I don't know.

I don't think so.

It is.

You're just too tall for it.

That'll be all right.

So tonight is uh very much a budget workshop.

You know, there's a bunch of different elements in it.

Uh they're there for transparency.

Uh so it's been fairly complicated in trying to get the budget uh framing with a bunch of different moving moving pieces.

Uh I've tried to simplify it down to um three elements tonight.

So there's kind of three apps or three pieces uh that we can walk through.

So we're gonna walk through the system, the numbers, uh, the decisions, and then you know, we we can we can go from there.

So uh the three sections that I've broken it down tonight is uh water, water pollution control, um, which covers both sewer and stormwater.

Uh that's that's often lost, and then there's a decision path.

That decision path isn't this year, um, but we've set this year up as a transition year, and it has a major impact going forward and into the future.

Um, so I want to keep it pretty tight and quick tonight, and then get into discussion from uh the council or any public if they want to.

Um so just to kind of outline where it is or how I see it for tonight.

We've got budget direction and positions that are included in it.

There's six positions in it.

Um there's elements in here that need a lot of discussion, but I don't really uh believe that that they're tonight.

We can touch on it on a high level if you want.

So there's a stormwater rate uh adoption, there's rate setting methodology overall for water pollution control, and then there's a bunch of elements in it.

If you look at the Ref TELUS assessment or others that come back to the collective bargaining agreement for the majority of our staff that's approaching two years um overdue.

So we're one utility, uh, one department, um, but really you have two different divisions in that.

Uh and those divisions operate across three different elements of the the water sector.

Um they're not large, but they're very complex, and we're not only unique for uh Rhode Island, but much of New England.

Um that makes sense when you consider the Aquidneck Island nature of it and and how things kind of shaped out uh overall.

Um the main difference for them is the water end is PUC regulated, and the water pollution control end is kept governed by uh the council and the city.

So the so the rate setting comes there on an independent assessment.

And so there was some work that's was done in the rate case 23 or 24.

We came back to council, I believe in around 25 to get a detailed one on uh water pollution control and and going forward.

Um the basically came back that were well run.

The major risk we have is staffing and funding.

Um from the original contact we had with them with the water rate case.

We've completed four of their tasks that they had there, and we have two that are pending.

Um those two issues that remain or two pending critical ones are uh basically a big core of what you're gonna see in in the budget tonight.

Um the the stormwater fund and then positions.

So the six positions uh go to the heart of what what we're trying uh to do.

Um we've done some of those steps over the past uh few years, some have been held up with the contract.

Um, but the detailed report will be available soon on the website so anyone can take a look at it uh in and go through.

So the water division, uh overall it is uh stable system.

The decision tonight for council is really on positions.

So we're gonna be adding positions in there, but we're not increasing any of the rates.

Any rate increase would have to go back through that PUC structure uh to do so.

And uh overall it's at 28.7 million uh breakdown personnel operations, debt service capital, and depreciation.

Um the detail if you get bored and you want to go onto the Rhode Island PUC website and look, there'll be thousands of pages of supporting material on that here.

Uh I will point out one uh critical thing outside of any of the cost changes where we move stuff around now is that uh we're probably two years behind on what our rate program was because we need the collective bargaining agreement to get to get executed.

Uh major cost changes uh in the budget this year is really service delivery.

Um treatment had major increases before.

This year it's customer service and and distribution.

Uh we moved money around within that structure to accommodate what we need to do.

And the major component of that is workforce.

So uh I broke it down into two groups.

One group is shared and one group is water only.

Um all of this work exists today, so you either have it being accomplished by people doing multiple roles in overtime, or we actually have three temporary workers.

I technically believe they are uh classified as interns that have been filling most of our customer care, customer service roles.

Um and so it's trying to correct all of that uh today.

But I broke it down into two groups because the only one that would impact uh water pollution control is the group one, which is an assistant uh administrative uh office manager and finance uh and then the two customer cares associates.

Uh and again, all three of those roles exist now, they're just under uh temporary staffing.

And then for the water section, uh, it comes back to the assessment and trying to clean everything up.

The water treatment plan, if you went through the assessment for those FTEs, we have a lot of overtime at both of those treatment plants, and we wind up having to force people to work those shifts.

Uh, if you did the math out, we'd be like at minimum staffing without any sickness, vacancies, turnover, or whatnot.

So adding in that extra uh operator alleviates that, kind of fixes that burnout and gives it some additional capacity there.

The distribution supervisor is a disconnect.

If you were to look at our structure now, every other supervisor we have is of a certain grade.

The water one got left left behind.

So it's trying to correct correct that structure.

And the same for the water meter supervisor used to be filled by a foreman role.

Um, they've taken on uh a lot more duties, almost acting as an assistant uh distribution supervisor, and so it's correcting those uh issues that we have in the in the workforce structure.

