement, and then this unit will not be able to run in FY27.

Is that saying that if we did the replacement, it would be able to run in FY27?

And this delay is the reason that it's not yes.

If if we were able to uh fund that replacement, the work would obviously get done in FY27, and whenever the work got completed, then we would be able to run that unit, whether that's at the end of the middle of FY27 or end or FY28.

Now, you know, what by delaying this, we won't even be able to repair it until FY28.

So the other three units will just have to they'll they'll end up running more.

So what do you mean by insurance requirements?

It says due to insurance requirements.

Um do you want to answer that one?

Sorry, Clay.

I think the microphones were made for me.

I'm known to not to talk too loudly.

So perfect.

Um okay, so the insurance requirements basically uh spell out that for every single one of these blocks, there's a certain amount of hours each one of these landfill gas generators can run before there's a maintenance requirement for repairs and just making sure it all runs uh smoothly, basically, right?

And we've hit that limit for a landfill gas generator number one.

So now we can't just continue to run it and push it past its warranty and you know make sure that they aren't any further complications that would put us out of compliance with the insurance.

So now we need to put it on hold and not run it and run the other ones more.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Yeah, Christina.

Um so what is the impact to the other generators that would have to pick up the load?

Absolutely.

So they you know, so usually what we do is we cycle between them, and now that we have one that we can't run, it means we have to cycle the other three pretty much all the time, especially when called upon the run.

And uh that just means that they will reach their insurance limit quicker now because they will accumulate more hours and a faster pace because we have one less unit to cycle them in and out for.

Do you have an estimate of how much time it takes off the life cycle of those?

Um well, uh the exact life cycle, I can tell you the hours seems to be between 10 and 15,000 hours between each maintenance cycle requirement.

But like we did a forecast already, so the next unit might need maintenance by like late summer fall next year, too.

Um, especially because we can't run the other one right now, so that speeds it up.

And then the other two, I think 2028 give or take around there, we'll hit their maintenance limits.

Yeah, thank you.

Yep.

Thanks, Gwen.

All right, I think we're going on to sewer.

Yeah.

Yes, so uh the cost of service study was presented to you guys for sanitary sewer.

Uh the results of that uh were there for FY27, there would be no proposed revenue increase.

Uh there would be they did it did propose 3.25% revenue increases in 28 and 29.

It did, however, uh recommend aligning the cost of providing the service uh to the rate charged, and so we'll go over what that means.

Uh we did uh the cost of service did recommend updating the waste taller fees and the extra strength fees uh based on the cost to provide those services, and it did recommend increasing the sewer connection fees based on the calculated unit.

Again, these cost of service studies, the purpose of them is for us to identify what our costs are and recover those costs from uh the customers that incur that cost.

And the more closely we can align with that, the better we are to able to withstand a challenge in the courts if someone were to come and challenge our rates by saying that it meets the cost of service, then we can say you know, our rates are justifiable and makes sense.

Um there is some leeway in there where you know there's philosophical ideas that the community or the council may have where we can adjust rates based on that philosophy, but we just need to be careful.

Uh by making the customers who use the service pay for the service, it's equitable, right?

Because you know you use the service, you are paying for this service.

Uh I will say that the two utilities where we are probably further away from the actual cost of service would be solid waste and electric.

Uh, and the idea is to continue to move both of those utilities towards the cost of service.

Um you don't want to move them immediately there because there will be rate shock for certain customers, and so you you want to transition that direction.

Uh sewer is in a very good spot.

Uh typically we are recovering where we need to recover.

Uh I know a lot of times uh we get input about raising connection fees.

So again, you know, some of this has to do with what council how council wants to move forward, what we are proposing at this time is to go ahead and raise the connection fees based on the cost of service.

Yeah, Christine, you got a question.

Uh so when you were talking about the align the cost of align the cost of providing the service to rates charged, um so equalizing the thing is separate than equality, I think, in that statement.

But for me, I wonder on Monday we saw a slide that said there would be removal of, and I could be remembering wrong, but I thought we saw something about taking away some assistance programs, so that would have a combining effect, right?

So for like leveling that out and then taking away that assistance for the assistance is the uh utility assistance comes out of the general fund, it does not come out of utilities.

I mean for the individual, the payer.

So let me reframe what I'm saying.

Okay.

So as a as somebody that may need assistance for whatever utility that is, if we are looking at also aligning that service rate across the board, which means they might pay a little bit more, but then also taking away opportunity um needs assistance, then we're kind of like doubling up there.

Does that make sense?

Or did I rephrase that a little bit better?

Yeah, like a multiplier effect, a multiplier.

