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.