I'd like to call to order the Sacramento area student meeting for June 11th.

I'll not wish it was July, but it's June 11th.

So we're all here.

Let's take a roll and make sure we have a quorum.

Good morning.

Directors Desmond.

Hume.

Here.

Kaplan.

Kennedy.

Orozco.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Robles.

Here.

Here.

Vice Chair Cerner.

Here.

Viegas.

Here.

Chair Carpensky-Costa.

Present.

And also walking in is Director Dickinson.

Yo.

We do have a quorum.

I'd like to ask Director Orozco to lead us in the pledge.

Wow.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for

which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Could you read the statement for public comments?

Thank you.

Good morning.

This meeting of the Sacramento area sewer district is cable cast live on Metro cable

14, the local government affairs channel on the comcast and uverse channels cable system.

This meeting is closed captioned and is live streamed at Metro14live.saccounty.gov.

Today's meeting replays June 15th on channel 14.

This meeting can also be viewed at youtube.com slash Metro cable 14.

The board members are compensated $100 for their participation in board meetings.

Compensation for Sacramento County supervisors and City of Sacramento council members is paid

to the county and city of Sacramento and the city of Citrus Heights respectively to partially

offset the cost of those governments.

Compensation for the other agencies is paid directly to the individual board members.

Compensation for these legislative body meetings is verbally disclosed at each board meeting

in accordance with California government code section 54952.3.

To make an in-person public comment please complete a speaker request form and hand it to the

clerk.

The chairperson will call your name when it's your turn to make a comment.

You may also send written comments by email to board clerk at saccounty.gov.

Your comment will be routed to the board and filed in the record.

Thank you very much.

Could you please read the first item?

The first item is our consent matters items 1 through 4.

Do any members have questions or comments on any of the consent matters?

Move consent.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

Any public comment on these items?

We do not have public comment.

I'm going to take a voice vote if you don't mind because I don't believe that everyone is

logged in.

Council member Dickinson.

Chair.

He has a comment.

Okay.

I don't need to go watch that.

Not so much a comment.

I just wanted to actually expand a little bit on item 4, Kristoff.

If we can leave it on consent.

If you wish, Madam Chair, I just thought it would be worth hearing what, if any, implications

there are from the termination of the agreement for the southeast policy area, are there any

implications for the broader engagement of Elk Grove on the project or the program?

So I think you may be referring to harvest water?

Yes.

The harvest water program?

Item 4, Kristoff.

Yeah.

And I did get a chance to see your email this morning.

But do you want to take it off?

No.

No.

But the clerk should read the item into the record before you have a discussion.

Okay.

So if I could just read item number 4, termination of efforts to develop and implement a recycled

water system in the city of Elk Grove southeast policy area.

Okay.

All right.

So just for clarification, there are two issues have been kind of conflated in a media story

that happened last night.

The SEPA project area, which is in the city of Elk Grove, the city of Elk Grove for several

different reasons, and those are in the staff report, requested that we terminate some principles

of agreement.

And we're starting to work down the path of serving that area with recycled water.

That's one issue.

What was confused with that is that it's somehow related to our harvest water program, and it

is not related to our harvest water program.

So that program is continuing.

It's funded completely separately.

It has a different service area, different customers.

We have had a strong partnership with the city of Elk Grove on recycled water, and that

will continue.

And so in the remainder of the city that you've been working with Elk Grove with respect to

delivery of recycled water, they are still interested in doing that?

That this doesn't affect that, and that will presumably proceed.

Is that the case?

Any additional areas will continue, as well as there are already areas that we serve currently

with recycled water in the city of Elk Grove.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks, Christophe.

I just think that given the media coverage and a little bit of confusion about that, it

was worth clarifying exactly what this consists of.

Well, thank you, Director Dickens.

I didn't see media coverage.

So, I...

Anyways, we have a motion and a second.

You wanted to do a roll call?

I've double-checked everyone is, so they can vote on their screens.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Waiting for Director Villegas, Director Kennedy, and Director Robles, if you could all please

vote.

Okay.

We'll get with the program.

Okay.

And that item does pass unanimously with those members present.

Item number five this morning is comments from the public on issues not on the posted

agenda.

I have not received any public comments.

Next item, please.

Next item is Miscellaneous Director and District Engineer Matters.

Okay.

Well, we move our District Engineer to the front, and so take it away, District Engineer.

All right.

Good morning, Chair and Board members.

Just a couple quick things.

