City of Bloomington, Indiana Utilities Service Board, 16 Jul 2020

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From YouTube: Bloomington Utilities Service Board, July 16, 2020

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meeting agenda: https://bloomington.in.gov/onboard/meetingFiles/download?meetingFile_id=7363

A

Call to order the meeting of the finance subcommittee.

A

Of utility service board.

A

We have the three members of the finance committee present and we're.

A

Eager to hear the budget presentation for 2021 and I'm not sure who's going to.

A

Do the heavy lifting.

B

Thank you for uh being able to be here for.

B

For the subcommittee meeting, our objective today is to.

B

uh Go over the uh budget memo uh in general terms that we provided.

B

uh At the that's been provided to the mayor's office and the controller.

B

uh It includes the first draft of the numbers. The numbers will not be.

B

Finalized uh until um at least another week or two.

B

um The calendar for for the uh for the budget hearings uh is has been.

B

Changed we will be meeting on the 20th of august.

B

With council, uh I don't know whether that will be a zoom meeting or in person.

B

uh That will be the night of our budget hearing and.

B

We will be needing to we this schedule, as we set.

B

It up here gives us the opportunity to present this material again to the.

B

Subcommittee to respond to any questions or issues.

B

That you may raise today we'll be able to respond to those uh and.

B

Have another subcommittee meeting on the third just prior to the regular board meeting we can.

B

Present it that night and we could either have it voted.

B

That night or on the 17th and still be in time for our budget.

B

Is that right laura? So so that's that's! Basically where we are in the.

B

Calendar um I'm going to introduce just uh hit some high points.

B

From the introductory portion of the of the memo uh we'll share this with.

B

uh With all the board, members, of course, and.

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uh We'll be able to continue this discussion as we as we go forward.

B

So um I figured I'd talk for a few minutes and then laura will talk.

B

About numbers for a few minutes, and then we can do just a broad.

B

Question and answer, if that does that work for you.

B

uh Jim yeah that works fine, okay, so uh this year uh our budget.

B

uh Is very similar to what it was last year in terms of.

B

Structure and the objectives uh we're just farther along on a lot of these.

B

Initiatives uh uh overall, our goals for the year can.

B

Be grouped into into six general categories, uh the first.

B

One is wastewater treatment, modernization capacity improvements, as you know, the the big.

B

Project at dillman to upgrade uh upgrade a lot of equipment and.

B

Modernized plant uh is underway that project will take a couple of years.

B

To complete, but it is underway so we'll be talking about it more.

B

uh In the in the future month by month, uh we, as you know, we will be eventually.

B

Bringing a bond to pay a portion of the cost of that.

B

Project, a lot of that project will be paid for out of cash.

B

Or on a pay-as-you-go basis, but we also will be will be.

B

Bonding uh for part of that project as well.

B

uh Water quality, as always uh water quality for drinking water, is.

B

One of our highest uh priorities in terms of project work and.

B

And the initiatives that we're undergoing uh we've.

B

Continued to work on uh reducing disinfection, byproducts.

B

uh With uh with goals of being right, around two thirds.

B

Of the standards uh we have been able to do that pretty consistently.

B

uh uh Month by month and we're having a our team at the plant is doing a.

B

Terrific job of of managing disinfection, byproduct.

B

Formation, uh one of the issues we've had has been.

B

That algae started growing in the basins, especially in the summer.

B

Which reduced uh the uh the length of time that we could run our filters.

B

Which meant that we were doing a lot more backwashing.

B

Which wastes water, energy and chemicals uh this year in february, we started.

B

A pilot study for using a chemical algebra.

B

To control the algal growth, that initiative is going very well.

B

At this point, we're far ahead of where we were last year.

B

So we're excited about the way that's proceeding and we will be continuing to.

B

Do water quality improvement projects.

B

Capital and capital improvements at the plant.

B

To help us do a better job of managing that.

B

uh We've continued to operate our water main replacement program.

B

It's been 1.7 million dollars annually.

B

We've been replacing about two and a half miles water means per year.

