City of Boise, Idaho Public Works Commission, 6 Oct 2021

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Public Works Commission

Description

October 6, 2021

A

Thanks for joining us for this meeting of the public works commission, I will start off with a calling of the role uh if you're here, please. Let me know, uh commissioner hilton commissioner crowley, commissioner ellis here, commissioner colette commissioner morgan here.

A

I believe that makes four of us and we have a quorum and we can continue uh so. The first order of business is the approval of the minutes from our september meeting, and I would entertain a motion.

B

uh Mr chair, this this is uh larry. I would move to accept the minutes of our september 1 2021 meeting as distributed.

A

We have a motion. Do we have a second three seconds and seconded? Is there any discussion.

A

Hearing none all those in favor, please indicate by saying aye hi hi hi any opposed.

A

The motion carries all right. Thank you, and that brings us to the first item on our agenda, an update on the 2021 water supply and drought impact, and I will turn it over to staff.

C

Sure thank you for the quick introduction and we just wanted to provide the commission with an update on um the water supply situation, so I want to turn it over to john roland. He is our strategic water resources manager um and he and staff are going to present on the water resources update. So.

D

Thank you steve good afternoon, chair commissioners, I'll be co-presenting as well as steve said. My name is john rolls and I'm the strategic water resource manager for the city I'll be co-presenting with robin lee basan. Who is our water resource analyst, so we'll be trading off here in the middle? What we're hoping to do? I guess I'm going to share my presentation now.

D

Okay hope that's showing so steve mentioned we're going to do a water resource update focusing on the 2021 current year. Drought also briefly discussing our climate action mitigation activities, and then robin will finish up with a discussion about some on ground projects that are currently happening.

D

So, as most folks understand, this year was a very dry year, we're at at sept in september. We're now looking looking back. We're at 100 of idaho is in is experiencing a drought.

D

uh 63 percent of idaho is in extreme or exceptional drought levels uh of note about three months ago, three and a half months ago, only four percent of idaho was in extreme and exceptional drought and, as you can see from the from the graph that extreme and exceptional drought is noted by the the red colors and the the dark red, almost brown colors, so that increased from about four percent about three months ago to 63 um as of september 21st, and if you look a little closer at the map, you if you know where to look here on for ada county, you can notice that that that the county split into a into the northern part in a moderate drought and the southern part, is in a severe drought.

D

The reason for the worsening drought um can be attributed really to this is this has been the second. We have the second driest spring this year and the second hottest june. So the two of those combined really really serve to worsen the drought in a major way and that's according to dwr's records, oops.

D

The hot temperatures and the drier soils also led to increased irrigation demand, suez reported that they they went from their baseline winter demand, which is about 20 million gallons a day up. They went to their their summer demand um a month early and that summer demand, which is normally 80 million gallons a day, was at night it jumped up to 90 million gallons a day so that it resulted in it from their report from their numbers.

D

As of july, they reported a billion gallons of extra water that had been uh diverted and which is about 3 000 acre feet, and if you look at that in terms of averages, that's about seven percent, uh a seven percent increase in overall water production for a whole year. But when you look at the irrigation season, it's almost a 15 increase and when you, our boise climate adaptation assessment, had predicted that we were, we would see about a 10 increase by the by mid 21st century. So granted. This is just one year.

D

So we can't you know it doesn't mean it's going to always be like this, but we're already over what they. What the the action? The action plan that said we would be in in the mid 21st century so in 2015 2050, so we're sorry, yeah.

D

So this is the graph of our our reservoir storage for the year. The blue line is the current year and the red dotted line is the average. So you can see that we started off pretty average and stayed that way until you got to about june, and then we dropped off pretty precipitously and that's a result of that. Those that drier spring just we didn't get the soils weren't primed for runoff and we weren't getting that extra. Those those spring storms also tend to bring a little extra snowfall in the higher elevations.

D

So we just didn't get that this year and you can see we paid the price uh we're at. If you look at the at the the graph at the far right, we're we're ending the year much lower than where we started the year so about 130 000 um acre feet below average for the for the end-of-year storage.

D

That's uh that ranks in about the top 10 lowest carryover storages um in the last 40 years. So that's that's what we have to make up. So when we talk about this next, this next, the next winter, we need a really great winter to get us out of this hole that we've dug.

D

So I'm going to highlight some something we did back in 2018.

D

We were getting questions from council on whether we had enough of water in the in the basin. We don't have a gauge to look at obviously, so we were coming up with some indicators that might point to whether we had you know is there? Is there a lot of water stress in the in the valley or or not? So these are the the indicators we came up with at the time uh price per acre foot, you know, and we ranked it with green was the no current concerns the the triangle.

D

The yellow triangle was emerging concerns and then the red box was issues are imminent. Action required not not hit the panic button, but we we probably need to up up our game into our in terms of water management.

D

So we looked at price per acre foot and rental pool water on the boise river was at twenty dollars an acre foot canal. Companies were weren't charging any upfront prices if you were gonna buy if you're gonna buy shares, so we gave it a green. um There were availability of canal shares was was okay, we were starting to see a little stress, but it was okay and there's still plenty available, and then the inner base and transfer request.

D

That's actually a water right application that might want to take water out of the boise river basin and take it somewhere else. We had actually just received a notice of an application from elmore county that they were trying to take 200 cfs of flood flow out of the base out of boise river, bring it into elmer county.

D

So we gave that a yellow triangle we were also. There were also some on the next one was demand for flood flows and the demand for flood flows.

D

If, if folks are trying to develop flood flows, it means the easy water's gone because flood flows are very expensive to there they're they're intermittent they. They come all at once, they're pretty expensive to manage. So if people are our entities are trying to acquire flood flows. That usually means the easy water's gone so watch out, so we gave it a yellow triangle and we also have groundwater management areas uh already existing back.

D

Since the 90s uh there's there was a there's, a southeast, boise groundwater management area in the southeast part of town there's also a geothermal aquifer, groundwater management area that all came about in that same time frame. So we had a couple groundwater management areas already, and so we gave it a yellow triangle.

D

Now fast forward to 2021- and we did this for every year- we kind of kind of updated these every year and you're you're, seeing a little more a little more serious report here. The the price per acre foot, while rental pool, is still at 28 an acre foot. You still the they're. The canal companies are starting to charge upfront pricing, one, a one-time, up-front purchase price plus your assessment, so prices are and those prices were getting starting to get up there. So we increased that to a yellow triangle.

D

We changed the availability of the canal shares to a red square, because there's sort of a run on canal shares going on right now. There's the the water masters are administering the basin above lucky peak for the first time ever and there's folks that are being told up there that they may be curtailed because their water rights are more junior than what than the water rights some of the water rights down here.

D

So a way to avoid that is to buy these canal shares, which are typically very senior water rights, pieces of very senior water rights, and you can mitigate your water rights with those and be and then jump jump in line. Essentially so there's there's a lot of demand for canal shares right now, including from the city.

D

We've, we've been that's actually, when we talk about action required when, when we started realizing this, we started to shore up some of our own water rights with some of these canal shares and tried to buy some more canal shares to to bring our parks from using groundwater to a very senior surface supply from a canal share.

D

Nothing really changed. On the interbasin transfer request front. We still have elmore county out there. They they did get a a. They did, get their permit for 200 cfs, but we haven't seen any additional permits or applications come through.

D

We added the drought frequency indicator because we realized that we were when you look when you look at the the drought index, the palmer drought index that usgs has put together. We've been in these these multi-year droughts. For a lot longer, we stay in the drought periods without going into the wet periods much longer and as we noticed that well, we looked well we're actually in the third fourth year of a drought, a multi-year drought already. So we added this and we we gave it a red red square.