We do not have the next June meeting, so our next meeting will be the first meeting in July,

which is July 9th, I believe.

And then I do have a couple of Section Managers to introduce, so I will jump into that.

And our first one, they don't know which order this is going to come, but our first one is

Jason Lofton.

He's Principal Civil Engineer.

There's Mr. Lofton.

Jason manages the Collection System Ops Support Group.

He started with the County of Sacramento as a student engineer back in 2000.

After graduating from Sac State in 2004, he started working full-time at the County Department

Transportation and then rotated to Sac Sewer in 2005.

He's been given a lot of different opportunities at Sac Sewer, including working at Interceptor Engineering,

Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Asset Management and Long-Term Planning, and also the current assignment in Collection

System Operations.

Jason is currently on a project advisory committee for the Water Research Foundation, and previously

he was the chair of a Water Quality Technical Advisory Committee for the League of California

Cities, California Water Environment Association, and California Association of Sanitation Agencies.

He also received the Collection System Director's Award back in 2022.

That's an award that Rosemary hands out once a year.

So that's a very cool honor to have.

Jason greatly enjoys challenging himself and learning new things, and he appreciates that Sac Sewer has always encouraged that growth mindset.

And with that, thank you, Jason.

Thank you, Jason.

Thank you, Jason.

Thank you, Jason.

All right.

Our second guest for today is John Huff.

He's our maintenance and operations superintendent.

John was born on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio to a young mother and a career Air Force

father.

After his father's transfer, they lived in Frankfurt, Germany, until he was about four.

He has few memories but many photos of he and his mother taken all over Europe while his

father was on deployment.

After another transfer, he was fortunate to spend his formative years in Minot, North Dakota.

And I've heard the phrase, why not Minot?

Maybe that applies here.

Cute.

Where he attended and graduated from Minot High School, participating on both the football

and swim teams.

And they happened to be four-year state champions in swimming.

After high school graduation, he attended Westchester College in Houston and the College

of San Mateo in Foster City, California, where he rekindled his football career and finally

transferred to Sac State, where he continued his business administration studies.

Eventually, he began his career with then Sacramento County Water Quality as a temp in

maintenance and operations.

Now in his 33rd year with the district, he has diligently worked his way up through the

ranks and eventually reached the collection system superintendent position.

He's thankful for his career with Sac Sewer and all of its iterations throughout the years,

and how it has allowed him to provide for his family and continue to do so today.

He's also proud to now be a long-term resident of the Sacramento area to serve the communities

within Sac Sewer all these years, and to play a part in helping to protect public health and

the environment.

It's not the career path he thought he would have taken at an early age, but looking back,

it has turned out to be a very good decision.

And I would say from Sac Sewer's perspective, the feeling is definitely mutual.

It's been very good for Sac Sewer as well.

And I'll just mention, John is a very fierce competitor.

I never saw him play football, but I suspect that served him very well.

And I was thinking about it, and I bet that if we took him and plopped him out in the field

and said, you need to run this jetter crew for a period of time, that they would quickly

become the most productive crew out there.

John, thank you.

And that's all I had.

That's all you have.

Do any directors have comments or questions for discussion or future items or any of that

sort?

No future considerations.

Seeing none, we'll move on to points of notes on communications received and filed.

Anything there?

Anything there?

Anything there?

Next item, please.

Item number seven is the cost of labor adjustments for unrepresented employees.

Good morning.

It's me again.

So this is our cost of labor adjustment.

It's a slight twist.

Usually we call that the cost of living adjustment, but because we use a different index that's related

to the cost of labor, that's what we're calling it, but we're keeping the term COLA just for

simplicity.

So this number comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It is the employment cost index, and it is in our compensation policy that your board approved last year.

The history of this index, it does not track, it does, in the long term, it is very close to having the same average as your typical consumer price index.

However, year to year it can vary because the labor cost and labor market is not always synced up with inflation in general.

It does, this would only apply to our unrepresented employees.

We're still in the process of doing labor negotiations and that part, obviously the unions need to agree.

But this, so this would just apply to our unrepresented.

With that, I will just close out and ask if you have any questions.

Does anyone have questions?

Comments?

Comments?

I don't see any.

Do we need a motion?

We do need a motion for this item.

I'll move the cost of labor adjustment for unreservating employees.

For the record, I have it moved by member Kaplan and seconded by member Orozco.

And that item does pass unanimously.

Can I just raise my hand?

He pointed out here to sit here.

And I was watching my list.

