That was going to be coming that isn't here.

No.

All right.

I'll give a couple more minutes and then we can start address uh an overall ongoing implementation with the billing and the new Munilink and invoice cloud and everything.

And so we're hopefully going to be back on the monthly schedule next month.

We do have a high volume of calls, but I just wanted to stress two things that right now there's no penalties or interests that are being applied to any of those bills.

And so we're working through all of that to get back on to the regular schedule for it.

And that should be happening next month.

And so outside of some of the implementation challenges with the various vendors to modernize that system, we also have two different rate cases, uh rate cases that got applied this year.

So water was back in March, which was around 17 to 18%, and then we just had the one for water pollution control that was 30 to 40 percent.

So there was quite a bit of rate shock.

Um we hadn't had one on the water pollution control end for for some time.

And so that that isn't helping, trying to have everyone understand and know where it is.

Uh I will have one of the billing staff members and I have a medium meter staff uh person here, Kyle, if anyone has questions on those elements.

But overall, um, from the standpoint of tonight, really what we wanted to do is kind of walk through uh where we were, where we are now, and and where we need to go uh across the board.

So it's very much kind of now into the future and more of the foundational level.

So I'm gonna try to not do buzzword bingos, and I bought friends, so everyone doesn't have to listen to me like they usually do for for uh an extended period of time.

Um we're gonna try to go through it at a at a good pace, and then realistically want to have three different areas where you can come up and interact with myself, staff or Jacobs or Raf Tellis team that are here.

Uh, and it's there's there's a lot into it.

We're not gonna try to get into the data and all that tonight.

We're gonna just wanna give you that outline and foundation so we can say you know where we were, where we are, and and where we're going.

And so it's very much to you know, try to get that information out to you.

And the other topic, and I'm I'm stealing it from uh a colleague at Ref Tellus is we've inherited much of this.

None of it happened yesterday, some of it was a decade ago.

That's probably the newest portion.

But if you actually dig into it, it's a hundred years or or more in several of the of the sections uh that that we have.

And so just as we inherited all of those decisions, some of them from over a century ago, it's aging, it's stress, the storm patterns are changing in that.

And so we're working with that, and we want to do it in a fair manner.

Uh I never have good news with the cost of it.

Nothing we do is is inexpensive.

Um, we do try to do everything we can as efficiently as possible, but uh, you know, as part of an add-on to this, we're we're getting a pretty good wellness check on our operational uh assessment in the in the financial on the water end.

Uh they do a deep dive every time we go up state to the to the public utilities commission.

And so uh there's a a lot of that in there.

Um, but you know, just from that standpoint that we're never gonna tell you what you want to hear.

We're always gonna say what it is, and we have known for for some time um that we needed to do some tweaks to it.

So we're gonna kind of walk through.

I took too long already with the welcome.

I promised I was gonna be brief, but I guess I'm I'm channeling Joe Nicholson as uh Crispian would say.

Uh and then very much, you know, where we are today, why the rate study, and we've already been kind of doing the rate study for a little more than a year.

Uh, the affordability of utilities, both water, uh, water pollution control and stormwater have been um I think my entire time with the city have been a big component of it.

It always kind of gets lost trying to balance everything.

Um, but now we're at a point where we can implement uh better and more modern uh and really kind of have have a fairer section to it.

And so this is gonna lead into us recommending uh a stormwater utility.

So we want to tell you what that is, and it can look like some from pretty different things.

So we're not ready to do that tonight, but you're going to have the guardrails on where we are for that.

And then we'll have the next steps.

One of the one of the biggest things is feedback.

So overall we want to get clear information.

I probably already use too many buzzwords.

How we do wastewater and stormwater services, how they're funded today, and then what the options are.

And so a lot of times people keep referencing their water bill, but your water bill that you get, or what is often uh called the water bill in Newport is not water, it's water, wastewater, and stormwater and one.

Um so the other element is that when I say we're inherited systems and that they're aging, uh we've actually made significant investments over time in the systems.

And uh I even forget about it.

Peter has to remind me of you know where we were and where we are uh today.

And so we are in a much better position.

That the money that was spent on those treatment plants, the money that was spent on transmission lines and that uh are actually giving and performing benefits today.

Uh why we have a rate study, why now, you know, we're reviewing how we pay for it to make sure that it's fair.

We want to kind of give you that idea that I talked about is that it's not just a water bill and where those components are, and then um some of my colleagues are going to go through and give you much more of a foundation on the stormwater utility and and what that can look like.

It gives us a lot more flexibility, it's really going to be able to uh allow us to kind of support that fairness and really show what's driving it.

And so, in essence, if you do it by whatever the impervious area is, you're gonna wind up having what's driving that stormwater um actually pay for it, unlike having the the sewer cost.