B

And we will be continuing that program.

B

The stormwater utility we're getting ready to do the big project.

B

uh Once all the all the land acquisition and the issues with uh with.

B

Utility relocations are dealt with, we'll be moving forward with.

B

Bonding for the jordan river tunnel- uh and that will hopefully be later this.

B

Year, we're also working hard to bring.

B

Green infrastructure elements into the way we do storm water in bloomington and.

B

Do a better job of that and that effort.

B

Is growing all the time and we're we're very pleased with the progress we're.

B

Making there uh process modernization uh also.

B

uh Is is underway all through the organization to improve the way.

B

uh We execute our daily work. uh This is including things like writing.

B

Standard operating procedures for all the different activities we do at.

B

Cbu, but it's also our asset management program.

B

Which is in the early stages of being implemented now.

B

The laboratory information system will be.

B

uh Hopefully, being deployed later this year,.

B

After the scada, uh improvements that are currently uh in process are complete.

B

So all of these things will make us more efficient, make it possible for us to more effectively use data to make.

B

Decisions and overall improve our operations. We've.

B

Also just begun deploying tablet, computers.

B

For uh some of our staff right now, it's the.

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Assistant superintendents in tnd, so rather than having a desktop.

B

And a laptop they'll have a tablet that they can use for everything.

B

uh Including gis, because our new gis system is also part of all of these.

B

Modernizations, so that initiative uh is basically touching.

B

Everything we do and I didn't even talk about advanced.

B

Metering infrastructure that project is nearing completion and.

B

That also just revolutionizes the way we do a lot.

B

Of things uh from billing to.

B

Other management activities, so it's a these- are all big deals.

B

uh The last category I want to talk about a little bit is climate action.

B

The city is really pushing climate action as uh overall cbu.

B

Always is because everything we do is has an environmental impact, and uh we.

B

Do continue to track things uh the.

B

Renovations that we're doing at dillman uh could save us up to 15 or so.

B

Of our electrical consumption uh for or for the aeration process,.

B

That's that's a big deal, um we're also continuing our efforts to.

B

Study the potential for a waste to energy initiative.

B

uh We're also we're working with um solid waste district.

B

And you can name economic and sustainable development.

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Department and public works to work on that.

B

To that analysis, so that will be continuing.

B

Also things like and something we're trying to point out is.

B

Things like the the disinfection, byproduct.

B

Work that we're doing and this the addition of an algaecide.

B

It takes around a quarter of a million gallons of water.

B

That's already been treated to backwash a filter.

B

It's more often so, every time we backwash a filter, it costs us around 750.

B

So getting uh reducing the number of times we have to backwash.

B

Far more than pays for the algaecide removal, but it also has a significant.

B

Carbon uh in carbon emission impact so.

B

Everything we do affects uh affects climate and we're.

B

Paying attention to it all through our organization.

B

um I think uh the last thing, of course, is.

B

On the list, here is economic sustainability, where.

B

uh We've done some work uh in the last two years refinancing all of our bonding.

B

That we possibly could to save us money for debt service and we continue to work.

B

On a rate case for water, that would.

B

We expect to bring to the council and the board.

B

In the first quarter of 2021 with uh hope and hopefully we'll have it.

B

Approved by uh iurc by the end of 2021., so I'll, let laura dig into the details. A.

B

Little bit more and uh and thank you so much for for for.

B

Listening uh vic, could I um ask a question.

A

Sure you talked a little bit about the smart metering being finished in august.

A

um What are the plans for the date when the rate payers will be able to access.

A

Their own usage, and will there be an education.

A

uh Component to that, yes, there will. uh We expect to deploy the uh the.

B

Customer portal in the third and fourth quarter of 2020.

B

We're going to be doing a lot of outreach through uh social.

B

Media media and bill inserts and so forth.

B

You know, I'm I'm recruiting, I'm hoping we can get.

B

We can involve people at city hall uh and in demonstrating and learning how.

B

To use the system uh holly has been uh has been looking.

B

Into what we need to do to do the training, and uh so we'll be working on that over the next.