Yeah, like it's probably outside of the your cost of you know what I mean, your conversation.

It's more of I think it's to your philosophy question from a city.

Because yeah, the utility obviously doesn't, yeah, right.

Yeah, I don't mean you specifically, and I'm just saying like we should be considering that.

Yeah, Betsy, where you didn't speak to it.

We've had this discussions because you're exactly right.

I mean, you're raising the fees, and then if we're decreasing the assistance, but I I think there's sort of two separate things.

Um, for those that can I mean this is the cost, and and this this is the cost, and we need and we need to have it um go equally across everyone.

It shouldn't be well, I it means just needs to be you have the service you pay for the service, and then the different question is how much utility assistance can we give those folks that need that.

Um, but we we we've spent hours debating this in the past about how people that you know do we need to do income based, do we need to do needs-based, uh you know how much income do they have, how much how much need do they have?

It it just gets really muddy.

So I what we've in the past have thought of is just this is the cost of the service, and this is what we need to charge, and then to your point, the utility assistance needs to be, and we've certainly added money out of the general fund in the past.

I think just this last year when we've run out of money a lot quicker than we thought.

Yeah, and so they are they are two separate things, but things we both need to think about.

Yeah, they're they may be separate budget line items or budget funds, but it impacts an individual at that individual level.

So, yeah, something to keep in mind.

I don't need us to talk another 30 minutes about it.

Yeah, and I realize I want to put that out there.

Yeah, yeah.

And I realize you just I'm sure you're aware.

We're obviously gonna be talking about utilities in a larger thing, and you're just on sewer rate now, so right.

Yeah, yeah, I've I've got four of them on here.

Yeah, on the same.

And and this, you know, the idea behind this is to ensure that our utilities stay fiscally responsible and viable.

Yeah, yeah.

And be able to meet the needs of all of our customers.

Yeah.

Am I in charge of the slides?

Or okay.

Um, so again, there is no uh rate increase overall for sewer.

We are just readjusting.

Uh the residential base rate will go down from 1237 to 11.10 cents, uh, and the volume charge will go up.

So the base rate for the sewer customers will actually go down.

Um, so all users will see a change in their monthly bill.

Uh, but if you want to go on to the next slide, uh as you can see, anybody who uses up to nine CCF, their actual bill will go down.

Um the when you have uh metrics that compare to other utilities, it's usually at the five CCF mark, and you can see that bill will go down 61 cents a month.

Um now anybody who uses more than that, their bill will go up slightly because uh again the base charge is is going down, but that volume charge is what's going up.

So the more you use, the more you're gonna pay.

Yeah, Betsy.

So the CCF charge is the amount of water that we use because that's the measure right now.

The sewer bill is based on your winter quarter average.

So uh the average of what you use in the months of January, February, and March gets averaged, and then every is it March or I guess it's every April or is it June?

Okay, June is when the one and a quarter average gets adjusted on your bill, and so we've had a few phone calls already about people saying my sewer bill changed, but my usage hasn't changed, it's based on your winter quarter average, and we update that every year.

It's based on your winter quarter average, and we update that every year.

Okay, so those who are using like extra water for sprinklers or um that does not impact their sewer bill at all.

It does not impact their sewer bill because that's summer usage.

Right.

Okay, thank you.

Good question.

And then this is just a comparison of where sewer rates and as you can see the the actual Columbia rate goes down because it's based on the five CCF, and we're almost the lowest next to St.

Peter's, and these are all uh Missouri cities.

My remembering like five slides ago that so no change in fiscal year 27, but a change in fiscal year 28 and 29?

Yeah, 3.25%.

And so what will that do to these kind of forecasted changes?

Not necessarily the comparison other cities because I can't know what they're gonna do.

But when it comes to the impacts, like you know, your bill's going down this year, but then next year it's going up by how much?

You know, I I guess that's my I'm thinking about yesterday's CID conversation when some people are like someone's bill is going down and someone's is going up.

So can you speak to that?

Right.

So uh if you do the 3.25% onto the 24.51 cents, it turns out to 25.30 cents.

So in two years we'll be willing up 15 cents a month.

So here, come come back, go back with me.

Um keep going.

Um that far.

So picture again.

So I guess okay, so it's a 3.25%.

And so then if you skip ahead, so the charge, the base charge, um, that's a revenue increase.

So will that affect both the CCF as well as the base charge?

Yes.

And so I guess I guess my question is if you go ahead two slides.

Um you know, these ones are going down, but then are we getting back to like?

So then an FY28 at the five CCF, you'll go up to 25.30 cents.

So you'll be 15 cents more than you are this year.