I appreciate you.

I said, obviously need to move.

Did you have a comment?

Why did you tell me to sit next to you?

Did you have a comment?

Director Sewell, did you have a comment?

No?

No, I don't.

Okay.

Okay.

Is the vote complete?

The vote is complete.

Okay.

And for the record, there was no public comments that I received for that item.

The next item is item number eight is to introduce proposed amendments to the Sacramento Area

Sewer District Collection System Ordinance and Treatment and Resource Recovery Ordinance.

Good morning, Chair, members of the board.

Mike Hewitt, Director of Policy and Planning.

So this is to introduce the ordinance amendments for Sac Sewer's ordinances.

We do have two ordinances.

There's a treatment ordinance and a collections system ordinance.

The key changes, excuse me, there's one of the key changes we have is we have impact

fees for both districts.

And they're different numerically.

There's one that's for the densification of growth and then there's one for the expanding

outward growth.

For treatment, the terminology is infill for that densification and new for that outward

expanding.

And then for collections, it is relief for that densification and expansion for that growth

and expansion area.

Yeah.

So we have trimmed it down to having the same names for both, which will make it simple for

staff, your board to understand, and even for our developers.

So it will be the infill fee for both collections of treatment and the expansion fee for that outward

growth area for collection treatment.

We've also updated the text and definitions to align with regulatory changes with the State

Water Resources Control Board.

Primarily, they revised, there's a revised sanitary sewer system water waste discharge requirements,

which expanded some definitions and changed some definitions.

It just aligns with the ordinance now.

And there's also the definitions for both ordinances, the treatment and collections, that are consistent.

And we're trying to make them look and feel the same.

And we also updated the things related to the agency structure changes as us becoming our

own employer.

There are clarifications for how executive appointments are made.

And then also, there's references to the personnel policies that your board has approved.

And then there's other minor clarifications and nonsubstantial sort of edits throughout.

So if your board approves this introduction, SAC Seward will distribute a letter by mail and

email notifying stakeholders and other interested parties of these ordinance proposed changes.

And then there will also be a published summary of the ordinance amendments in a local newspaper.

And then we'll also get that published on MetroCable to announce the public hearing that will

be coming next month.

And then we will also have this available on our website.

So if anybody wants to go check out, check them out, they'll be there.

There'll be a link.

The amendment schedule.

So the next steps really is July 9th, our next board meeting, we'll hold a public hearing.

And then hopefully get that adopted.

And then the ordinance amendments actually become effective 30 days after adoption.

So that would be August 8th of this year.

So with that, we ask that your board approve the stack recommendations in the staff report.

Thank you.

Any questions or comments?

Ron Juer.

Thanks.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

In looking at the changes and the additions with respect to the appointment of the district

director and actually the setting of compensation, the draft says, I'm not looking exactly at it,

but the draft says something to the effect of the compensation will be established by SAC Sewer.

And it seems to me that that provision ought to be the compensation will be established by

the board of directors.

I'm pretty sure that's what it does say.

Yeah.

The board.

It says established by SAC Sewer.

So it's kind of who does it?

I mean, it's very ambiguous.

So I'll just I'll go ahead and read the first piece of this.

So this is looking at the collection systems, which should be the same as the treatment.

It says the compensation benefits in terms of in conditions of appointment for executive

level positions shall be established and approved by the board of directors by resolution or written

agreement.

So I think what this is intended to do is that staff will come up the report, a study, and

essentially the board will be the approval authority for that compensation.

Okay.

I'm sorry that I am trying to find it as I scroll and I'm not coming up with it.

It was right under the appointment of the district engineer shall be by the board of directors.

But then the next section said the compensation we established by SAC Sewer.

And Mike, the language you read makes sense.

Okay.

It's 1.92.

It's right above that in the section you read.

1.92.

So what I would suggest is that we could, we could, when we have this time period before

it's, we have the public hearing, we could definitely edit that if there's any.

Yeah.

If there's any lack of clarity because it is the intent that that be set by the board of

directors.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I didn't doubt that but that wasn't the language.

So okay.

Thanks.

Any other comments or questions?

Do we have any public comment on this item?

I have not received any.

Then let's call for a vote on this.

I move approval.

I have a first.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second?

Second.

Okay.

And that item does pass unanimously with those members present.

Thank you.

Next item please.

Item number nine is the harvest water quarterly report for January 1st through March 31st, 2025.

Thank you.

Presentations up.

Good morning Madam Chair, members of the board.