D

The demand for flood flows got a red square because we saw two large reservoir projects. Applications for water rights for two large reservoir projects come into play, one for cat, creek energy and one for the bureau. Reclamation anderson dam ram, the anderson ranch dam rays.

D

So that's a lot of that's a lot of flood flow, potentially getting locked up in two projects: the action there. We expressed interest potential interest in the anderson, ranch dam rays and capacity behind that behind that dam.

D

That's still it's it's at the preliminary stages, but we wanted to just put a placeholder in there just to so, we could evaluate it as as more information becomes available and make a decision when, when the time comes, the groundwater management area's got a red square because we we haven't gotten any additional groundwater management areas, but we did uh ask the director of water resources to expand the southeast boise groundwater management area, because we were seeing additional.

D

We were seeing an additional draw down in areas outside that boundary, so we thought it needs to be. It needs to be expanded. On top of that, we're seeing growth within that area, so you've got growth. Additional demand happening in an area that's already experiencing shortages in the aquifer, not not not a good scenario, so red square.

D

So again the red squares were just it's not hit the panic button. It's just continue doing what we're doing about you know planning for the future.

D

You know grant the a perfect example is on the this groundwater management area in the southeast boise groundwater management area. What we're doing is what we're looking at we've kicked off a recycled water program in that area that will that will likely be a third water renewal facility that will be will produce, reuse, water that we can bring so bringing new water into that area.

D

So we're just addressing the issue more. It's going to take a lot more effort, but um this is where we're identifying the areas that are going to require that extra effort.

D

This is just just to show. I I think the last time I was here at the public works commission. I showed this graph. This is just the palmer drought severity index. That usgs has put this together. It's if you look at the at the the areas of the blue, the blue line, that's above the zero black line baseline. Those are wet. Yellows are representing wet years all the blue graph below that black line are representing the drought years, and you can you kind of notice.

D

You look at and go well, there's not much difference in in the magnitudes. Well, that's that's true, but you look at that. In that period, that's that's designated there 1986 2015!

D

You can see that we're under the line a lot longer than we were in the past. Maybe the 1930s dust bowl era you know was you know, they've identified that as as similar, but um this is uh this is what our our climate adaptation assessment pointed to, that we'd be we'd, have we'd be having longer longer duration, droughts. We start looking at this.

D

Well, we already have been so: what's it going to look like in the future, it could get worse and if you look at the very tail end of that, the right side you can see where I mentioned we're already a few years into a multi-year drought. It's we're since, since snowmageddon back in 2016-17, it's been dry and we're we needed. We need another wet year to get us out of this.

D

So I'm going to touch a little bit on what we're you know, what we're doing about climate change and and how we're addressing some of these impacts that we're already we're already seeing we're trying to maximize surface water. Our surface water usage we're trying to maximize our surface water when it's available, so that we can preserve groundwater when we're in the drought conditions. Our surface water system only has carryover for a couple years. Typically, groundwater is carry over for multiple. You know a longer period, it's not indefinite, but it is.

D

It is a longer period of time than than our surface water. So that's one one approach we're trying to diversify our water supply sources I'll have a slide to get into that a little more, but it's essentially just to take the risk out of. If one of these supplies falls short one year, we we rely more heavily on another one, so similar to a financial portfolio. You're in your portfolio also fit for purpose strategy. The right, the right water for the right purpose.

D

There's no need to be using potable water to irrigate so we're trying to find ways to minimize that I mean it's currently happening. Robin will go into a little bit of this in more detail. um Some of the studies we've used to identify where that's happening, and if we can change that, we're hoping to change that and then we've got some pilot programs to hopefully try and move towards that and lastly, just conservation. If you can minimize your demand, you're saving more water for tomorrow. So that's that's one of our other approaches.

D

So this is a snapshot of our diversification of our water supply portfolio. What we're what we're currently doing? If you look on the left, the existing natural flow rates, existing surface storage- that's those canal shares. I was talking about those canal. Companies have have very senior natural flow rights and they typically have storage rights. So the more we can get our parks um and mitigating new water rights that we get with these canal shares the stronger our our water right portfolio will be we're.

D

Also looking, as I mentioned, looking into recycled water from our water renewal facilities, drought, proof, water supply, 24, 7, 365, that you know it's it's a solid water supply. The amount may not be as high as as from like a new surface storage facility, but it's a solid piece of the water supply portfolio, groundwater, recharge and banking. We can use that recycled water for groundwater recharge.

D

We can also use flood supplies that we were mentioning before and peel some of those off and use those for for groundwater recharge and we can use the recycled water also for exchanges potentially to we've got like. I said it's drought proof supply, that's that's a very valuable asset and maybe we can exchange that for some other type of supply, a storage suppliers or something like that and then.

D

Lastly, um like I mentioned, we kind of put our name in the hat preliminarily for uh for the anderson anderson ranch dam rays and the new surface storage capacity, so just an example of how we're trying to fortify our water supply portfolio to kind of get us to get us through those these drought years and make us more resilient to climate change, grow and growth.

D

So at this point, I'm going to turn it over to robin to go over some of the projects that we currently have in play and and just show you what we've been doing.

E

Chair commissioners, thank you. Can you hear me? Okay, okay, great.

E

E

um Thank you, john um yeah. I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about some of the solutions, the the projects and programs we have put together in response to some of these concerns that we've raised and to create a more resilient uh water feature for boise.

E

So the first one is uh what we're calling the surface water discovery project. This is an examination of surface water use opportunities within within the city. We set out really to investigate how how the surface water is being used and to help create solutions that would solve some of the problems that come with irrigation supply systems.

E

This is really to maximize the surface surface water use ultimately to store keep groundwater in the ground for drought years.

E

We are looking at two options to expand our existing municipal irrigation district. These two pilot pro programs, are intended to maintain the current surface storage use for these neighborhoods and subdivisions.

E

One of the things that we see is that's happening. Is uh these these pressurized irrigation systems and laterals are often run by uh by volunteers, homeowners, associations, unpaid unpaid? These are unpaid positions. Excuse me, um so what happens is there's turnover of of these positions? Volunteers either. Don't want to maintain or can't maintain these systems anymore and they become vulnerable for for disrepair or becoming completely defunct.

E

These two projects, specifically the community, the hoa for the azure meadows subdivision, had approached us several years ago with interest in asking if the city had interest in taking this over.

E

At that point, it was it's my understanding that we were trying to decide whether or not we would continue managing the municipal irrigation district.

E

We have john and myself believe that, in in other staff, believes that it is something that we should be moving forward with, uh and, and so we have, we have gone back in and are working to develop, to develop a program with with those folks. The second one is the eustic, ditch lateral association. This is a. This is a great example of a volunteer who is very invested in maintaining the system, but no longer can't for health reasons and has again approached the city to help take over the operation and maintenance of that system.

E

These two also are along the same laterals as some existing municipal irrigation district users. So if these were to become defunct, then then we would potentially lose the ability to serve our existing uh surface water users. So so we do have an interest in trying to keep these ones going um a long uh as a part of the surface water discovery project, we're also looking for additional opportunities to convert groundwater to surface water where it's available and I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next slide.

E

All in all, this is really to maintain current usage and to expand the use of surface water.

E

So the next is the potable water for irrigation study. This. This study started about a year ago uh with the intent to uh really understand how we are using potable groundwater for outdoor irrigation within the city boundary. So we we've worked with internal folks. This is also data that comes from suez. It's reported to us by suez.

E

As you can see in the map we have, we we've been able to sort of map a one-year snapshot so far of what what that really looks like.

E

We we started this, so we can again understand the residential irrigation habits and also to identify some opportunities where we can increase surface surface water use where it is available.

E

Most of these homes are actually within an existing irrigation entity like a canal, company or or an irrigation district.