Um and those are the major changes to water.

We're doing it without a rate change uh within the existing, but we are adding adding the positions.

Uh the risk, if they weren't improved, is kind of broken down into one.

Uh staff burnout or staff exposure was was uh pretty heavy on the dialogue with the independent consultant.

Uh the overtime, if you looked at the cost, particularly at the treatment plants is very high.

Um are we going to eliminate that completely?

No.

Um, but but it is it is pretty high.

And then compliance coverage for these positions.

You're you have a very small pool of candidates for them.

They're uh level three or four, the the topper end or senior end for the licenses that are typically required.

There's not a lot of them in the state.

So you have everyone um actually kind of trying to go after the same pool of candidates.

Um, and you'll actually see that creep out into Connecticut or Massachusetts.

And then the other uh is that with the billing system and then looking forward for the stormwater fee right now.

Uh it takes about six months or so to get a staff member, even remotely close to what utility billing is, what the typical errors are, and that having those roles served by temporary employees when they should really be permanent is uh is a pretty high risk.

If if someone has uh an opportunity to get a full-time job or something else, and you lose that, it's uh pretty impactful.

Uh, and that's a hundred percent uh you know customer facing.

Rob, um with with such a small pool, uh where do you think we are competitive-wise as far as what we offer?

We're not there's there's there's different elements there, and so where we are, I think is the the culture um and you know how we do things and some of the technology and the modernness and and that that we have.

So we've been pretty aggressive over the last handful of years and trying to modernize, get nice equipment, make sure that we have training and and and really have um an atmosphere where we let people be people.

Um that can only go so far when uh you have the you know cost of living pressures, and then you just have the overall market pool.

Um both of those uh are pretty pretty high impact.

So uh we're under, I think that would be in the Ref Tales report.

The number off the top of my head, I I don't know, but we're we're gonna be under on uh almost all of them.

Uh so water pollution control is where uh council decisions are going to affect rates.

This year we kept it flat.

We did a lot of work to set it up as a transition year.

There's two major elements to this is the budget positions and then the stormwater ordinance.

Um the one-time reserves and some of the elements we did in the budget to make sure that we could hold rates flat this year are not repeatable.

Um it was intentionally done to get us that time to do two things uh to try to get to some expiring debt to help and to make sure that we had at least the pathway to get a stormwater fee uh in place.

So how it works, there's two different numbers in there.

There's a big number that's 54.2.

Uh, you're not going to find that in a signal.

Uh line item, the rate support section is about 28 and a half.

Um the rest of the number to get to the 54 is about 20 million dollars in bonds, grants, and other things to bring it up to that level.

A big portion of that would be the primary clarifiers.

But there's also one-time reserve use and grants in that that plugged it to keep us flat that is not repeatable.

So the core problem, uh, and we've had this discussion for a few years uh now, and just kind of wanted to look at that history of it.

In 26, we had rate shock because we didn't increase rates for seven years.

Um that rate shock and then having to do an increase this year, uh, didn't make sense.

And then, especially where we are in looking at uh the overall rate structure in stormwater, where we have two pretty pretty significantly different paths.

We wanted to make sure that we could do no increase uh this year.

What is not repeatable is the one-time use of of reserves and any long period of time that we're holding uh rates flat, we're not spending money we should, and we're actually costing uh in the long run.

What we're we're gonna cost more.

And so that's kind of the quick history of what brought us to tonight.

The core problem with that water pollution control is a big portion of the cost driver that's hidden in the sewer bill or that water pollution control bill is that stormwater element, almost entirely driven by impervious area, uh, and we bill based on water usage.

So that mismatch just creates uh you know a lack of transparent and an inequity in there.

And now it's to the point where it's gonna create quite a bit of rate pressure too going forward.

And so trying to fix that alignment um, you know, gets gets us to a better place.

Uh another element is not only is stormwater hidden, but when people get their utility bill in Newport, they often just call it the water bill, and it's water and water pollution control.

In that bill today is roughly six to seven million dollars that is spent on stormwater costs.

A full program looking forward in the next few years is probably gonna be eight to ten.

Not only would the fee and that restructuring make it visible and aligned, um, but it gives us that educational element that it's not it's not really appropriate to compare us to any other municipality just because of the structure that we have now.

The majority of stormwater and almost all the other communities in the state are in the tax role uh not being done or or somewhere else.

And so when you look at that water pollution control bill, there's quite a bit today that's already already in there being spent on it.

Um so the decision looking forward through the budget is if we get the the stormwater fee next year it'll be a zero to five percent.

Without that fee, you'd have a 15% increase on the CSO fixed fee and that sewer usage fee.

Um you know, the the zero to five isn't magic.

I probably shouldn't have said it that way, but it's it's that restructure right now.

You kind of have three buckets.

You have very low water usage homes that aren't really paying their share.