My name is Mike Crooks.

I'm the capital program manager for harvest water.

Joe Phil Borja and myself will provide brief updates.

I'm going to start with the capital side and Joe Phil will finish up with the administrative

side of things.

So we'll provide some capital program updates, update on the capital program financials and

then administrative program updates followed by financials and then upcoming board actions

at the tail end and then room for questions and answers anytime you want.

So CPMO, capital program management office.

Just to recap, the capital program, we're responsible for delivering the design and construction of the infrastructure that's going to deliver the water to

the growers down south.

We've split this program into six separate projects and they'll be implemented through

eight separate construction contracts.

To begin with we have a large pumping station that's being constructed at the ECHO water facility

followed by just more than 41 miles of pipeline through the city of Elk Grove and in the unincorporated

area of Sacramento County.

And then last but not least we've got 120 more or less service connections that where we'll

have to construct improvements to control delivery of water.

We began construction early last year in February and right now our program schedule has construction

going into 2027 which is when we'll begin delivery of recycled water.

This is a familiar graphic that we've been showing with our updates.

It represents the pipeline packages.

There's four of them.

The dark bars represent the total miles of pipe that each is going to construct.

The light pink represents the miles that have been completed to date.

And then on the far right is the combined total of each.

So just in summary as of the end of May we've managed to complete 67 percent or two-thirds

of the total pipelines to be installed.

This does not represent the final improvements to the pavement to the roads.

It's just the pipeline segments but the paving follows shortly after.

This exhibit again demonstrates or illustrates the pipelines that have been constructed to

date the locations and those are illustrated by the dark green bold lines over the yellow.

So you can see quite a bit of it is filling in.

One thing I don't have shown on my slides today are the road closures.

That's a big part of managing our capital program is managing the closures and the community

impacts.

There's still quite a few closures out there as pipelines are being completed and also

now as contractors are kind of shifting into the pavement restoration phase of work.

We have a couple of notable sections that are going to be opened this week and next week

in the south part of the county.

Franklin Boulevard by next week should be completely open and that's been a long time coming and

it will help a lot I think with some of the community impacts out there.

Another one a notable section that's opening today is a section of Lambert Road between

Franklin Boulevard and Bruceville.

On the flip side of that we've got a significant closure that happened a few weeks ago on Twin Cities.

This is east of Bruceville.

So it was managed very carefully coordinated with a lot of different stakeholders including

the city of Galt.

That closure has been in place aside from a few early on comments and questions and concerns

it's been relatively quiet which means it's been handled quite well and is going well.

They'll complete that part of Twin Cities fairly quickly and then they'll jump to the other

side between Bruceville and Franklin.

So ongoing process.

Outreach again is a big part of our efforts with the capital program especially as work

areas shift things open areas closed then we have new concerns pop up and I think our team

is doing a great job addressing those as they do come up.

This is our next construction contract that will get going very soon.

The on farm connection assemblies it's the improvements on the growers property that will control delivery

to their irrigation systems.

We're going to construct these 120 give or take connections in a couple different phases.

The first phase contract has been awarded by your board.

We're working to issue notice of notice to proceed this month and it will be completed in early

2027.

The second phase we currently are targeting advertisement for bids towards the end of this year likely

late October.

Got a few construction photos.

I'll kind of zip through them pretty quickly.

This is at the pumping station.

So this photograph was taken taken from the deck of the tertiary treatment facilities disinfection

contact basin.

That's where our treated water is currently held before it gets discharged anywhere.

So this pipeline connects to that basin and it's heading away from this shot going towards

where the pump station will be.

Today they actually started backfilling this pipeline.

On the ground surface we've got excavated areas, the building footprint, trenches for duct

banks so those are in place and concrete pours should be happening within a month or so.

Moving on to the Elk Grove T main.

This is actually at the tail end, the south end of the Elk Grove T main.

Basically terminates with this tunnel.

It's a two-way tunnel.

You can see Franklin Creek on the right side.

We cross under Franklin Creek through a tunnel and then we turn to the west and head under

the Union Pacific Railroad.

Both those tunnels have been complete so the contractor is in the process of buttoning those

up.

Anybody who's traveled through the city of Elk Grove down Franklin Boulevard, this is a pretty

familiar site.

This shows the staging of pipeline and active construction on one side while we shift all

traffic to the other side.

So phase two is between Laguna and Elk Grove Boulevard.

The pipeline is in place.

It's been completely installed.