E

Historically, these systems are are there to serve agriculture, but over the years they have, they have morphed into serving homes and, as homeowners turn over some areas aren't used as much then lines get plugged. People can no longer use it if they want to there's there's all sorts of issues, but but we want it with this.

E

We wanted to look at a one-year snapshot of what what it really looked like and and with this, this has helped us already identify some areas where we can work with uh work with the irrigators and uh connect them with with possibly some community education to help advise on the use of the benefits of using surface water and saving our potable groundwater. So when I say potable groundwater, I mean the drinking water that we use in our homes.

E

So quickly this uh this graph, what you're seeing is really the high use homes during the summer months, so yellow, yellow to red are our homes that experience a hundred percent up to a greater than six hundred percent increase during the summer, based on uh a winter baseline, uh which is what we refer to as as kind of the minimal water that's being used primarily during the winter months, um when we aren't irrigating our lawns.

E

So so, based off of that information, we can really see that that there's a significant amount of water that is going towards watering lawns landscaping uh during the summer months, and this this was from 20 the 2018-2019 water year.

E

We have since expanded this study to incorporate five years so 2017 up to this year. That is in progress. So I I don't have some updated maps for you today, but that that is something that we are working on.

E

This slide is to show the projects that we have completed, that we're working on and that we are working to pursue with uh the conversion of groundwater to surface water within our city facilities. So previously we had been talking about residential use, but we also need to practice what we preach, and so, if we are, are going to start asking our residents to maybe change some habits down down the road, we need to be looking at how we're also using our our water.

E

We have this. You will notice that this is mostly parks. This is a huge portion of where our water goes.

E

We have completed uh several parks, we have converted it over to surface water.

E

They there in all of these parks that that you see here on this slide are within already within an irrigation uh service entity and some of them that we are looking to pursue. We already have uh surface water entitlements that we we currently pay that are just not being used.

E

We've got several in progress quail hollow golf course in stuart gulch park, we're working with boise city canal company to to get water delivered to those areas. Pine grove park, anne morrison and catherine albertson.

E

And we've we have completed uh several projects, bowler alta harris golda harris, uh marianne williams, and we are looking to pursue several so these parks that we've identified, we believe our prime opportunity to to get surface water to irrigate those parks. So this is to really show you know some of the some of the projects that we've been able to to complete.

E

Next, I'm going to speak briefly about the recycled water program. Public works has initiated the recycled water program to reuse our water renewal facility effluent.

E

This slide is showing a couple options for that use um and- and the intent of this is as john mentioned, to diversify our water supply portfolio and add in a water supply source that that is really drought resistant.

E

um They will. Staff will be coming back in uh the coming months to you with more information on this program.

E

And finally, the develop ordinance updates. We have had the opportunity to comment to make some recommendations uh on the develop development, ordinance updates that are occurring within planning and development services.

E

um Right now we are looking at the existing ordinances and and also taking the opportunity to to maybe fine-tune some of those and and make some recommendations about how we can be a little bit more water smart in the future.

E

For example, we are looking at at several water scarce states um and their policies to see what what may apply um and some lessons learned from their processes.

E

We those recommendations are still in progress, um but we will. We will probably have more on that later on.

E

And that is it and we are happy to answer any questions you have.

A

Thank you. That was a lot of information packed into a pretty quick presentation and I'm sure that we've all got quite a number of questions. So I would open it up to my fellow commissioners for any questions that you might have.

A

Commissioner ellis thank.

F

You I was curious about the volunteer program. Can you explain that a little bit more, I didn't understand how the volunteer program.

E

Yeah, absolutely so um so laterals and pressurized irrigation systems- they're, not city owned they're. They are owned by private citizens, canal companies, irrigation districts and- and they are their volunteer run by in large part. So um going back to uh the eustic, ditch lateral association that had approached us. That lateral serves, I think, about 30 homes um and it is run by a volunteer who's, a resident of that neighborhood, and he he assesses for fees.

E

He performs the maintenance on the lateral. He ensures that those folks are getting their water during the irrigation season. Troubleshoots problem solved he's. He is uh essentially the president. Vice president secretary treasurer of of the.

D

E

Association, um and in this case he he physically can't do it anymore, and so when when when that occurs, and if, if they don't approach the city, we don't we don't know.

E

But if, if they walk away and no one's really willing to step in behind which.

G

E

Becoming more common um as as surface water isn't used as frequently and and it's not as convenient as just you know, setting your sprinkler and forgetting it for three months.

E

um If, if those, if those folks don't have anybody to come in behind and take over, these systems really fall apart um and and it's a water, it's it's!

E

It's water that can be reliable um at this scale and and it's much it's it's much better than using groundwater, because we need to save that for uh for drought years. So.

F

E

I hope that answers your question.

F

It does help thank you, yeah.

A

And I have a follow-up note um suggestion just an idea on on this topic.

A

um We do have some members of the city council on here as well, who are working on the canal pathways projects, and I do wonder if there is the opportunity to uh partner more closely in building some enthusiasm for engagement in our our irrigation districts and canals canal systems.

D

uh Yes chair, we, we have been working with the mayor's office in the in the in pds, um with the canal companies in the irrigation districts to partner on on more of these these facilities and find out where it makes sense, where we first of all where we want the the connectivity and then where it makes sense from the irrigation district's perspective that they have enough right of way to accommodate us. So yeah we've been actively engaged with with mayor's office and pds. On that.

H

Well, some direction gravette.

A

Yes, councilmember halliburton.

H

Just to add to that, and thank you for that comment. um I just wanted to say. I think that there are opportunities to figure out win-win situations for everyone um and how some of those things might be intersected or related, and so I think it's really appropriate that you bring that up, because I think that there are ways where pathways could potentially help irrigation districts address some of these issues.

H

You know through through shade, through you know, different types of things that are out there, through advocacy through maintenance through reduced cost all those types of things, and that that certainly is something that I know that we're evaluating on that team.

A

Awesome, thank you, looks like commissioner morgan.

I

Thank you chair. um I had a question that was pertaining to it. Looks like this plan is short-term and like recovering from the current drought that we've been in. Are there any long-term plans to be able to look 10 20 years in the future, to make sure that there are resources and infrastructure built in place to make sure that there is water storage for future generations?.

D

Commissioner, yes, uh the the projects we're actually talking about, although you may think they're short-term, they are more long-term in nature. Just changing the water use getting more getting folks off of their potable irrigation supplies and moving them to surface water supplies is more of a long-term solution. It changes the pattern and keeps more water in in the potable aquifers over time into perpetuity. Hopefully, the storage projects like the surface storage project I mentioned that, would be a long-term supply.

D

The anderson ranch dam raise if we were to- and I'm not saying we are, but if we were to participate in that project, that would be a long-term supply and the same with the recycled water program that will be going on, hopefully in perpetuity.

A

Thank you any other questions or comments from the commissioners.

A

I do have oh, mr ellis.

F

I was going to underline when you said: no, I can't maybe it was you that's john. That said it practicing what we preach, or maybe that was you that said it. It's just nice to hear that again, because that's been a consistent thing, since I know that you came into office. Is that do your homework first practice? Would you preach, then go ask boise residents, so it was nice to hear that continuity appreciate it.

A

Thank you. I do have a few questions related to some of the strategies for ground water versus surface water transitions.

A

A lot of folks that I'm engaged with in town are concerned about the quality of the water and potential pollutants if we go surface water strategies.

A

So as we look to build water resiliency, what efforts are underway to or what's being considered to mitigate uh potential uh pollutant concerns uh or or just to inform everyone about the the quality of the water that might be uh used.

D

Chair I, when you, when you mention that I think of storm water and sometimes the storm water going over running off of people's properties can pick up pollutants, and I know we have an education program in our stormwater group. I think actually, mr hubbell might be able to speak more about that, but yeah, so that is, that is a concern.