Walk me through the justification of going down this year, then.

Well, be it's because of the base charge changing.

We're we're lowering the base charge because uh those fixed, there's not as many fixed costs that need to be recovered.

Okay, and the and the in the cost of service.

It's just true to the cost of service.

Yes, it's just true to the cost of service.

Okay, all right.

Thanks.

So these are the uh changes in base charge for non-residential customers, and it's based on their water meter size, and it's it's all proportional based on that water meter size.

And those have all gone down, as you can see.

Uh hauled liquid waste, so that's your um your chemical toilets, uh, your septic callers, those sort of things.

Uh both of those we what is proposed is currently right now they're charged a a per load fee.

Uh what has we found is industry standard is that you just charge per gallon.

And so both of these uh charges are going up to per gallon.

Um again, just to recover that that same revenue, it's just a different way of recovering it, is just all per gallon, and there will no longer be a load fee.

So it's going up from 4.9 cents to 5.5 cents for waste activated sludge, and then from 9.2 cents to 10.8 cents for the chemical toilets and septic.

Yeah, Petsy.

Sorry, what is treatment service availability that's gonna be removed in 27?

That's that's the uh the per load charge.

So when those trucks come in, we charge them right now.

We charge them 12.37 cents just to show up.

Okay.

In the future, we're just gonna charge them per gallon.

Okay, and that changes next year.

That's the that's the proposal.

Okay.

What is that?

Right.

All right, thanks.

Yeah, Christina.

Yeah, I guess I know we discussed this like when I'm sorry.

Sorry.

Um, I know we discussed this during our work session, but when that per gallon cost, we're talking that includes the cost of personnel, that costs of electricity, uh, wear and tear, right?

That's full recovery for us to treat that waste that's being brought in.

Start and then anything that's brought in from out of the city is charged a 50% surcharge.

Thank you.

From outside the city.

Did I say that?

Outside city limits is a 50% surcharge.

That's how I interpret it is.

Okay, I'm not in my head, I couldn't remember what I said.

Um sewer extra strength charges.

So uh we have a number of uh pre-treatment permits with some of our industrial users in town, and they are required by that permit to monitor certain things uh and measure the amount of flow that they have.

Two of the items that they monitor are bio biochemical oxygen demand, BOD and suspended solids.

Uh those cause um additional treatment costs for the wastewater treatment, and so there's always been an extra strength charge for these.

Uh the BOD uh based on the cost of service is proposed to go down, and the suspended solids is proposed to go up.

And there's a a calculation in the ordinance that shows how all this is cap, you know, how this gets charged to them.

And then the sewer connection fees uh were based on the cost basis approach, which means the excess capacity that we have at the wastewater plant, um, or it's the best approach for what the condition we have, which is the excess capacity we have at the at the wastewater treatment plant.

Um so new connections to the system uh that will be able to use this excess capacity, they are charged the sewer connection fee.

And it's basically the replacement cost of or the cost basis of what we have in place now.

And so if you go to the next slide, it shows what the proposed sewer connection fees are.

Um so the the individual house is typically five eighths inch meter.

Um the updated sewer connection fee would go from 2400 to 2800, which is a difference of 400.

That's what is was proposed in the cost of service.

And Aaron I just want to talk about sewer.

Well, quick, I mean, and I don't know that um I don't know that you can speak to this, but when we do our programs, this might be more for a DeKurlin or maybe even sorry, like Bill or Clint.

Um when we do our like sort of um try to do incentives for affordable housing being built.

Um, you know, one of the th I think the only kind of lever we have with some of the the fees that we charge, I think it's only our permit fees for like habitat for humanity or some of our am I correct?

I know sorry, Bill.

But obviously we don't do we that's not something because the utilities were recovering for your cost of service.

So yours is not one of the ones where we can wave that fee, or if we did the general fund would be covering it.

Am I correct in that?

Yeah, the only uh exception we have right now for fee waivers is for uh community housing development organization, which is a very narrow definition or chotos, choto, right?

Um it's home funding from HUD, so it's that's the only and it's only offsetting our permits, it's not offsetting our utility the connection fees or any of the other sort of yeah, I think it's just the building permit fees.

Okay, okay.

All right, yeah, Valerie.

Development fees.

Do we do we have a CHOTO waiver for development fees and building permits?

Building permits it's all including utility fee connections or just general fund city fees.

Can you say that?

Because he doesn't.

Oh, okay.

That might be good to clarify and check on that.

Confirm that.

We can check it, sure.

Thanks, Bill.

All including utility connections.

That's what I want them to do.

That's what I want them to clarify.