They've done trench paving.

They're working on appurtenances and other improvements that have to be made to that pipeline before

they can do final paving.

North of that, the phase one area, has been completed.

All the traffic has been shipped back to normal.

South of this is phase three.

Much of phase three has been constructed.

One of the significant pieces of work that's going on right now is a tunnel going underneath

Elk Grove Boulevard and Earhart Channel.

It's a long tunnel.

They started a couple weeks ago and they're making good progress.

Again, I'll try and flip through these quickly.

This is in the south part of the county, Franklin Eschinger pipe.

This is a 60-inch pipe going down a very old rural road.

You can see the condition of the pavement.

It'll be completely reconstructed when we're done.

Again, more shots of the same thing.

It shows basically the process that we're using to backfill.

The first component of backfill is a slurry mix, the native soil mix with some cement, and

that's brought to the top of the pipe.

Then after that, normal soil backfill and then the road section on top of that.

The smaller pipe is constructed out of plastic, high-density polyethylene or HDPE.

This shows our west pipelines project fusing pipeline above ground before it's placed in

the trench.

And then just another steel pipe component showing completion or construction on the end of it

before they do hydro testing.

And more placement of steel pipe in the rural roads.

This particular piece of road, this is Ed Rao.

This road became very problematic as we were detouring folks through it.

It basically unraveled.

And so one of the pivots that we made is we directed the contractor who was to do work

on this road.

We made that an early piece of work so that they could get the pipe in, get the road completed,

and therefore quit making pothole repairs on a very daily basis.

It got to be pretty costly.

So again, an example of how we've been able to change as things have progressed.

Financials.

You've seen this before.

It's a combination of a projection of expenditures through the capital program.

I don't think I have a pointer, but basically we're at the peak right now.

And costs are tracking under what the projected budget is for the capital program.

So that continues to be a very positive element of the program.

We are challenged with a lot of, you know, as similar to other construction projects with

change orders.

A lot of our change orders are coming out of the road issues that we're experiencing during

construction.

Also some unforeseen utility conflicts.

But we're still tracking, I think, very nicely with respect to budget.

And this just represents program total, you know, the budget versus spent.

We're making progress.

We're spending money, but in a responsible way.

And with that, I'll pass it over to Joe Phil.

Thank you, Mr. Crooks.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board.

Happy Wednesday.

Joe Phil Borja, the Administrative Program Management Office Manager.

Also we're going to be slightly evolving the APMO name because more than just looking at

the administrative functions of the Harvest Water Program.

We're also focused on the Eco Plan, which is, as you may know, WSIP, a large funding component

of our Prop 1 funds.

Over 60% of our funds of the $600 million effort is funded by the WSIP funds, which is largely

related to us, SACs, who are delivering ecological public benefits.

So it's the infrastructure and the specialized habitat management.

And so APMO is slowly going to be transitioning to more of an Eco Plan Program Management Office

in the future.

Speaking of WSIP, our grant reimbursements and funding.

We have initiated payment and reimbursement of close to $40 million.

Invoice 4 has been submitted for payment for $26.6 million.

An additional $50 million in invoices is anticipated for submittal in Q3.

I've been working lockstep with staff over at CWC to make sure that our invoices are being

reviewed and our grants are being reimbursed appropriately and in time.

Harvest Water Team, again, successfully secured additional WSI fee funding.

On March 19th, as we presented before, the California Water Commission voted to increase

our harvest water funding by $73 million.

And we've been working with our CWC staff to amend the funding agreement in Q2.

Continued advocacy for both state, federal, and even on the local level.

We do have a California Water Commission tour.

It is part of the second half of their publicly noticed California Water Commission meeting

on June 18th.

If you're interested, it starts at 1 p.m. at the Stone Lakes.

And we continue to work with their staff in planning that event.

As far as the state legislature goes, we continue brief with our local legislative offices about

the harvest water project and just sacked sewer overall.

We've been very actively involved in educating our legislators about the trailer bill language

that's associated with the Delta Conveyance Project.

I want to give a big shout out to members of our board who have been very active and voicing

their opinions about the impacts of the trailer bill.

And we've been very active and very active involvement in the Delta Caucus as well as the Delta County's

coalition.

We've been working with our legislators as they ask for information, educate them about

the potential impacts of the proposed project to the harvest water program, and also let them

know what would actually happen to not just the communities but the project, but also the contracts

that we have from the state funded project.

After advocacy letters, the allocation of Prop 4 funding for water recycle funding program

have also been successful.