D

These supplies, typically we're talking about, are coming. That's raw water coming out of the reservoirs and and going into canals to be used. um So it's not necessarily it's run off from from up in the in the higher country, but not so much downward in the urban areas.

C

Chair just to add on to to that answer, one of the um initiatives we started with haley faulconer and the environmental division was the national water research institute uh panel that we had two weeks ago three weeks ago, um where we were being very deliberate about in the in the case of recycled water, making sure we very clearly understand the state of the science on things like pfos and those forever chemicals that you're reading about that's something we're taking very seriously. We had the panel.

C

We should have a report from the panel here in the next couple of weeks. Probably that'll be a starting point. That's not a finishing point. That's a starting point on the dialogue of water quality related to aquifer recharge, related to recycled water, etc. So those are things that are top of mind and we're really trying to stay on top of it and frankly, ahead of it. So we don't get so we don't aren't surprised with any information moving forward.

A

That's excellent. Thank you.

A

um A few other questions or ideas, um as I'm looking at some of the the maps that you provided in this presentation and looking at some of the sources of surface water, groundwater and some of the hardest hit areas here locally, I'm wondering about the state of partnership on pursuing some of these strategies, in particular with garden city and with eagle as areas that run along uh the boise river as areas with a lot of space that could be used uh in lockstep with a lot of these strategies as well to boost these efforts.

D

Chair, that's a that's a great idea. I I we're currently trying to develop our internal policies, but we have had discussions about branching out to when reaching out to our fellow communities and seeing what they're doing and sharing ideas and and yeah and working together on some of these projects, but not quite there yet. But.

A

Great great idea, just wanting to plant the seed and the last area that I want to touch on are the looking at the state of things right now, especially for some of our residents and some members of our community who are on wells that are depleting.

A

I'm wondering what uh short-term and long-term considerations are being made to ensure that folks, in boise and in our surrounding community, have access to water in the future.

D

Jared we are we're currently releasing a survey to some of the some of our impacted neighbors in the southwest uh to try and understand better what what each individual landowner there is experiencing and to compile that information to hopefully make that available to neighborhood leaders that they can, where they can step forward and come and and work with them to come up with some other solutions.

D

There are some some funding opportunities out there that that will require them to organize and so we're trying to help them organize themselves, give them the information to organize uh but yeah. That's so we're aware of those problems and um trying in one work and we're at the we're at the doorstep, of starting that process.

A

Awesome, that's really good to hear, thank you and if there's any way that I or any of the commissioners all voluntold you all, if there's any way that we can assist in the effort to gather survey information or let that let it be known that that survey is being conducted, I'm more than happy to help.

A

Thank you any other questions or comments from the commission.

A

All right well hearing, none thank you for that presentation that was very informative and a lot of good information to bring back uh up next on. Our agenda is an update on utility billing services collections, and I will turn it over to staff.

C

uh Chair gervat, thank you for that. We're gonna, give you an update on utility billing collections from heather buchanan and then she's also going to provide the next presentation so I'll, just let her roll into the next one. If that's, okay with you and that's related to our affiliate affordability programs for our utilities,.

A

Perfect we'll tackle both utility items right now. Thank you. Okay, heather.

J

Thank you, steve get organized here a little bit.

J

All right looks like my presentation's showing so uh so. Thank you for your time. Today, chair and commission members. I appreciate it. I am giving an update first on the utility billing collections and I want to give a shout out to our utility billing team, and especially our manager in that team, roxanna mcnew.

J

She has done a tremendous job in the too a little over two years that she's been in that role and our team is doing a fantastic job, and I think this presentation hopefully will highlight um the work that they're doing and give you an update on where we're at so just a quick background of what does our utility billing team do and what, in particular, does our collections team do so for the utility side of things we bill for three of our utilities: water, renewal, solid waste and geothermal through this team, for an account to be considered in collections?

J

It has to go through one billing cycle being past due so for a residential account that equates to 60 days for a commercial account that equates to 30 days. So when I say it's referred to collection or it's in a collection status, that's kind of what I'm talking about there and for the city of boise. We have somewhat limited tools for collection.

J

A lot of the other utilities have a really easy ability to shut off service and for our services they're, not as easy to shut off. We can do that. We can stop providing trash service, but we would consider at least residential trust service to be mandatory, and we can also plug sewer services if an accounts extremely past due we have a limited number of plugs and that's not a very pleasant process.

J

So it takes a lot of our staff time to do so, so those are limited, but we can do those options if we would like to so our process overall, though, looks like once an account is in collection status. We send them monthly collection letters to just remind them of their amount. This past, due we have four collectors, one that focuses on commercial and three, that focus on residential accounts and they do make outbound calls to our customers and request payment and set up payment arrangements with them.

J

They do a lot of triage in that and we'll talk about that a little bit more but they're looking to help our customers find ways to make their payment.

J

We also have a person in our legal office or legal department that we consider our legal collection so to speak, and that's um we don't have the ability to to do what other sewer districts do where they can immediately attach a property tax lien to a property for us to attach a lien to a property. We have to go through a process to get a judgment against that person and then we can attach a lien to their property, so um that helps us.

J

So the our legal collector is very helpful in doing that, and then, when we get to kind of end of the life with a collections account, uh we do utilize a third party agency. So we uh oh and one thing I didn't note on there. We also report to credit bureaus so we'll be reporting to credit bureaus once an account gets to a higher balance, and then we start letting people know that it's really going to start impacting their credit.

J

Once we send it out to a third-party agency and at times a third-party agency can be a little more effective than we can because then they're pooling um other accounts for a certain person and collecting on a group of accounts for that person, potentially so that can be a little bit more effective at times.

J

So with cobit 19, we did have impacts in our collections work and it's actually changed our work for the better. You would have thought that we were having challenges collecting and it's. It was actually a really good year last year and this year has been even better. So um in 2020 we stopped collecting as soon as we um okay things shut down from march through may, we stopped doing any actual collection activities. We did continue. Outbound collections status calls so for customers that were on a payment plan.

J

We continued calling them just to see, and but we changed the tone just really to see how they're doing see if they need any assistance, if we could change their collections, their payment plans or whatever, and that was really effective. We ended up collecting a lot of money that way, so it was really great. People really appreciated the city being interested in their well-being, and that was outstanding. So our team did a great job as we kind of whittled.

J

Through the summer months, we gradually added back um our collection activities and by october we are back to our full collections, and so but our tenor. Our tone has changed um a bit and we focus on really assisting people that have a difficulty in paying but trying to be firm with those that can pay, but are not paying so so we'll talk about some of the things that we've done um assistance programs.

J

So throughout this last year there have been some new assistance programs that have been available and we are referring our customers to the our partner agencies that are administering these programs. So the first one was the cares act.

J

um So the chronovirus aid relief and economic security act and that's a mouthful so that was administered by idaho housing and finance, administration or association, and it was for mortgages and utility assistance so for homeowners they could apply for that program and if they were receiving assistance from that program, then they could apply that money to their utility bill.

J

The next one is affectionately called e-wrap or emergency rental assistance program and it's being administered by boise city, 80, county housing authority, and this one is for tenants. So it's focused on rent and utility assistance as well. So again, if they receive money through that program, they can pay their utility bill and then there's a new program. um There's already an existing program called la heap, which is for energy assistance. There's a new program: that's coming out of the um coveted relief acts called lye wap and it's focused on water and water renewal programs.

J

So we're learning how to become an agency that can receive those payments on behalf of our customers. So we're working on that one and then collection, process, improvement. So roxanna and our team have really focused on these type of improvements, so streamlining our processes and creating a way for our collectors to triage accounts that fall into the collection status.