B

Couple of months laura, do you know the date we were going to.

B

That we were going to roll that out. Have we set it down.

C

We had originally and we were having our kickoff meetings.

C

uh Right when covet hit so it uh it got delayed a little bit. So we're aiming for.

C

September, one of the benefits of waiting until.

C

September october is that the meters will all be in.

C

So if when we start, um we won't have people trying to sign up.

C

For who haven't had their meter changed out yet so uh we're about a thousand to 1500 meters, shy of having all of the meters.

C

Changed over and then we'll just be working on any.

C

Errant meters that uh we couldn't get it through the first time so um right around september, is when we're shooting for.

C

A

Hey, thank you so laura I'll leave it to you to.

B

Talk about the numbers? Okay, uh so uh you should have received a copy of.

C

The 2021 budget memo to the mayor um at the top of it there is.

C

A table that has our revenues for the year.

C

For 2021, we anticipate about an overall seven percent decrease in revenues.

C

This is based off of uh where we're at now, during this pandemic and and the.

C

Trends that we've seen we looked at each uh month in 2020.

C

uh One of the nice things about doing this process a little bit later in the year is, I had six months of data to work from.

C

So uh we did, we have seen a decrease from covid.

C

uh It has been offset by the advanced metering project, so it wasn't as.

C

Bad as it could have been, if this had happened a year ago, we would have.

C

Been in a much different state, so in water we're seeing about a.

C

7.75 decrease and that equals about 1.4 million.

C

Dollars in sewer we're seeing a 1.5 million.

C

Decrease and that's about 6 percent and then in storm water.

C

It's just a small decrease about 2 percent, so 94.

C

000. um so as we build the budget, we first look at what we think our revenues.

C

Are going to be and then we move um and then we use our revenues are.

C

Always equal to our expenses. So when we have a decrease.

C

Then we'll see our expense budget equal the same.

C

Amount uh so I I have been working with um our.

C

Controller's office, we are still waiting on some pieces of.

C

Information, so that's why the budget isn't complete.

C

They haven't given us personnel numbers yet.

C

So I took this year's numbers and I gave a one percent increase just.

C

A modest increase just to cover anything that I think is going to happen.

C

um I know that some of our union folks will be.

C

Due for uh increase, but we don't know, what's going to happen with non-union.

C

Folks, so that's kind of a placeholder there. Once I get final numbers I'll go back in and recalculate everything another area.

C

That we're still waiting for more information on is our fleet expenses. We have a pretty large fleet.

C

So they submit their their budget to the controller's office.

C

And then they tell us what our piece is: we've received the numbers for our fuel.

C

Set rate, but not for the actual uh maintenance part of our.

C

Fleet so uh once I have those two pieces of information I'll go back through and and where we'll see that hit and offset.

C

Is usually in the extensions and replacements budget.

C

So that number will go up or down depending on what happens with.

C

uh Category 100 or category uh 300, so personnel or extensions, are.

C

Replacements we have seen some decreases in our.

C

Bonding expenses based off of the refunding activities that we've been.

C

Doing over the last year, so there's been some decreases there.

C

Which uh helped free up cash and.

C

Other than that, it's we've just, I think that another larger expense is.

C

We have postponed our water rate case, so some.

C

If we're going to bring it to council in january first quarter next year,.

C

um There's some budget expenses listed in the.

C

In the budget there as well, are there any questions so far.

C

And I was very tired when I put this together yesterday so this afternoon, I'm.

C

Going to be going through and making sure all the numbers match, so I apologize, it is a draft um and that we're meeting with the.

C

Mayor's office tomorrow to go through our numbers, uh and so if they have anything they want to see changed, then there may be.

C

Some tweaks there, but I don't overall, foresee it to be drastically.

C

Different from from where we're at here it's it's going to be pretty close. I'm sorry! So I guess. uh Are there any.

B

Any questions in general or any details that you've.

B

Identified so far, uh this is uh we're moving a little earlier this year, we've.

B

Been trying to move this up a little bit earlier with.