We're pleased to announce that as we see it, the legislature's draft agreement of their budget

that's available for public view.

$186 million total for program in Prop 4 with $161 million available in the proposed state

budget.

Recently, the state water resources control board implemented this funding and has proposed

an increased harvest water grant from what was previously $3 million to $15 million for

the program cap.

We're very excited to bring in another $12 million.

We are strongly working with the state water board, attending their workshops, attending their

actual hearings, and we are very hopeful for their vote on August 5th.

And we've been working very closely with our federal partners as well as our congressional

staff to again educate them with the program, make sure that the USDA fund that we are in

process of hopefully having the agreement completed and received also goes through and materialize

as Congress and the current administration is working or negotiating on their current bill.

As Mr. Crick said, we've been very engaged with outreach partnerships and engagement.

And so we continue to have the stakeholder outreach to not only our growers but the communities

that are impacted by construction.

We've had one-on-one meetings with key stakeholders to address specific concerns.

And we're very excited to start working on phase two of our on-farm connection assemblies.

So as I've reported before, we were able to secure about 60% of the water demand that we need

for summertime irrigation.

But we still have work to do.

We still have a number of different growers that may not have been able to sign up on the

first phase.

And so we're working actively, talking to them, knocking on their doors, and setting up

these meetings to ensure that we sign them up to the second phase of the program.

We continue our groundwater-level monitoring and existing wells and coordinate with our

local agencies that's also related and working with water policies in the region.

And we continue, again, our eco-plan development.

So our first crane management pilot agreement has been executed.

Three additional pilot agreements in development that includes both Fertile Complex and the crane

habitat.

And we've had our procurement for native plant services completed.

And these are pictures of our outreach and engagement team walking the wild side.

And I appreciate some of the board members, Director Yoon for attending that event just

a few weeks ago.

And Anna Swenson, who's meeting with our growers and farmers as they discuss the different pilot

programs that they've signed up for.

So 52 OFCUS would sign recycled water service agreement at the end of quarter one, 2025, again

representing 63% of summer irrigation demand goal.

Significant efforts of executing more recycled water service agreements is happening as we speak.

And we're working to secure the remaining service agreements through 2025.

Just wanted to briefly show you our APO and program financials.

Like Mr. Kirk says, I don't have a pointer.

But we're excited to see that the program, like Mr. Kirk said, at least on the capital side,

is tracking to be below what is estimated.

Right now what we're seeing on the APMO budget is that we have not been able to make the significant

purchases of essentially land acquisition as well as the other large infrastructure programs

that we would be needing to do.

And so the slight blip that you see there between 2025 and 2026 would represent what we're anticipating

that can potentially happen if the majority of the landowners that would like to participate

in the program, including potential land acquisitions may happen in this fiscal year.

But as staff have noted, we continue to make sure that we remain on budget and look for other

updated sources of funding just to make sure we mitigate the exposure or the amount that's

going to be paid by our ratepayers as we continue to make that step over that $600 million program.

Program budget and funding.

And so again, here we are.

We have anticipated $597.2 million.

The APMO budget estimate is at 96.

Our capital program management office is at 501.2.

Our funding, you can see on the right side.

In red, the grant increase of $73 million, which is a big plus.

And again, the change on the state water board's increase from $3 million to $15 million gives

us, and again, the USDA Congress-directed funds give us potential funding of $416 million up

to date.

But that's not the end goal.

We continue to make sure that we get that number up.

And as Mr. Crooks progresses, we hopefully lower down the total amount of the project cost

overall.

Upcoming board actions.

You would be anticipating eco-plan landowner agreement templates to be reviewed and hopefully

approved by the board.

A customer reimbursement framework for on-farm improvements for the use of the recycled water.

Additional CPMO consultant amendment for services during construction.

There would be a CPMO request to increase board approved change order allowance for construction

contracts and your review of the eco-plan land acquisitions that we hope to bring forward

to your board in the near future.

With that said, again, thank you for your time and thank you for your continued support

of the project.

Mr. Crooks and I are happy to answer any questions and hear any feedback.

Thank you, Chair.

Member, questions, comments?

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Kaplan.

Much appreciated.

You're good.

Okay.

No other questions or comments?

Do we have any public comments on this item?

I haven't received any requests.

So this is just received and file?

That's correct.

Okay.

The next item, please.

Item number 10 is to receive an update on the sewer lifeline rate assistance program outreach

and the planned approach for phase 2.