J

So we've mapped out our kind of done a tree, so to speak of just what the collections process and what how things should flow through for different types of accounts, and that really made those processes a little bit easier and we also implemented what we're calling like an action deadline and that helps us trigger a payment. So a lot of times in the past. Our collectors would get so focused on one group of accounts that they wanted to just continue working on collecting those accounts.

J

When we were, we had other accounts that needed to be collected, so this process helps them focus on those accounts and then quickly move to the next one. So we're touching more accounts and it's definitely a more effective process, so two strategies that fall into that um the first one is autopay. We've had auto pay for a really long time, but um our collectors we've um had and actually are all of our billing staff on the inbound calls as well. We focus on the auto pay program.

J

We try and get people to sign up for auto pay, because it's a guaranteed payment so that helps people stay out of collections. So this last year they had different campaigns trying to get people to sign up, and our staff was rewarded for that work that resulted in about 2 600, additional, auto pay plans and an increase in our monthly auto pay payments of just over 200 dollars. So that was really fantastic and the other thing we call a whoops letter, um it's basically a notice or a letter.

J

That's sent out to our customers when they miss their last payment and it just is a friendly reminder. It's really casually written so that it's just saying hey did you forget us and that's really helpful and as you'll see in the next slide, it's resulted in a reduction in our interest that we charge on a monthly basis because there's less balances outstanding and a higher amount of payment that we're seeing so I'll show you those graphs here, really quick. So on the left side, the three bar chart um is the monthly average interest.

J

So you can see in fiscal year 19 and fiscal year, 2020 the average interest on that we would charge to our customers on a monthly basis, hovered around 70 000 in total, and then that's dropped by about 10 000 in fiscal year um 2021.. So you might wonder, is it a bad thing that we're not receiving interest revenue? And I would say it's actually a good thing I'd? Rather people pay on time than have to charge them interest.

J

So this is a really good reflection of our status and collections and then the graph on the right hand side is showing the balance.

J

That's referred into the collection status, so the green bars are showing how much rolls over to a collection status and the blue bars are reflecting. How much is actually collected against that. So you can see. Each group of bars represents a year so for the 2017 through 2020, we are hovering around 80 to 85. The highest was 87 in 2020.

J

That was, the um 2020 was one of the first years that roxanna was working with this team, so made a big difference in that we were starting to increase our percent collected, but you can see in 2021 two good things. The total dollars referred is lower, so we're putting more we're putting less into collections, but we are collecting more on those accounts that are being referred, so we're just over 101 percent for the year.

J

So that's really outstanding, so we're starting to dig into some of that past due debt that we've had, and one last um slide to talk about here last outcome. So comparing our receivable balance. So, at the end of each month we have a balance: that's uh receivable, um which means customers still owe us money which that makes sense. It takes time for people to pay, but it's a good measure of how we're doing so in 2020 for watering oil and solid waste.

J

The monthly receivable balance at the end of august was 3.7 million for water renewal and for solid waste. It was 3.4 million. If you look at the comparisons for fiscal year, 2021 water renewal is 2.8 million and solid waste is just shy of 2.7 million, so a reduction in water renewal, almost a million dollars and for solid waste, almost 750 000. So that's really outstanding. It shows that we're really starting to collect on those past two balances and keeping people that are rolling into an early collection state out of collections.

J

So I have good news to report to our auditors this year, which is really exciting. So. Lastly, then, just summing up, our newer collection processes are resulting in really positive outcomes. We have less in collection, more dollars collected and a reduction in receivables. So what are we doing next? Just in this collections, our utility billing team we're focusing on a quality assurance program. We figure that, if we're making less mistakes on our accounts and doing a better job of maintaining our different accounts, that also will improve our collectibility reducing our call times.

J

We've implemented a new process. Recently, our move-in move out process is could be very time. Consuming calls could take up to eight or ten minutes on those and so roxanna implemented a new process where we touch those calls once the customers used to have to call in multiple times to make that process happen, they call one time we store the information on their move date and whatnot, and we confirm the information we have one customer service rep that processes them all reduces our errors.

J

So it's a huge improvement in our process and we're always seeing reductions in those call times as well, and so that goes to the last bullet there of um working towards a one call resolution on all of our calls. So stanford questions. If there are any awesome.

A

Great work, thank you. uh Any questions or comments from the commission cheering.

I

F

I think someone else was speaking up.

F

B

Okay, go ahead.

F

um When you mentioned the, is it 2 630 new uh customers? Basically, how does that compare to was that that's in one year, that was a one year number was that that was 2020, so I was curious, a lot more people are coming to boise than that. So I was just curious what that ratio is like to.

J

That, commissioner, that's a really interesting question and I don't have an answer for you right now. So I'll get you an answer. Is that okay, oh.

F

Yeah, absolutely it's still a great number good job.

J

I should have put a percentage of what that compares to of our total auto pay. So I'll I'll get an answer for you on that. Well,.

F

I'm thinking too there's a lot of people that are just moving within boise as well. So I don't know if that takes into account too. Are they really virtually brand new to boise so I'll.

J

Get you a few additional okay numbers thanks.

A

Awesome. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the commission.

I

Chair for that.

A

Yes, commissioner, morgan.

I

um I had a question that was regarding so low-income folks are currently receiving funding through other sources at the moment, once that funding is withdrawn, are there any steps that are being taken to make sure that those individuals and families are being able to have supports? Should they fall behind on payments.

J

Chair gravatt member morgan, that's a really good lead into my next presentation. So maybe, if you'll hold that thought um I'll see. If I answer something that question in the next presentation, if that's okay, a step ahead, good question to lead into the next one.

A

Any other questions or comments before we talk about the affordability programs.

K

A

F

Commissioner ellis thank you is um also connected to commissioner morgan, so when they're on that call well first, I was wondering: what is the threshold? Is it when it's one month? When does the outbound call process? That first step in your collection tools is how far out does it go? And then I have another question.

J

Commissioner, chair grat and commission member alice so accounts roll into collection status. If it's a residential account, it's 60 days past due okay, so it's kind of goes one billing cycle and then we see if and if they're, if they haven't paid at all, then we start doing that. Outbound call so we'll send them a letter and start categorizing based on different types of accounts. So if it's an owner account or a tenant account.

B

J

If it's a commercial account or whatever, so we have kind of buckets so to speak, where and we assign those to different collectors and create a call list for them to start making. Those outbound calls.

F

And then um the one? The second question has to do more with what commissioner morgan said. So, when they're, um when they're on that phone call and they're trying to work with them, is there um crossover with other services, not the necessarily to help them pay? But is this something that's integrated into the city kind of a flag for things that may came up in the call of being able to be referred to other services and things that are available to them? That could be related to why they're not unable to pay.

J

Chair gervat, commission member ellis we're trying to work on that so that I think that's one of the goals of our affordability program and you'll see that as one of our slides in the next presentation we're trying to because other utilities also have a qualification process for an affordability program, or so a person that wants needs to qualify for those often has to go to idaho power.

J

Suez city of boise or you know, qualifying for their rents and so they're going to multiple places to try and qualify. And we would like to work with those partners so that we're streamlining the process so that they can qualify in one place and then that information is shared out. So that is in the next presentation as well.

F

Thank you thanks.

A

Awesome great conversation uh anything else before we dive into the next section.

A

All right, let's move forward.

F

J

Right switch, my notes around just in case.

J

All right so, um commissioner, gravatt and commission members, this is a presentation for affordability programs. So I want to acknowledge several people on this one as well will gel is our energy program manager and jake merton is our regulatory compliance coordinator. They did quite a bit of research for haley and respect to this, um uh the detail and the background behind this. So this is not my work by any means.

J

It's a team effort here and haley did quite a lot of work on this and we were going to jointly present and um I'm going to cover, instead of that, so um she's letting me cover a couple of the slides there. So I appreciate that and hopefully I'll cover them in decent detail, so um so we'll get started here.