B

Getting uh to the subcommittee because of uh it just makes things more more conversational gives us more time to get.

B

Back and forth from from you all with your your suggestions, so.

C

um Oh vic, I did have one more thing to add. Sorry, I forgot to note it down.

C

uh We have increased our customer assistance program, also known as cap.

C

And that was at 45 000 for this year we've moved up to 50.

C

000 for next year, um and if we find that we're butting up against it,.

C

Which we're not this year, so I think we're going to be okay. But if we do find.

C

That we are betting up against it. We could come back to the board and ask for.

C

Additional funding there so.

A

Yes, amanda. um I just wanted to confirm to right after.

D

That bullet point you have the the residential stormwater grant program.

D

And we're allocating 75 000 is that I can't remember is that the same amount.

D

As last last year, we didn't, we did not increase that right. That's right, okay should be 70., it should be 70.. Oh.

D

Because it says 75 in the memo.

C

I'll fix that I apologize okay.

B

Yeah, that's not an increase! uh That's staying flat.

E

That's right: yeah, jane yeah, I'm just curious with the.

E

Whole covert thing and layoffs and and economic disruption um uh have we seen any sort of an.

E

Increase in requests for financial assistance.

E

For utility bills that might be getting overdue, people can't pay them.

E

And do we expect going forward, however long this stupid thing lasts.

E

That we might need to increase the amount in that.

C

uh So we have, we have definitely seen an increase of overdue or delinquent.

C

Accounts, we normally have about a thousand delinquent accounts at a given time and that's accounts that are uh two months overdue.

C

So, where it's only a thousand right now it's about three thousand.

C

um And we're seeing those mostly in zones.

C

Three and four, I believe so: we've been targeting those zones putting door.

C

Hangers reaching out to people trying to get them to even make a small payment if they can.

C

And reach out to cap and get cap funding um that cap funding is not managed by.

C

Us- and it has a set of rules around it, that.

C

um Have been in place, I think they were through hand. We have.

C

Seen it's about it's been.

C

A increase in request for funding, but we're not hitting any kind of.

C

We're not going over where we thought we would be so.

C

We still have, I think we haven't even spent half of the budget for it. Yet this.

C

Year, so we don't anticipate that unless.

C

Something goes crazy in the fall which we should be.

C

Right on target okay- and I guess I'm also wondering the.

E

Requirements for the the funding through cap.

E

Are those requirements that fit the times.

E

Now, with unexpected job losses- and you know other kinds of financial.

E

Hardships coming along with it, I believe so.

C

Because it's based on income, it's it's income based. I think the one place.

B

Where we might uh want to have a conversation.

B

But we're not there yet uh the way the system works.

B

Is you can um ask for assistance in up to two consecutive months and then.

B

You can't, then you have to go four months before you could ask for assistance again. Practically speaking. That means someone.

B

Could get assistance for four months out of a year.

B

If we find that we're getting a lot of people who are getting up against that.

B

And and uh still unable to pay bills after.

B

Two months of assistance uh that may be a place where we would be.

B

Coming to the board asking to revise the rules that were used for that.

B

Up to now, we haven't had the ground swell of requests.

B

That that would suggest that we're in that spot.

B

Quite yet, we have no way of knowing whether uh the 3 000.

B

Having 3 000 people in arrears instead of.

B

A thousand in arrears: we have no way of knowing.

B

How much of that is because of inability to pay and how much of it is just.

B

Because they didn't get a disconnect notice.

B

And and continue to continue to, let it go.

B

My guess is, there's a mixture and I don't know how how that mixture works.

B

Out, so that's why we're really redoubling our efforts to reach out to people who are in the rears to both encourage people who can afford.

B

To pay to go ahead and pay and to identify people who do need.

B

Assistance so that we can help them out uh through the through the cap or.

B

Through payment plans, but what we? If, if a lot of, if we have.

B

A lot of them are just people who are letting their bills build up.

B

um I fear we're going to be doing a lot of payment plans.

B

When, when the uh governor's order uh is lifted, so we we really are.