Related fees, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sorry, this the increase in that, you know, we're talking about housing and the impact of yeah, things.

So if they just made me.

I know it's just 400, but it adds up if we're having a subdivision of 160 houses.

So our connection fees, our sewer connection fees, that's a cost of service, but it's also a recovery for the cost that has been paid in to establish the utility, right?

That's a cost of service, but it's also a recovery for the cost that has been paid in to establish the utility, right?

Correct.

Yes.

Right.

So in some ways it's an impact fee with cost of service.

Right.

It's the it's recovering uh what's been spent on upgrading the wastewater plant, and you know, constructing all the trunk sewers, those sorts of capital costs is what it's recovering.

Yeah.

And and I think this proposal makes sense for that, although I would certainly support a waiver for Chota's.

Yeah.

Thanks, Aaron.

You can go on.

Yeah.

Okay, on to solid waste.

So again, uh, you were presented the solid waste cost of cost utility fee study results.

Uh in that it proposed a five percent revenue increase for FY27.

Uh that doesn't mean a rate increase across the board, it means a revenue increase.

So there's lots and lots of rates in solid waste, and based on the cost to provide the service, the proposal is a little bit different for each of them.

Um that 5% is about a million and a half.

Uh the study did propose a 10% increase in FY28 and FY29, and then a five percent increase in later years.

Uh knowing that we had some other rate increases uh coming this year is why we didn't do the 10% first.

Uh we just did 5% this year.

Uh the study also showed that if we wanted to move forward with upgrading all the sorting equipment and uh in the material recovery facility, that would be an additional 4% increase in rates.

Uh the study also showed realigning the pay as you throw residential cart fees, uh, and we'll do that over the next two years based on uh council comments at the work session.

So what that looks like uh the 35 gallon and 65 gallon uh cart fees will go up in FY27, the 95 gallon will stay the same, and then in FY28, uh all of them will be going up, and you can see uh the prices there on the right.

And then you speak to that why 95 isn't going up because theoretical the cost of service showed 95 going down, and based on your comments at the work session, you did not want 95 to go down, and so we kept it the same.

Uh so it actually won't go up a full 10% in FY28, it'll just it only goes up a portion of that because um we didn't have it go down in 27, if that makes sense, and then we also show what um the apartments they'll be going up somewhat too in FY27.

Uh this is just a comparison with uh other Missouri communities and then a few other um Midwest communities as far as solid waste collection, and we're below average and all of those um where comparison cities offer both curb side trash and recycling I don't know that 100%.

I'd have to that might be good to know.

Okay, thank you.

Uh on to commercial collection, again, we're trying to align the cost of providing the service to the rate charged.

Uh we currently in the ordinance it separates the front load and rear load fee schedules, and we're proposing to combine those into one uniform set of fees just for clarity.

Uh and then setting the commercial recycling fees to 90% of the garbage rates.

Uh they kind of varied between 85 and 80 percent.

Um, and so we're setting it to 90 percent.

Uh my under we have not changed, so currently, if they get a compactor and they're putting corrugated old corrugated cardboard in that, we don't charge at all for that.

That's staying the same.

So if they get a compactor just for old corrugated cardboard, that'll stay the same.

That hasn't changed.

Christina forgot.

Does at the 90% in the commercial garbage rates are we still able to recruit the cost?

Because we are talking about trying to make sure all the rates recoup the cost.

So what is that?

I forgot.

Right.

So again, solid waste is the one that's further away from full cost recovery for all the customers.

Recycling in particular, uh, both residential and commercial.

We are we will not be recovering the cost to provide those services.

Do we did we get an analysis on what that looked like?

I forgot.

Besides at the was there something additional to what we were presented, or I don't remember receiving anything about that.

Uh well, it it in the uh outside of the other work session, was there any additional right?

The the final study is will be is attached to the rate proposals in the ordinances that you'll be seeing in the next two meetings.

So gosh, yeah.

I'm just not familiar with the process yet.

Yeah.

Working on it.

Yeah, they they just finalized the study.

They hadn't finalized the study at the work session, um, but they have since finalized the study, and so that's attached to the council items in the next two meetings.

Okay.

So we'll get that in uh next week, or do we have an idea when I think whenever the agenda gets posted Thursday?

Yeah.

Tomorrow.

And it'll be intro in first read for Monday.

So attached to what we'll see the agenda.

Yeah, so it the details of those pieces will be in that.

Okay, thank you.

So this is kind of busy.

Um, but again, this is the commercial collection.

We've combined the front load and rear load, uh, and we've tried to make it make more sense.

Uh if you if you look at it, it's the numbers for the existing was a little bit all over the place.