J

So for the city of boise, we have a couple of programs for affordability, so this is still related to our utility billing programs. These are programs that our collectors or utility billing agents might utilize when they're trying to collect a pass-through account or qualify a customer that is having a difficult time paying their utility bill. So the first one is a hardship discount.

J

So this may happen if a customer meets an income guideline which, right now the criteria is extremely low. Income category on the cdbg block, grant guidelines and the customer must have to reapply annually and if they meet the guidelines, they can receive a 30 discount on their monthly bill right now we have 126 people or households participating, not a lot of participation. So we'll talk more about that here in a minute and then the emergency assistance program is a once per year, credit of a hundred dollars.

J

This is funded by donations to our program, I'll, explain the donations in them in a minute as well. This program is currently administered by eleda. So if someone, if one of our agents on the phone is hearing that someone's having a really tough time, they need just a little bit of assistance to bridge the gap. They'll refer them over to el aida.

J

Elena will come consider that person's financial situation and determine if they qualify and that the hundred dollar credit will help them later lets us know, and we apply the hundred dollar credit to their um account.

J

Our team is not doing any of that evaluation, so we're letting that third party make that um determination for us, which is really effective. In the last year, we've had 66 recipients have that emergency bill credit.

J

A couple, other programs that we are programs and processes that we do. We allow payment programs for customers that are past due. We generally require a third of the bill or the balance pass due to be considered a down payment, and then we allow a payment plan to make up that difference and while keeping their current bill current and then a water leak adjustment, we do an annual water update. So we receive water usage information from suez and we have out analyze that and do we apply a water update once a year.

J

We haven't done it the last two years because of cova. Normally it's done in, let's see, may and june, and so updates the customers water usage- that's applied for their billing for the next calendar year after that, so we can see from that. If the water usage is higher one year to the next, we'll send them a letter notifying them that they may have a water leak. The customer has likely already also gotten a letter from suez saying the same thing.

J

So there's a couple ways they may be notified of that they may have a water leak. They can, let us know if they've repaired, a water leak and we'll make a usage adjustment accordingly, so that their bill can be lower going forward and then the last thing on that is a roundup program for donations. So this is a way for people that are able to pay their bill to help those who cannot so they can round up their bill or just write in a dollar amount.

J

They can add five or ten dollars if they want to to their payment, and we set that aside to fund um the emergency assistance program and we're hoping to publicize that a little bit more. So we can fund some of our other program ideas that we have.

J

There are a couple other programs within the city and we're funding an energy and water efficiency, a couple programs for vulnerable populations, so the first one is in partnership with the weatherization assistance program and the second one is with housing: community development, it's a single family, home energy and water audit, so it helps them with efficiency improvements in their home.

J

So these two programs are great partner programs for us to let our customers know about, because in turn it can help them reduce their utility bill and make it easier for them to pay their utility bill as well.

J

I mentioned this program in the last presentation that this is the or emergency rental assistance program it's administered by boise city ada, county housing authority helps renters pay for rent and utilities if they qualify, they have to meet the income guideline, which is 80 percent of area median income, and it can provide up to 12 months of assistance for them if they qualify.

J

Right now, that program has been really effective to date, I'm not sure when it started. I should have looked at that and but through september 16th, just over 2 000 households have been served and 12.6 million dollars has been provided and uh from the statistics that I saw about. Two-Thirds of that has been applied in the boise area and the rest is in general ada county, um and I have another note on that. The majority of that goes to rent for boise city.

J

The rental portion was about 8 million and utilities were just shy of 400 000. So it's a very effective program. I think that didn't I hear that our program is one of the top programs in the nation.

J

Mary's nodding yes, so it's a really effective program and helping a lot of people so for our programs, some options that we want to pursue expansion on. So, first of all, as you saw in my first slides, our existing programs are not helping a lot of people, so we want to publicize our existing programs so that we can expand and help more households that are in need. We could also expand our hardship, eligibility.

J

So I'll talk a little bit more about that and then we could potentially add an additional piece to our current emergency assistance program, which would be a utility deposit assistance, so talk about each of these individually, so the first one, our hardship program.

J

I already mentioned that it's for extremely low income, so if you're, that you have to be um 30 of the area, median income or below- and so our estimation of that right now for owner-occupied households, it's a it's difficult to know, owner-occupied antenna occupied because some owners own a home and may have a tenant so owner occupied homes is our estimation here. There's about 3 350 owner occupied homes that could qualify for this and we would assume, like a 30 participation of that. So we would be looking to increase our total number by.

J

Did I write it down? I didn't write it down and my math is not good. I think it's just over a thousand people, if I'm doing my math correctly, um so we're hoping to add to that program. So we would have about 1200 people enrolled in the program in total, considering our existing enrollment.

J

So we would also like to publicize, as I mentioned earlier, roundup donation program, so that that would generate some additional funding to apply to our other affordability programs. So to do some of that publication or public publicity outreach for those programs, we do social media some bill inserts. The city also does a newsletter that's published and distributed so we'd like to provide information there and then, as we move forward and expand the eligibility more, we would do a broader enrollment campaign for that.

J

So I'll talk about that in the next slide, so expanding the hardship, eligibility. uh The bottom shows uh the table. There shows kind of the guidelines, the break points and the income guidelines, so low income, very low income and extremely low income. So we would propose that we would bump up from extremely low income to include the very low income, so that would be capturing households that are within 60 percent of the area median income.

J

So we estimate that that would um in that very low income category, there's 5 500 owner occupied properties that could be eligible. There would be potentially some additional tenant households as well. That could be considered. We don't have a good count of that, so our estimations based on owner occupied and assuming that 30 participation.

J

So um we would be hoping to add about 1600 additional households to our program with that, so this alternative would cost a bit more to implement. So we are going to pause on this one a bit, but it's definitely something we've been considering for quite a while. So we need to explore other funding sources to be able to do this so and we've talked a bit about where you know that those funding sources might be.

J

We could consider creating a fund from corporate donations so using asking our corporate partners to help us with that, potentially on getting funding from like united way or some other area agency like that or even a potential purpose uh repurposing of general fund dollars, because this could be considered like a public good or benefiting the public purpose. So we would have to ask for council approval, of course, to do that, so some different alternatives that we're considering, and so we will be back if we are able to expand this one.

J

Lastly, then here is deposit assistance, so, within our emergency assistance program that 100 for an annual bill, we could potentially add in also a deposit assistance program. So we hear a lot from janice and other agencies that help people that are getting into housing. That deposits for rentals are very are a difficult hurdle for them to clear. So if we can help eliminate that hurdle, then they are more able to get into the housing and move on and and be successful there.

J

So what we would consider- and the estimate that we had done was based on covering the full deposit to help more customers. We could potentially cover half of the deposit and allow them to make payments for the remaining half do like a series of two payments so that they can make that remaining difference. So again, we are assuming a 30 participation in that, so that would give us about 660 homes or households that we would be assisting there. So we do have our assistance fund, that's funded by donations.

J

So we've discussed that for this program we could utilize that fund until it runs out- and you continually ask you know- for more donations through the roundup program, so just kind of trying to build up that fund and then use it, and so it may ebb and flow as far as available availability.

J

But we would continue publicizing so that we could build a roundup up and just have kind of a circular program. There.

J

So other near-term temporary program considerations so with the coveted relief funds there's.

J

The latest funding is the american relief program, and so we would be considering doing a couple of programs if we can secure funding there. So one would be customer bill assistance, so this would be looking at our customers that are in collections if they could show that their um past due balance is due to a financial hardship due to cobit, then we could potentially give them some financial assistance to help them get clear out that past due balance and bring them back into good standing with their bill and the other would be leaked attention.