Good morning, Chair, members of the board, Mike UDN, Director of Policy and Planning.

So, excuse me, this is an update on our outreach results for the sewer lifeline rate assistance

program and also our plan for phase 2 outreach.

As you know, I'm going to refer to the sewer lifeline rate assistance program as the SILRAP,

S-L-R-A-P, the SILRAP.

And it's a low-income, helps low-income residents pay their bills.

And it is part of the confluence program.

So when SAC Sewer staff recommended a three-year rate increase, which was started July 1, 2024,

it was recommended that we enhance our SILRAP outreach and also increase the discount.

We did increase the discount for SILRAP customers.

And we did also do outreach during the process of the rate increase.

And the other component was to reach out to SMUD and PG&E and work with them.

Their low-income programs have the same threshold as ours.

So we wanted to look to see what customers might qualify, might be enrolled with their programs,

that might not otherwise be enrolled with our program.

It took a little while to get that coordination in place.

We had to get some non-disclosure agreements in place and whatnot, but they were both cooperative.

And we did get the addresses from both PG&E for West SAC and SMUD for the Sacramento County area.

So we broke up in phases for outreach.

The first phase was 11,000 outreach letters to 11,000 customers who were owner-occupied and

who we suspect were renter-occupied.

Those we felt had the highest chance of being qualified for our program.

One of the requirements for our program is to show proof of payment for the sewer bill.

So we did send those out in February.

And by the end of April, which we suspect that most of all the responses happened, we

got about 1,200 applications.

I'm not sure of those applications how many qualified for enrollment, but there's a good

chance that most of them did.

They did have to go through a process when we talked with them as they went through the

application process.

So what that means in dollars is it's about $230,000 additional expense for the SILWAP program,

which our current budget can accommodate that.

So we, it was about 96% of the applications came from the County of Sacramento and about 4% came

from WESAC, which is fairly proportional to the population between the two.

Excuse me.

So we are planning now to go out and do the remaining outreach for the bulk of the rest of the customers.

So 36,000 customers have primary or mailing address that differ from the parcel address.

So it's, it's light, it's less likely they're going to qualify than what we saw with the first

round.

But we do plan on going out this summer with those notices, which will essentially wrap up

our outreach in that regard.

If, if we do get a response similar or less than what we got with the first round, we should be okay

with the budget, um, for next year with the SILWAP program.

So with that, I will, um, turn it back over to Director Karpinski-Costa, unless you have questions.

And then we go, here we go.

Director Orozco.

Orozco, thank you.

Orozco, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Um, thank you so much, Mike.

I appreciate the update every single time you bring this up.

Um, I just wanted to ask a couple of clarifying questions.

You said you had 1,200 applications.

Is that total between West Sacramento and the entire region?

That's the total for, yes, the entire region plus West Sacramento, all of the above.

And I, I appreciate that you looked to PG&E in West Sacramento because obviously we don't

have, we don't have SMUD.

However, um, just to be clear, there were only the folks that, uh, that were qualified for

some type of reduced rate through PG&E that we outreached to from this body, uh, in order

to target this slip, uh, cell wrap?

Yes, that's correct.

We, we did reach out to all our customers through the rate, um, increase process.

So folks got, I believe they got mailers.

And, um, and so that outreach was made that way.

And then in addition to that, we, uh, did further outreach to these targeted customers

that, you know.

Cause there might be, uh, customers that aren't part of a reduction fee, uh, program through

PG&E, but might still very much be qualified or benefit from our program here.

Right.

Do we have any efforts or do we have anything in mind that, uh, what the city of West Sacramento

or any of our major agencies can do in order to make sure that the information reaches those

folks?

You know, we, we don't have any plans to do additional outreach at this point.

We, we do feel like the outreach with all the rate payers and then the additional with

the CILRAP, um, with, uh, the SMUD and PG&E.

But I could, I could look to Nicole, our communications director.

You couldn't see my eyes in the back of your head, huh?

Um, so I think it's, it's a great question and I just, we just want to reinforce, um, everything

Mike said.

But in addition to that, we send, um, bill inserts to all of our customers every year

communicating the, um, if there's any rate increases coming.

And then on the backside of those, we also share the information about our rate assistance

program.

So that's another way that we reach out to all of our customers about our program.

And then in addition to that, um, we table events throughout our service area and we all,

we always have information about our rate assistance program, um, at, at those events that we attend

as well and we share the information on social media and on our website as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, so is it fair to assume that I could tell residents in West Sacramento, regardless of

whether or not they have PG&E reduced rates, that they should be looking for something in

their bill insert?