So what they've done is for a two-cubic yard container.

If you've got one pickup per week, it's sixty-nine dollars and seventy-six cents.

If you get two pickups per week, then it's double that, you know.

Whereas before the numbers were a little all over the map, which didn't really make sense, you know.

So basically, each number of days, it's just an ad for the two-yard, it's an additional sixty-nine dollars and seventy-six cents until you get to the sixth day, and then it's it's instead of uh you know, 100%, it's 112% because we assume if you're picking up six days a week, there's one day when we're collecting, we're having to pay overtime for that.

And so that's why that sixth collection is a little bit more than for the two for the two-yard example, it's a little more than the sixty-nine dollars and seventy-six cents.

Um, so then it's the same thing for the four-yard, the six-yard, the eight-yard, and the roll card, it's that same idea.

Trying to make those uh increments more understandable.

So if you look at the current and try to do the math on it, you're gonna be like, well, why is this one so much more than you know the other one was?

So for anybody who's out there trying to look at that math and understand how they came up with those charges for the current, I I am not sure.

So is it generally generally overall accurate to say that for the smallest usage each collection is overall going down slightly, but for larger usages it's going up.

I'm trying to understand why we want to go down.

Well, again, it's it's trying to make why we want it more simple.

Yeah, to make it more understandable.

Um, you know, and and have regular intervals instead of it sort of jumping all of around, is is really what we were trying to address.

It wasn't it wasn't looked at specifically, oh, your rate's going up and yours is going down.

It was looking at trying to make something that's understandable and uh a little more simplified.

Okay.

You can advance the side.

Uh so then our uh roll off and mini roll offs.

Uh those prices are both going up.

Uh and then they get charged, so they get charged a collection fee and then plus fifty-five dollars a ton for what gets collected.

And again, the recycling fees will be set to 90% of what the refuse fees are.

So it costs uh more than 700,000 to provide service to the downtown uh CID.

We are only recovering about $500,000, so we need to move towards more fully recovering.

We're not going to be able to do that in FY27.

It's gonna take a number of years to do that.

Uh we are staff is currently working on an audit because it came to our attention that there are a number of a number of units that aren't being charged correctly.

Uh, for example, something that was an office is now a uh restaurant or something like that, and those have different fees, and so staff is working towards completing an audit to ensure that we are billing appropriately for the different units, and it's hard because there's a lot of change that happens downtown, and we are not necessarily notified of those changes sometimes.

Um we'll work on that.

Uh one of the things that the CID asked for was a simpler rate structure, and one of the ways we did that was to combine the rates for banks, offices, and retail customers, so to consolidate those into a single rate, because they're the trash that they produce is similar in amount and its weight.

Uh so think about trash collection is a lot based on weight because everybody's gets dumped into the same truck, and then the truck goes up to the landfill.

So we don't know that you know yours was heavier than somebody else's, so that's why we have to adjust the rates based on what industry standards are.

So if you think about a restaurant, if they are using a lot of glass bottles, their trash is going to be a lot heavier than a retail place that just has a lot of boxes and plastic wrap.

Um, so that's why restaurants are charged at a higher rate than a retail customer.

Uh and so this is based on the cost of service was based on industry standards to develop.

Again, we won't be recovering the full amount that we spend to provide the service, uh, but it's a way to move forward.

Uh, and again, it it's just like the other one, some rates go up and some go down, and we are just trying to get it aligned to a cost of service.

Uh I know we met with the downtown CID yesterday to discuss this, and uh I I understand some frustration that some people's bills were going up and some were going down, and they didn't think it was fair, but again, we're just trying to align it with the cost to provide the service.

And I think we show on the do we show the next slide that it yeah, um, where it shows the the current and the proposed.

And as you can see, it's kind of like the the commercial collection where it's a little all over the map.

Um, but again, we're we're trying to uh standardize this in such a way uh if we need to do it uh over a two or three-year period where we hold everybody's rates the same, and then you know, plan to do it over a three-year period, we can do something like that.

What is currently proposed in the ordinance is what you see here.

So, yeah, Valerie and I were at that meeting.

Valerie, did you have a question?

Yeah, thank you for presenting.

I can say that there was considerable discussion both during the presentation and later on in the meeting.

Um I want to say that I guess pass on.

The CID is really thankful that you're doing this audit and they're waiting for that.

Um the sooner we can get that information, the better.

Um, they did vote to um oh, never mind.

Um what that was a separate item by mistake.