J

I can't even say that sorry, leak, detection and repair assistance so oftentimes we see people that are not able to financially repair a leak, and so their utility bills are very high and there are a handful of people that we contact every year and they just do not have the financial means. So not only are they not fixing their leak and they have an issue within their home, but they also are getting very behind on their their utility bills.

J

So if we could help them correct the leak, then they you know could potentially make up that difference and become current again on their utility bills. So it could be a really great program, so we're asking um and working with the mayor's office on what the city's allocation of the um erp funds are to see if we could potentially allocate to these two programs um and what the reporting requirements would be for the city, because we'd have to report back to the um federal government on how the funds were used.

J

So we'll we're not quite sure, but we're definitely working on that. So that's what I mentioned here and then last but not least, future programs to implement there's a handful of alternatives. Here we already mentioned the streamlining the application process. That was commissioner ellis's question.

J

The community outreach to build a program foundation, so that would be asking our community partners to help fund a foundation or a fund that could be a seed money so that we could just have a tool for us to be able to utilize, as we help our customers and expanding conservation and energy efficiency programs, because those in turn will help our customers to keep their bills low and evaluating those future funding sources.

J

So, as I mentioned, there's a few different areas where we need to see if we can capitalize on sources that are available and meet the requirements, so that we could add that to our programs for implementation.

J

So I think that's my last slide.

J

Yeah so questions or.

A

Comments awesome, thank you again and I will open up for questions or comments from the commission.

L

I grab to have a question and maybe it's more of a clarification.

F

L

If this is a stupid question, but a lot of the terminology was used was owner occupied homes, I'm assuming it's not just restricted to homeowners but renters as well, because I would imagine a lot of the really low income folks aren't able to own.

J

Commissioner or chair gravatt, commission member colette, yes you're, absolutely correct the program would be available for both owner occupied or tenant occupied. When we were doing our estimation, it statistics are available for owner-occupied um properties, it's a little more difficult to separate out owner occupied and tenant occupied from the numbers.

J

So we focus on owner occupied and then assume that that's gives us a baseline of what. um How many we could assume for a participation level, but both would be eligible for the program.

L

And then the second question is there, you know in terms of outreach, um are you in communication with ihfa at all.

J

um Sorry about that, could you repeat the question.

L

I was just saying in terms of um you know, communication and outreach: do you partner with idaho housing and finance? You know when they do. I know a project. We're working on um is low-cost apartments, um and so they would seem like they would be a good partner to work with. So I just wondered if you had any outreach in place with them already.

J

Chair commission, member colette, yes, the first program that we um worked with them on was the cares, act funding and so they administered that program and we refer our customers to that program. So I know across the city, our housing team is also working with ihfa, boise city housing authority um and others, I'm trying to think of some of the other agencies, but we are partnering with other agencies on affordable housing and whatnot with the mayor's initiatives.

J

Thank you. Thanks.

F

Chris morales hi, thank you. I was wondering when you mentioned the 126 recipients of the hardship discount. Are there ever uh instances when it's denied is it? Is it pretty much they apply and they get it because the information is correct and chair.

J

Gravatt, commission member ellis there are instances where it is denied and right now I think that when it's denied it's more because of the income qual like the level of income guideline, they may be above that extremely low level, so they still have a financial need, but there may they may fall into the next category up and that's not that doesn't meet our current program guideline. So we have to deny their application, even though we know they have a financial need.

F

And do they know what the threshold is ahead of time? Yes, but they're still applying anyway, okay, and um I was going to tell you that I did not know about the roundup, so I don't know if I was blind when I opened my mailer or what, but I'm definitely going to pay attention to that now. So I think that's a really great idea that works for me when I'm at the grocery store, I look and see who is going to be the recipient and it's helpful. I think that's a great idea and then.

J

Commissioner or chair gravatt, commission member, so it's on your utility bill. So when you look at the coupon on your utility bill, there's a line where you can round up, and so you just fill in the roundup amount and pay. So it's on your boise city utility bill.

F

Okay, so I'm set up for automatic payment, but I do look. I actually like to nerd out and look at my bill, and I haven't noticed that so I'm definitely going to pay attention. I'm going to talk, tell others about it too, right um one last thing, and that will let someone else have a turn. Is I'm wondering um when you're looking at other opportunities for fundraising in this area, I would think that the automatic customers automatic payment point would be prime for this.

F

Seeing that it I really appreciate being able to have that service and um just adding on even an extra dollar or something would be fantastic and then also, I wonder if there's an opportunity, is it the month of may when we have idaho giving?

F

I just wonder if there's any crossover opportunities and also experience that I had as an employee with a corporate company is during those holiday areas. There usually was this link that we could go to and there was a plethora of non-profits and opportunities of where we could give um every year and so making it easy having it be, making sure it's available in idaho, giving I mean just making it really easy for those people, especially with the automatic payment people, are some really good opportunities to explore. I think.

J

Chair grave commission member, thank you. Those are some really great ideas and we will explore them. I appreciate that.

A

Other questions or comments from the commission.

H

uh Chairperson gravatt, yes,.

A

Councilmember halliburton.

H

Sorry, I just had a dog start barking, the same time that I pressed unmute.

H

um I know that uh I know that one of the some of the guidance that we're seeing from the arpa funds talks about subgranting to other organizations. So I was excited to hear that we were maybe talking about partnering with janus and exploring some of those things. I'm wondering if there's other organizations that we're reaching out to and kind of considering that might be good partners for some of those for some of those efforts.

J

Chair gravatt, council member holly burton um we need to consider some of those other programs as well and we are looking at what other programs are available so right now we focus mainly on the one programs that are available through the cobit relief act, because there are agencies that are already prepped to administer those programs.

J

So as we look to streamline our processes and hopefully get things down to one place for people to apply for different aid, we can consider those other agencies as well. Maybe that will help streamline their processes as well, so we'll keep working that one.

H

Yeah absolutely and that's that's great, just kind of follow up there. I think the what we learned from the cares act- and I know that you've heard this before- is that we we effectively missed out on some of the folks who needed our support the most and a lot of times.

H

That was because cities were administrating, their own funds or states were administering their own funds, rather than partnering with the organizations who are really probably most in touch with the people who are experiencing a lot of these issues, and it sounds like you've already identified some of those those other orgs, and so I'm I'm excited to see. You know what other partners that are out there, that can kind of better inform us on how to really use these funds.

J

Chair grava, council member we've witnessed exactly what you are describing that and with our emergency assistance program. Elainda knows better what what people's needs are. So that's a been really effective. Even though we have a few number of people that are participating, they have a great way of evaluating those people for their eligibility, and we know that there are other agencies as well. That can do that evaluation for us, so I think we will pivot to that type of model going forward. So I appreciate the suggestion.

J

A

Awesome. Thank you. I am really excited about the conversation around uh expanding eligibility to the uh very low income guidelines. uh I don't know if the other commissioners have looked at the income guidelines that are linked in the handout, but that raises the eligibility that would raise the eligibility uh for a single person making uh 31 000 just over 31 000 uh from uh just over half that I think that would reach some people who are in desperate need of of assistance.

A

uh So I would very much like to see that that those funds expanded- uh and I do have a question about um how do folks demonstrate financial hardship? How many loops do they have to jump through to demonstrate their eligibility for these funds currently, and what are we looking at to reduce the hoops that people have to jump through to to demonstrate their need? Chair.

J

Grava, currently, our program requires some form of income verification, so if they can show their latest taxes or social security benefits or medicaid benefits or medicare benefits, something that will show that us what their income level is so- and it's been pointed out to us- um will and jake that we're doing this research pointed out to us that often takes time for someone to maybe have a challenge for a year because they have to fill out their tax form or whatever before they may qualify for our program.

J

So there are other options that we can look at. You know validating based on current pay, or things like that, so we need to explore different alternatives or other ways that um other agencies are qualifying. People and it's, oh.

