Frederick City Gov Ops Committee Meeting, June 22, 2026: Water Interest Waiver, Charter Amendments
Frederick City Government Operations Committee Meeting - June 22, 2026
The Government Operations Committee met on June 22, 2026, to discuss two main items: a proposed ordinance to allow the Chief Administrative Officer to waive or reduce interest on residential water bills, and a review of charter amendment ideas from the Charter Review Committee. The committee moved the water bill interest waiver legislation forward to full council and prioritized charter amendment topics for future discussion.
Discussion Items
Water Bill Interest Waiver: Director of Finance Katie Barkdall presented an ordinance that would give the Chief Administrative Officer the authority to waive or reduce interest on overdue residential water bills for customers participating in financial assistance programs. The city collects approximately $100,000 annually in interest, and a significant portion could be eligible for waiver under the proposed program. The city is also working to integrate water assistance into existing energy assistance programs and is updating its water billing software to better handle owner-tenant billing. Discussion included eligibility requirements, the need to define qualifying programs, and the potential to also waive water turn-on/turn-off fees in future legislation. Council Vice President expressed support for moving forward, and a motion to advance the ordinance to full council passed 4-0.
Charter Amendment Priorities: The committee reviewed a list of potential charter amendments grouped by topic, including elections and redistricting, vacancy provisions, city council operations, financial disclosures, public ways and sidewalks, public property, and general administration. Council Vice President announced a personal interest in adding nonpartisan city elections to the discussion, noting that Frederick is one of only three cities in Maryland with partisan municipal elections. Councilmember Brem emphasized that vacancy provisions are a priority due to recent vacancies. The committee agreed to prioritize charter amendment discussions in the following order: 1) vacancy provisions, 2) elections and redistricting, and 3) public property. The committee will develop a schedule and begin with vacancy provisions. A process was outlined: committee discussion, a justification report, a vote on the concept, then legal drafting of a resolution, and finally full council consideration.
Key Outcomes
- Motion to forward the water bill interest waiver ordinance to full council passed 4-0.
- Committee agreed to prioritize charter amendment discussions: vacancy provisions (first), elections and redistricting (second), and public property (third).
- A schedule and framework for charter amendment discussions were established, allowing for public input and multiple voting stages.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon, and welcome to the June twenty second government operations meeting. We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Council members are foo it seems very loud today. So I'm gonna space that out a little bit. Okay. We have a piece of legislation that on first draft I had drafted, and it was infinitely more complex than what is before us. So I very much appreciate our legal team's simplification and improvement. What you have before you is the discussion about the waiv of interest and the ability for staff to waive interest. And so I will I'll kick it off. Um obviously we have Director Barkdaw here. Um excuse me. CAO director. No, that's not official until July. Okay. Director Barkdal is here and she can answer any specific questions about the implementation of this. Um of course um be mindful that we may not, there's some things we may not know, and we're gonna be working through as a reminder. This is sort of piece of legislation one on a sort of several pieces of legislation with the intent to reduce the burden or um hopefully, and this is my editorial, maybe reduce the practice of turning off water for lack of payment altogether, but that is a policy decision we haven't yet considered and made yet, but that is something we're at least working towards uh considering. But before we get to that point, there are what we would sort of consider low-hanging fruit. As a reminder, this is the work that um Director Barkdahl did um prior to had sort of taken a look at the what we do now and the practices that we have now and what could be amended uh and what we could sort of um sort of immediately do to reduce burdens. So this is the removal or the reduction of interest. Um and as you can see, the ordinance that has been drafted in front of us that's been if you looked at section F, it would give the chief administrative officer the ability to um essentially waive or reduce that interest. And that's really the heart of what we are uh trying to do on residential bills only. Um attorney Gray, I will I'm just horrible with names today. Attorney Gray, if there's something that you'd like to add specifically about the edits that you did, but I think it's pretty straightforward. Um I just want to make sure I gave the floor to you if there was anything you wanted to. I think it's pretty very succinctly written, so appreciate that. Thank you. No, I think it is pretty straightforward. The only thing you might want to flesh out a little bit is the part of the eligibility requirements that talks about participating in a formal financial assistance program. Um hopefully that's relatively clear, but you might want to talk about what types of programs this would be. I don't know that the ordinance language necessarily needs to change, but um just might be worthy of some discussion about what that means. If you have any thoughts on what that would mean, or Katie might, or I could come up with some things. Yeah, my apologies. You're totally correct to draw that out. We I think we had tangentially sort of discussed the participation in the existing programs that we have in the city, such as the OHAP program or the energy assistance program, or um additional like rent rent assistance and things like that. But I think maybe creating a list before this goes to full council for a vote would be a healthy, a good action to take just so that everybody knows what we're talking about. So good good catch there. Um sorry, go ahead. The ordinance also allows for administrative regulations, which could include some of those details as well. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon, Katie Barkdall. Um Chief Financial Officer for the City of Frederick. Just to give you um kind of an update on what we have and what other work we've been doing. We have been working with the OHEB office to try to create a program that would be folded into what they already do. They already provide um energy assistance, which is heat and gas, um, to certain qualified people, and that is you know, kind of a state program. Um but we've we have an outline of how we can bring water assistance into that, kind of into that fold into their application process and all those things. Um currently the legal department is looking into whether or not we need legislative authority to enact this program, or if we can just do it kind of an administrative staff level. Um so that's where we are. So we're close to being able to launch something. We're um just kind of waiting to to see what our next steps are there.
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