Um I can say that in the discussion about the rates, um, and the fairness, not so much the fairness, but what I was hearing at that meeting and the discussion afterwards was less we don't think it's fair, but and incredulity that you're decreasing the rates for the class one generators, um and and in general the people present were saying we don't have a problem with the rates, we would gladly pay more to receive better service.

Um and in general, the people present were saying we don't have a problem with the rates, we would gladly pay more to receive better service.

Um and not understanding why when we have a need to recover more money over time, we would start by decreasing some of the rates and then increase over time.

Um I don't know if I'm seeing that justification either.

If we have customers that are currently paying that rate and we are not recovering all of our money up for the cost of service.

Why are we decreasing any rates?

So then you would still have the larger customers subsidizing the smaller customers, which is what's occurring right now.

I see.

And this one's gonna be a little unique uh because once we complete that audit, it may have a little bit of adjustment.

I don't anticipate major adjustments.

Um but in the future I would anticipate that our percent increase would be across all the rates at this at the same percentage.

So, you know, obviously for $100, if you're doing a 10%, that's gonna be a larger amount than $50, right?

A larger dollar amount.

Does it make sense to just hold off until the audit and see what that increase is going to be as opposed to decreasing and then finding out what what the increase is next year?

I mean, that's again that's a philosophical uh question.

Well, and I you you did bring that up as an option at um FSEID board meeting yesterday is the potential to it sounded like freeze the rates as they are right now until the audit is complete, and then does it.

And we know we're not we know we're not recovering what we need with the rates as they are right now, and so we're but it sounds like you were going to be.

So there would be a period of time where we're still not recovering, and where the smaller customers are being subsidized by the larger customers, right?

For a period of like four months, it sounded like it.

It sounded like you thought you'd be done with the audit by the end of the calendar year, so we could do then the adjustment to the rates to have the most accurate information.

So, like no changes, but we're going to be changing you know in January 1 or whatever it is, yeah.

I don't anticipate it being much different than this, but how so I understood that we were under recovering?

Let's see.

So the cost of service is 700 and 700,000, and we're recovering 500,000, is that right?

Yes.

So if we delay what's the budget impact of delaying until January?

I also thought this was end of fiscal year and not end of calendar year.

So that's a much different consideration to me.

Right.

So the proposal is to change rates October 1st at the beginning of the fiscal year.

We won't we won't be able to have the audit done quite by then, so that's why that piece isn't done until the calendar year.

So you're looking at a difference from October to January for the audit to be done, and then we'll need to do some work to look at these rates again.

And I'm not sure how long that will take.

And the difference, and these rate changes are taking in a taking effect in October.

Well, that's what that's what's proposed with the council item that you that'll be on the agenda that comes out tomorrow.

Okay.

Do we do we have the ability to calculate what the budget impact would be to wait until the audit is complete?

The impact to the budget is just different uh rate payers are going to be subsidizing this as they have been.

You know what could we quantify it?

Probably if you one point remember, but it's spread out among other customers because the cost are yeah, I understand that that different rate payers are that the larger use classes overpaying and the smaller ones are not.

What but we are also proposing an increase in rates.

Are we proposing holding the rate changes until the audit is done?

In which case.

So what is currently proposed in the ordinance that you will see is this exact uh metric here.

If council wants something different, then you would have to uh make an a motion to amend the ordinance.

Correct.

So what is the budget impact if my motion is to delay right?

We would we would delay this, we would have to do some investigation until January.

Yeah, we would have to do some investigation on that because even with this proposal, we won't be fully recovering what we need from the downtown improvement district because if we were to do that, it would be probably significantly different.

And plus we want to do the audit too.

So we're we're trying to we're trying to get the lines to come closer together, but they won't be quite together yet.

Yeah, I understand we're already losing money, how much additional money is lost by waiting until the audit is complete.

Right.

Is the question that I have?

Yeah, we would have to look into that.

I don't know.

Um can I make sure that I understand?

Because I think this is going to be an easy calculation.

So basically, if rates were held constant, how much are we collecting versus if rates were changed, how much are we collecting?

Yes.

If the rates were held in constant for an additional four months, four months, probably six thousand time we got it goes into effect six months by the time we got it back to you to approve.

Right.

And going through the CID.

Yeah, I mean, it's something.

I mean, you you you just said 200,000 different being captured.

You know what I mean?

And so, yeah, that divided by twelve.

I'm I imagine time four.

Would we have more information as to um how much after the audit is done, would we have more information as to how much rates would go up next time for each tier?

Uh we can we can work on that, yes.

I think to I mean we could we could do like a multiple year, you know, show multiple years like in FY27 what it would be and 28 and 29, and then that way it to me the whole thing that doesn't make sense is taking one group, stepping them back, and then the next year stepping them up when we know that we're under recovering right now and they're happily paying that rate.

