The Finance, Debt & Budget Oversight Committee convened on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, at 4:00 PM in City Council Chambers. The committee reviewed updates from the Department of Public Utilities on collections, the finance department's monthly revenue and expenditure reports, the status of ARPA fund spending, the city auditor's report, and heard public comment regarding TARDA bus stop conditions.
Good afternoon, everybody. Uh welcome to the finance debt and budget oversight uh committee. And the clerk will call the roll. Soranto here. Gaddis, Hobbes, Jones, Martinez, two present. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Today we're gonna begin with the Department of Public Utilities and an update on collections. Good afternoon, uh Director. Good afternoon, Councilman. Um I would first like to start uh with some of the items that were touched on the last month meeting. Um Chief Operating Officer Robison reported during last month's meeting. We have been working on a plan uh with what other municipalities have done and what the city of Toledo is able to do as far as irrigation meters and um our deduct meters um. One of the questions that was asked was can we finance through this through an assessment? Um as for private plumbing, Ohio's constitution and statutes are clear that enterprise funds cannot be used for private purposes. Performing work on or loaning money for private plumbing is not authorized. So the approach that we will that we find to be most appropriate is to have two meters. Um one meter will be for the irrigation, and our department between utilities administration and the water distribution are working on setting up that program, and we will be contacting people this week and we will work with comms to um uh get that information up on the website. And next year we will do a a larger campaign, but since we're starting to dwindle down for the year, we will let people know, but just know that next year we'll have a more robust robust program. Um this is a program that we feel that the law department um can get behind and uh we've been working on it um together with you and um councilman Meldon um to come up with a with a plan. Um so that is what we've come up with. Um if uh we do hear of something that we can do that's more robust, uh of course we'll continue to look at that. Could I just ask a quick question, Director? Sure. In terms of notifying, I know that we've emailed uh you the a number of people who are uh concerned about the elimination of winter sewer averaging and uh hopefully they'll uh be able to take advantage of this program. So you're gonna contact them, but is there any way that we can have in the billing statements something to the effect of you know call DPU if you're interested in something like that? Yep, and that's what we're working on with comms. We also looked at um maybe putting it into the uh the portal for those that are on the portal, um, some messaging on there as well. So we're gonna look at uh multiple ways to let people know that we have this program. And there w there would be something on the website also that this year. Yes. Okay, great. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate your help on that. Sure. I know um many citizens will appreciate the opportunity to have an alternative uh plan. Great. Okay. Uh you want to cover uh the delinquencies and so forth. Yes, I will. But there was one more thing. There was a a question about um one of our shopping centers, Swain Field, and I did get with Councilman Hobbes and answer those questions. They did um pay their outstanding bill. Um May uh payment was made May twenty-third, twenty twenty-five twenty twenty-five. And they have some outstanding delinquency currently. But it's you know from May and June that we'll work with them on that. And if I could uh let the record show that uh councilwoman Dr. Jones is here, thank you. And please proceed directly. Okay.