You have seasonal homes that aren't paying their share, and then you have a big group of properties that have high impervious area that aren't paying what they're they're contributing.

And so by getting a fee in place and getting that appropriate revenue based on the impervious area, you don't have that shock for the typical residential customer or the year-round customer just based on their water usage.

Um and it's fairly significant when you look at the at the billing set.

So uh specifically towards the stormwater fee, I kind of wanted to just hammer home three points that it's not a new cost, it's not a new tax, and it's not double charging uh anyone.

What we will be doing is proposing to change that methodology on costs that already exist.

Um and we're working now to actually have a web viewer so someone can go in, put their address in, what their bill is today, and see what it would be in in future states.

And so we should have that hopefully relatively um soon.

So uh again, a lot of the stormwater fee, uh, the elements aren't in this year's budget, but I wanted to be transparent about what we did.

So the additional staffing is in this year's budget, and we set up um using kind of one-time measures to get us that transition year so we could set the system up and then in uh FY28 or hopefully before.

We do have potential before, depending on on how everything goes, um, to come back to the council with the ordinance with those structures and that public output and see.

None of it is automatic.

Um, but I felt that it was critical to be extremely transparent on what we were doing this year uh and what those implications would be for for next year.

And so if we don't do anything towards the positions or the stormwater being that, uh you're basically 15 plus percent next year, and then three to four percent compounded through at least 2031 uh on that.

And so that's collectively uh going forward.

These are modeled numbers.

So as you tweak some of the model, it's gonna change, but I will say that they're directionally correct.

There it there's no way you're gonna get to a zero or a seven or whatnot, you're you're in rounding errors on what these numbers are showing.

So uh any deferral is just gonna compound that cost very much like we saw with the rate shock last year.

And so uh overall our budget this year is uh stable.

We're holding everything flat using those one-time reserves.

We're calling out more openly that the stormwater costs are already in that bill, uh, outlining the changes that we want, uh, and then being very upfront about the uh you know where future rates are gonna go.

So if if we're um successful in getting that stormwater in there, we have a fee path for the typical customer and and and the rate that's around 13 plus.

Without that, you're probably 27 or so over the next few years.

Um, and so um, you know, key points that it's flat, the pressure isn't flat.

We've we've spent a lot of time in trying to structure it to give us that time, and that's why the policy decision or looking forward into 28 matters.

Uh all the obligations talking about stormwater already exist, and uh those staffing positions are are needed, and that work is already occurring.

Um I stole this slide from the stormwater workshop.

Uh if anyone wants to fill out the rate study or grab the email so they can provide feedback.

We're gonna have additional opportunities coming up.

Uh, one of the ones I think that'll probably be the best is is that website application um through GIS that that you can put in and actually compare, you know, today, tomorrow, or what the the future state will be so people people can see.

Um, you know, there are going to be some people that are not thrilled because they have a lot of impervious area, but uh that is that is where we are.

Okay.

Thank you for putting this all together and very impactfully with the way the proposal structured.

First question for me is the positions, the overtime that we are talking about that would be offset by full-time positions.

Is that overtime budgeted in the current fiscal year already?

And so it's a like for like.

It is okay.

Thank you.

So those new positions are budget neutral.

We're actually putting bodies in positions that we had budgeted overtime for before.

Yeah, if you're going to calculate a cost benefit, there's probably a few different ways you could do it.

The case for um the majority of them are either neutral or to the benefit.

On the stormwater fee, as I am looking at this, this is a triple bottom line benefit.

We are more equitably balancing the burden of paying for stormwater on the individuals and properties that are generating that stormwater that we have to deal with.

We would be finding a new reliable funding stream for the infrastructure gap that we have on stormwater projects to help us be more resilient as a community.

And then finally, it's a tool that's going to address and help keep rates affordable for people who live here year-round that have been carrying more than for their fair share for a long time.

And so it at first blush looks like uh it's going to be a great initiative.

And I think it's going to be one of the more important things that the city does uh in this decade.

Thank you for pulling it all together.

Yeah, there will be, as there always is, there's gonna be a couple of outliers, but when you look across the customer set, there's there's ways that we'll be able to, you know, hopefully do that.

And if we don't get it right in the first year, having it set up allows us the flexibility going forward.

Questions?

Yeah.

Rob, where did they come up with the 15,000 customer accounts?

Um how many in Newport?

How many in how many 10,000 in Newport?

How many with the Navy?

The Navy is a single customer.

Okay.

It's not population count.

And it comes back to uh us not really having a good peer.

Um I was just asked yesterday, and I can't remember who the conversation was was about, you know, if you look generically, it'll say our population's 40 something thousand.

But when you look at certain events and over the summer, it jumps up into the hundreds of thousands.

And so um customer accounts, just the account, the Navy's as one, their population's always in flux.