Yeah, um makes sense to leave that.

Yeah, Christine, you had a question.

Um maybe this because I'm a newbie, uh, but could we just do an audit adjustment to where when that audit comes in, and if somebody overpaid, we just I don't know, like gave them like off their bill.

I for some reason I'm fine losing the word I was gonna use earlier, but just giving them adjustment to where it does offset what they would have like when those would have started rather than looking at potential losing revenue because of waiting.

Does that make sense?

A credit, thank you.

I was like, what's the word I'm looking for?

I don't know.

Yes, I think the difficulty with that is that you could do that, but then you would also have to charge the ones that are that'll have the new rate that additional amount from the past.

So the if you want to just hold it, I think we can do the we can do the analysis exactly what that cost will be.

We can bring that for when we bring it forward for actual discussion of the actual ordinance, and so if the council's decision is to hold it, then we can hold it, do the audit, come up with this is what the new rates will be, and then bring that forward.

So we we can do that.

Well, I was just thinking if we're worried about the one that's overpaying, like that's where we would credit them.

But you'd have to do that.

I guess I just have to charge back those other ones.

So I I think the the goal is for us to try to align our costs with the true cost of service for that we're providing to our customers.

And so that's what we're trying to get to.

Yeah, I get that.

I guess I was just trying to figure out ways to not lose money in the budget, because we're already talking a very tight budget.

I know it's not gonna be a huge amount, but um, and then my second thing are you gonna stay on that topic or I am gonna say on that topic.

I want to talk about licensing here in a minute.

So, what I can say is that attached to the class one change in rates, overpaying was not the concern that was shared there.

They're happy the people who were at that meeting shared that they were happy paying more for more service.

The concern was cost recovery and having a fluid utility, I want to say.

So wouldn't we be able to like have a trigger from that license to notify you guys that that name of that company that used to be at 301 Broadway?

I just totally made up that address.

I don't know.

But is now a totally different name.

And so, you know, that's like a trigger for you guys in your processing.

Yes, that operationally that is something we're gonna have to that we plan on working on as part of this audit is to figure out what the mechanism is to ensure that we're we know when something changes over.

Uh and we know we're gonna need to start doing regular audits anyway, just to ensure that that things are getting billed correctly and that we can account for this entire class.

Is the six months kind of also the same line for that new operational?

Yes.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, Valerie have your hand up.

So I think something that was suggested at this meeting.

Umward, maybe not as opposed to frequent audits, but in addition to and getting at what you're saying about the licenses.

Do we need an ordinance change that at the point when they license that you are alerted?

Uh I don't think so.

I think I think we'll be able to change.

I think we'll be able to figure out a uh a different mechanism for ensuring that that billing is updated appropriately without an ordinance change.

Okay.

So I'd like to explore.

I'd like to explore that option first.

I'd like to explore that option first.

Okay.

Yeah.

So we obviously don't vote on this, and we should probably move on.

But so, but Valerie, do support your your proposal for a motion to kind of freeze it until it is complete.

In fact, because I know one of the other conversations, besides just not labeled, I know you also in your your kind of like quick audit notice, there are some that aren't even being charged at all.

So recovering some of the right up at the end of the year.

Possibly, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah.

All right, moving on.

Uh water rates.

So uh the water cost of service that was done a year ago.

Uh the what was proposed for FY27 is a 10% uh increase for uh base fee and usage rates.

Uh so that'll be about $3.4 million in revenue, no change to the fees.

Uh in FY28 through FY30, it's proposed to have 3% uh increases each of those years.

Uh the water and light advisory board at their most recent meeting did recommend uh moving forward with the 10% water rate increase.

If I can just like any time we have an opportunity to speak about this, the difference between a revenue increase and a rate increase.

Sure.

Because the it's only being reported as if we're raising everyone's rates, their bills.

Right.

So over educate us, Aaron and over educate us.

Yeah, and water that will be the case, and the other ones it will not be.

Uh again, when you look back at a forecast, uh, you can see there's a certain amount of revenue that we need, and so uh that's a percentage, but how we get that revenue uh is from the rates.

If you don't adjust all the rates at the same uh rate at the same value, uh then it doesn't end up being that amount of a rate increase necessarily.

Uh so solid waste is a good example, it's a five percent revenue increase.

We need that amount of revenue, but there are some classes that will see a much greater rate increase, and some that will see a you know will see a lower rate increase or a negative rate increase.

And uh so it averages out in solid waste to five percent.

So in water for this example, it will actually be 10%.