B

Redoubling our efforts to reach out to people who are delinquent because it definitely affects our cash flow.

A

um Vic laura laura. It seems to me that um more than any.

A

Normal year, there's a whole lot of uncertainty.

A

When it comes to the budget, uh we do know some things. However,.

A

Now iu could easily change what they're going to do.

A

But as of now, there will be no students here, january and february.

A

Or december, for that matter, uh right when thanksgiving comes students.

A

Are going to be sent home, I guess um and the beginning.

A

Of second semester will be distance, so that means two months of.

A

A lot fewer people in bloomington than normally- and I.

A

You will obviously have most of its stuff.

A

Shut down so has that already figured into the.

A

2021 budget and yes, okay, yeah and that's that's actually a.

B

Very low demand portion of the year to begin with, uh plus we're already in that situation for a month of that time. Anyhow, with.

B

Thanking and and the christmas break so.

B

Yeah but it's been accounted for by looking at what happened this spring.

A

Okay, it still seems like a lot of uncertainty, because.

A

They could extend that period of time. They could.

C

You could go home in october, you don't know yeah and that's why we tried to.

C

Have a very conservative budget, yeah good and you know one of the things.

B

And I guess it's it's a wild card for us.

B

uh Is that a substantial portion of our budget every year.

B

Is the extensions and replacement budget so.

B

uh If revenues fall short of what we are are estimating uh what that means is.

B

We just it becomes a cash flow management question of just.

B

Delaying projects that we might have had in the in the capital improvement plan.

B

So cip items may be delayed if we find ourselves far.

B

Short of the revenue estimates, but there's.

B

There's enough money in the cip portion of the budget.

B

To handle a substantial downturn beyond beyond what we're estimating.

B

It would just mean projects would get delayed.

B

And we can also take steps to make those projects.

B

Maybe be more affordable, maybe we'll do more of the water main replacement.

B

In-House, rather than hiring contractors and those kinds of things.

A

So does this give us any insight into what it might be like if we.

A

Really did a successful water conservation program.

A

I mean you know, we don't know, we've known all along that water conservation.

A

You know has a good side, but it also has a really.

A

Hard side when it comes to all the fixed costs of.

A

Supplying water, so it's a good lesson. We'll learn! Well, one of the.

B

Lessons the the unintended consequences of all this.

B

Is that when we were on shutdown for for 10 weeks there, and and we had no.

B

Virtually no one in the office, um our paper, consumption for printing.

B

Fell by more than 50 percent, and so the question that we're asking.

B

Now is okay: how do we keep doing that? You know how.

B

Do we, how do we keep using less paper um so yeah this whole.

B

This, this entire ordeal is an opportunity for us to.

B

Improve ourselves and and identify processes that we can do better.

A

Good. Thank you any other questions.

A

I don't see any, does that mean we move on to the.

A

Next item, well, can I just um you mentioned you know as we go forward.

B

With this we weren't expecting to have a vote. Today we were expecting to have the.

B

To present this to the subcommittee, to give you a couple of weeks to look at it.

B

uh And then, when we come back, uh we would be asking for another subcommittee.

B

Meeting um at 4, 30 or 4 45 on the.

B

On the the day we present to the board so that.

B

And and then have the subcommittee vote be at that time, and so what we have here.

B

Is a couple of weeks for you to digest and make suggestions and ask.

B

Additional questions of us before before we go to that.

B

Amanda was raising your hand. um Latrina was this sent.

D

To everybody on the board or just to the finance committee.

D

Everyone received it great, so they have an opportunity for.

D

They have an opportunity for some input if they, if they have questions as well.

D

Right, you got it great thanks.

A

Okay, that sounds like a good plan and um I assume we'll get any updated changes.

A

To the budget yep- and I I believe, there's an item for.

A

Communications from the public is that correct.

A

I'm trying to remember the agenda.

B

Holly is there, I know we're on facebook live well.

A

Are there any questions or comments from anyone watching.

A

Seeing none hearing none, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

E

So moved we are adjourned and thank you all for attending.

F