Yes.

Okay.

And, um, just so I know how to communicate this, I've heard this question posed in the past,

but a lot of low income residents live in group settings such as trailer parks, mobile

home, uh, parks, you know, uh, active aging communities.

Those folks aren't a part of our targeted communication.

I mean, how does that work when they have, they might pay their rent to a property management

or a centralized body?

Yes, that's, that is the difference between the, the SMID and PG&E programs and ours.

Um, the, we do require proof that they make payment for the sewer bill.

And that's, that is a little bit of a quirk with, uh, like mobile home parks, apartment,

multifamily complexes.

Um, but we do want to make sure we're gearing this program, which we have a limited funding

for to those that are actually paying their sewer bill.

So thank you.

Yeah.

Just, I might add that we have a mobile home park in our city and I did see the guy's bill

that he pays to his manager and it does list sewer on the total bill that he pays in his

funds.

So he's being billed for sewer as part of his overall payment to management, even though

he's in a trailer park and same with all his other utilities.

So we're working with SMUD to see if he can't, you know, qualify, um, for that.

And so, but there's a possibility that some of those parks itemized their bill, in which

case it says sewer as a line item.

Thank you.

And then I have Director Serna.

Thank you.

Um, thanks Mike for the update.

Uh, you mentioned, um, coordinating with PG&E and SMUD.

Um, is, is it just a foregone conclusion you're doing the same with Sac County Cubs?

In what, in what way with Sac County Cubs?

Well, in terms of just, um, offering eligibility information or, um, making it easy for those

in, um, in unincorporated Sacramento County, uh, to have, to look at one consolidated billing

product, uh, and understand what, uh, they may have, um, available to them, uh, if they

qualify based on income and, you know, service area.

Yeah, we, we do advertise it, uh, like Nicole had explained.

And I, I believe our bill inserts go with, uh, Cubs as well.

I'm going to look to Nicole on this.

Our, our bill inserts go to all of our contributing agencies, which is the County of Sacramento,

the city of Folsom, the city of West Sac, and then the city of Sacramento as well.

Okay.

Very good.

And, um, in terms of the, um, the outreach, the tabling that was mentioned, is there, is

there a certain, um, timeframe that you're thinking about doing that kind of outreach?

So our community outreach events, we attend them throughout spring to fall, really, because

that's when those events are generally happening.

A list of our calendar, calendar of events is also on our public website.

And so you can see, uh, the events that we're attending.

I don't have them with me.

Um, but if you'd like to know which ones we're attending, I'm happy to follow up with you.

Well, what I'd like to do is, uh, uh, respectfully ask that, um, the district, uh, consider, um,

uh, tabling at, uh, the first Supervisorial District's National Night Out event that we have

every year in Jack Davis Park and the South Oak Park community.

It's, uh, um, arguably one of the more, uh, or if not most economically disenfranchised

parts of the community.

And I think it would be of, uh, added value to have, uh, some presence there that, uh,

helps educate that part of the constituency I represent, uh, about their opportunity to

maybe enjoy a lower, uh, sewer bill.

Would it be okay if I followed up with your office to get those details?

I would welcome that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It was another director and I absolutely accidentally deleted it.

Was it director Hume?

No, no, you got Roger Dickinson.

Was there another one there?

You got Roger Dickinson.

Yeah.

There is, I don't see that.

I'm talking, I apologize.

I have low vision and I can't always see requests to speak.

No problem.

Maybe we should do a win.

Yeah.

I can't even see that list.

Okay.

So Mr. Dickinson.

Thanks.

I just wanted to, uh, confirm.

You have, uh, through PG&E, uh, and SMUD, you, you have, uh, obtained the,

uh, confidentially, the addresses of those that are participating in, in their discount, low, low income discount programs.

And so for your outreach, you're contacting those addresses specifically, correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

Okay.

I, I, it was a little unclear to me that it sounded more like a general, um, I, you, um,

put, uh, notices in, in, uh, utility bill inserts, things, things like that, uh, as a routine.

But, but for this, you're going directly to the people that have been identified.

That's correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thanks, Chair.

Any other comments or questions?

Okay.

Is there any public comment on this item?

We have not received any.

It's a receive and file.

The remainder is just received and file.

That was the final item for today.

Then it looks like we're adjourned.

Thank you.