And if you want to go on to the next slide, just as a reminder, last year we did a 10 12 percent revenue increase, and that one was not every user did not see a 12% increase last year because if you remember, we were trying to recover the costs from the peak water users, and so the higher tiers changed.

We eliminated the non-summer and summer tiered usage, and we've already seen more recovery of funds in those uh non-summer months.

So, like when you talk about September and October, people were still watering.

Because we changed this, we did see an increase in revenue in those months.

Um then we also increased that tier one maximum volume to be 100% of their winter quarter average, their winter average consumption consumption.

Um so those were the changes that we did last year.

Uh again, we combined the fire flow charge with the monthly base charge, and then we updated the fees.

Uh again, we don't plan to update those fees again this year.

Uh the 10% is only on the the base charge and the volume charge.

So if you go to the next slide.

Uh oh, I think we went one too many.

Oh, where did it go?

Maybe go to the next one.

And the next one.

Sorry.

Um, so if you'll notice in FY25, a monthly water bill that when they used five CCF and their winter quarter average was 4.77.

Uh in FY25, that was $34.72 per month.

In FY26 with the 12% revenue increase, their bill actually went down to $29.83.

With this 10% increase for both the base charge and uh the volume charge, their bill will go up to $32.78, which is still almost $2 less than it was two years ago.

So for you know, these users that are using a steady amount of water, even though we're doing a 10% increase, their their bill probably is still less than what it was in fiscal year 25.

Now, for those people that irrigate, it's a different story.

And now I guess we can drop back to those other two slides.

I guess I should have rearranged these a little bit.

Um the base charge.

Hey, Aaron, Betty had a question.

Could you go back to your other slide?

Sure.

The dollar amount.

Just because I'm confused.

So it's probably just because I don't understand how we've done this, so thanks for the clarification.

If we have a if they're consuming five CCFs, that's their water, right?

That's how much water they're using.

That's how much water they used in June, let's say.

Okay.

So what does that have to do with the CCF winter water quarter?

So if you'll recall, we based their tier one usage is based on your winter quarter average.

Oh so you're gonna have a different tier one usage than I'm gonna have based on our winter quarter averages if our winter quarter averages are different.

And the whole idea behind that was somebody that uses the same amount of water year round, their water bill should stay the same year round.

There's no need for it to go up in the summertime because they're not placing that peak demand on the system.

It's those users that are using more water in the summer months that are placing the peak demands and the strains on our water system, which is those are the people that we are recovering those extra costs from.

Okay, thank you.

So uh again, the the base fee is going up 10%, so from $14.32 to $15.75.

And then again, that's proportional based on water meter size for the other water meters.

And then this shows um the different tiers, and again, zero to a hundred percent is the hundred percent of your winter quarter average, and then once you go over that is when you start getting into those higher charges.

Um you see the tier one goes from two dollars and thirty cents per CCF to three dollars and six cents, and then the other two tiers go up significantly more.

So any other questions about water.

Okay now electric um as uh Megan mentioned uh we've done some work on electric well I guess I'll go through this first um what is being proposed is a six percent um rate increase for all tiers that means uh we are not proposing a change to the customer charge which is that base charge uh this should get us an additional eight point six million dollars in revenue uh we also want to propose an increase to the PCA which is the power cost adjustment uh to that cap currently uh council ha asked us to cap that at 15 percent of the tier one rate for residential uh water and light advisory board uh and staff is proposing to increase that from 15 percent to 20 percent and what that uh power cost adjustment does is it helps us recover um costs that are incurred when we have uh significant weather events or uh other significant events related to our power purchase costs uh whether that's uh congestion due to transmission costs you know additional cost transmission costs due to congestion or if it's again uh different weather events and our power purchase costs go up it's a way to try to recover that uh council wanted to cap that at 15 percent so it wasn't as large of an impact on our users but what's happened is once we get through the end of the year uh for example this year we still had 10 million dollars that we had not yet recovered uh and so that just means uh we have to we keep continuing to recover it uh we've been capped out in the PCA for probably two years uh and so that's why the recommendation to increase it to the 20 percent uh that's not in that's not a council item yet um because I just kind of wanted to give you a minute to hear about it and get some feedback on it uh before I put that proposal through to council and remind us Aaron so it had been in the ordinance as a as an option for us to do but we had never done it until two years ago right actively practicing trying to recover that increase correct correct because and you know most of you weren't here in 2022 winter storm URI had a significant impact on our power purchase costs uh to the tune of I want to say it was 20 million dollars that we had to come and ask for an appropriation is that where's fire I think maybe you should just uh we have journey journey okay I'm uh adjourning our work session yes capture the rest of this