Portsmouth Water and Fire District is one customer.

Um, so and how many customers in Middletown?

About 5,000.

That's just the counts.

So what that population will be changing.

It just you know, you you figure water's water, it's they're working all day and they have water on the bait.

I mean, are they being charged appropriately?

Uh yeah, the only like inequity right now is on the stormwater end.

Um so on the drinking water end, it's a true cost of uh of service rate.

Uh and then for the sewer uh their contract relationships where they pay their metered share going into the plant.

Okay.

Um we still have uh an outstanding contract to get with Middletown, but we've dramatically improved uh over the last three years in where we are.

So outside of the stormwater, everything is is fairly close to um what drives the costs for those systems.

And you think this this um creation of that what is it, a cost study on the water that we're we're doing several things kind of all at the same time.

So there's been multiple organizational assessments, the planning level or long-term view has different structures.

Uh and so there's uh yesterday, today, and then tomorrow in it, and and we get stuck operating in all of them.

Um the water rates that we have are are modeled out, and every time they it goes through that you're paying for what the demands are on the system.

So every time we refile if it's fire flow or if it's uh Portsmouth or the Navy or whatnot, that gets reallocated to what their recent history is, and the model will adjust.

And so if you look back, there's been quite a bit of movement there in the last decade, and we're we're much closer.

It's it's it's pretty tight for that.

Um and for sewer, it's the same.

Again, I think the biggest gap is back to the to the stormwater, where right now we're using a really simplified uh fee structure that worked 20 years ago when we just had the CSO program.

It it doesn't really reflect um what what's pushing all the costs today.

Okay.

Um there's a bunch of different programs that uh we've tried to model after.

We've reached out to certain tech schools and that, but uh but a lot of them are um people that started as a temp and kind of got to test drive uh the department, what we do, and um you know, there's some phenomenal stories in there.

There's there's kids that came in uh five years ago that now can operate every piece of equipment we have, have CDLAs, uh, and and can run jobs.

So um there's there's not a big pool.

Um there has been some development at CCRI, there's been a bunch with the different associations in that.

Um and they're you know, typically good jobs that you can go anywhere in the country and get.

Uh they're not the most appealing jobs.

You're gonna get dirty, you're gonna have to work late, you don't get to go home, you're gonna you know miss things.

Um, but yeah, the majority of them we we build in house.

Okay.

Anyone have any questions?

Perfect.

Uh so then the last thing is uh the code up.

We'll have the presentation probably go on the website, the video will be up.

And if you have any constituents or that, I would love them to scan that QR code or email us if they have questions, and we're gonna try to get more and more up onto the website so people can get a better idea of the you know, stormwater fee and and where stuff is as compared to other communities in Rhode Island.

Um where are we on that scale uh for our wastewater treatment?

You know, all the chemicals and things, millions of dollars because of our shallow ponds.

We're gonna be in the top three on on either end that you you you do it, and you're gonna block island will probably be higher, but but we're we're again the gonna be uh on the highest.

Uh and then for water, the the comparisons don't don't really work well.

Um, you know, our good days in what we bring into the treatment water.

Uh plants here are laughable to a Providence water or to a Boston or anyone else.

Um, you know, we're we're we're used to it.

That's the reality.

We're lucky that we have the water that we do just volume-wise.

And then on the uh the wastewater side, it's it's the same.

You have an old combined system um that has a bunch of different elements to it, and we need to operate across a really, really broad range of flows.

Um, and that that doesn't happen easily.

I know this isn't the capital budget conversation, but lead service line replacement.

To what extent is that incorporated in the the spending plans for the water utility?

So you're gonna have a very big number in that capital plan that is still unfunded.

Um today was uh a fairly fairly good day for us seeking uh additional revenue from grants and that I reached out.

We did uh get last year about a million dollars rationally directed spending to the to the community.

Um they're not ready yet to tell us what all that criteria is, but we're still probably a hundred million or so overall.

How that ties in with future capital program when stuff expires and that um we don't have a good picture.

Uh at the state level, we've brought it up, you know, repeatedly that it it will be an issue uh for us that we can't just do you know the lead the lead portion alone, there's stuff that you have to do with it.

Um the good portion is that in the budget is advanced surveillance, water quality monitoring, that outreach, uh and and that is in there.

So that's at a level above what's required uh to make sure that it stays stable and that we're seeing it.

Um so from a from a standpoint, you know, it's not no risk, but it is low risk.

Uh, and we're staying line.

And so we're we're kind of doing both.

As it goes, but there are some big money questions before you're going to get an answer to that total program.

Just the short version, because I think that was a pretty comprehensive answer, but this remains an unfunded mandate that we need to address at some point, but there's no funding stream identified at this time outside of the one million in congressionally directed spending that we are currently spending down.

Correct.

Thank you.

Well, Rob, thank you so much.

Thank you.