C

Yeah go ahead uh trigger, but I just wanted to add on to that answer was in a lot of lines of what council member hallie burton was mentioning. We had a meeting with uh the other utilities.

C

It was pre-coveted um without power, intermountain gas and suez to have the conversation about what are the kind of things that we can do with our affordability programs, to make it easier for folks to get access to the funds, and one of the things that jumped out to us that we'd like to keep working on or start working on, is the application process so that, if you, if you needed assistance from the water renewal fund chances, are you need assistance from idaho power and chances?

C

Are you need a system you can see where that's going so? Could there be just one clearinghouse that takes the application and then further? Could that application be good for two to three years instead of having to renew it annually, because, typically, we don't see folks getting out of out of poverty overnight by any stretch. So those are the kind of things that heather and haley and the team are working on that we'll be coming back to you all with ideas on clearinghouse type concepts. So we can make this easier for the applicants.

A

Awesome, that's really exciting to hear and I look forward to future updates on the progress. uh Any other questions or comments from the commission.

A

All right well hearing, none! Thank you so much for this update. It's very exciting work that you're doing. Thank you appreciate it, and that brings us to the next item on our agenda, which is an update on the climate action roadmap and initiatives.

A

I'll turn it over to you.

C

Cherokee van, I will uh introduce steve hubbell our climate action manager. We we got the climate action roadmap approved by city council back in, I want to say springtime april timeframe, may time frame june. um Thank you steve, so it approved in june, and and we had some things kind of irons in the fire as it was being approved, but uh we just wanted to share with some updates. We haven't. We haven't been resting on our laurels.

C

We've been working the program working the roadmap, so she's going to give you some updates on some uh items that we've been up to.

G

Thanks steve good evening, chair and commissioners, it's it's nice to see everyone just a quick uh outline of the presentation there, uh yeah computer, please thank you um and then like the other items. Just uh this is for information. Only no no motion on this.

G

uh This evening, we were with the commission to provide an update on the roadmap in march, which was probably about two-thirds of the way through our process, and then pace really picked up rapidly between march and city council's adoption in june, and we didn't have a chance to uh come back and close the loop on the content that ended up there. So that'll be the first part of the presentation. You've seen a little bit of this before some of it. You haven't, but just wanted to kind of blend it all together for everybody's reference.

G

But our background in developing the climate action roadmap was to put together an implementation, focused document that brings together the many areas of climate action in in numerous city programs, also to use the road map to identify climate action goals which have been pretty highly publicized. So I'm sure I'm sure you all are familiar with those but we'll touch on those in just a second and then to get down into the detail with what we're referring to as opportunities and actions.

G

So what's the real to-do list that we need to go through um to execute the necessary work to make progress towards our goals and then finally, to acknowledge that this space is changing almost daily and we need a living evolving document that we can update based on changing needs in technology. Changing needs from the community and and with new policy that comes along.

G

So I'm going to walk through quickly the key elements of the roadmap and they're going to animate in on the screen here, but first we're, starting with vision and goals, uh building on the city's vision to create a city for everyone and then identifying three specific goals around climate action, two that are focused on mitigation or reducing uh greenhouse gas emissions in the middle. So for our municipal operations to be carbon neutral by 2035 and then the same for the community by 2050 and then on the right.

G

A goal that's more focused around adaptation and resilience. We know the community is going to face some impacts, regardless of whatever progress, we're able to make in in mitigation. So we need to be prepared there as well and generally as we look to other cities, climate action plans, we saw that sort of two-phased approach and felt it was appropriate for ours as well.

G

From there. We identified three guiding principles around equity, health and economy and you'll see how those blend into the road map on subsequent slides. Here, as I go forward, and then from there we mapped out seven priorities and in many ways these align with a number of the existing city programs that are already occurring. uh Obviously, this group hears a lot about the water programs. Those are there, but also energy, and then in areas like transportation, which have been historically operated in other departments outside of public works materials management. Is there that's one?

G

You all are very familiar with food systems, kind of an emerging area in climate action planning, but one that's important. We anticipate. Maybe the city's involvement in that area could grow over time. A natural environment here primarily tying to parks and open space and then right smack in the middle innovation and engagement as you'll see on a subsequent slide.

G

There are solutions that we still need to solve this problem, and so we felt it was important to include some content there and obviously around engagement. We need the community's help uh to get there, so that was a key part of that priority as well.

G

I touched on it briefly, but within all those seven priorities we build into opportunities and then actions. Those are the specific work areas and we'll show you an example of that here in just a minute. So now I'm going to break down all these four areas in detail on the subsequent slides.

G

So first, our community goal is to be carbon neutral by 2050, and we hear the terms carbon neutral net, zero, zero emissions, they're thrown around a lot, particularly here about and hearing about them, a lot in the corporate space right now. So what do they mean to us, and the way I think of it is- is a tiered approach. What we're going to do in the near term is work to reduce our emissions. That's the city's first priority.

G

What we may do, subsequent to that is work to sequester emissions. So can we have programs that help remove carbon from the atmosphere and a tangible example might be tree? Planting or urban forestry restoration, another one might be regenerative agriculture and then, last but not least after exhausting all those options, we may have to look at offsets so looking at ways to reduce emissions through offsetting them, but I think we're pretty far ways out from that um coming into the conversation and then on.

G

The left is a picture of our greenhouse gas emissions inventory and that helps us how we, uh how we quantify the impacts and changes over time um from this work and then, ultimately, probably the most important words on the slide or the are this idea of community in action.

G

This is a plan for the community and we need the support of residents and businesses to get there. Certainly, the city has great opportunity to lead in our facilities, but it'll take a combined and collaborative effort to uh to get there.

G

This we've entitled this slide path to carbon neutral, and this is one of the analyses that we did during the development of the roadmap and there's a lot of content here. um But the the key message that you see in this slide is that it takes a number of different actions to get to carbon neutral, which are represented by the the colors on the uh bottom half of the slide there.

G

It also anticipates quite a bit of unknown in our pathway to get there, that's demonstrated by the dark gray that kind of grows from left to right across the slide and the graph there, and so that goes back to that concept of innovation. We know we're going to need some solutions that don't exist currently to help us get there and we we built that model in and then I think. Last but not least, probably most importantly, is you know we didn't just make up uh goals or numbers.

G

We did do as you can see here pretty methodical process to try to determine that they were ambitious, achievable, but also in some ways challenging as well.

G

Just scaling down this is a duplicate of the previous slide, but for the city government operations, so you can see a similar pie chart with a much smaller number. This helps us identify how we moved to that carbon neutral path for city facilities.

G

More specifically, probably of interest to this group, you can see the big portion attributed to water renewal, that's primarily uh caused by the energy generation that it takes to run those facilities, and then you can see some of the other areas.

G

The street light program is in public works um and some others there and- and this gives us our opportunity- to really lead by example, to get out in front to do some things here in our organization, uh hopefully have positive lessons to share with the community, but maybe in some instances, things that don't work so good and we can share those as well.

G

And I know some in this group are aware that the city did have clean electricity goals prior to carbon, neutral goals, and we've been asked what happened to those clean electricity goals? Did they go away? Did they disappear?

G

Definitely not what they do is they become milestones on this path to carbon neutrality, and you can see how they line up here in the graphic that's on the screen. There.

G

Just touching quickly on the guiding principles, we did work through this a little bit in our last work session in march, but thinking about equity, health and economy and really trying to translate that into the everyday talking points around people, health and jobs and then throughout the roadmap. Trying to integrate uh elements of these things into the actions that are there and we'll show you how that works from a example. Standpoint here in just a second.

G

Forgive the amount of content here, but this builds out the seven priorities that were on the earlier slide and then the 23 opportunities that are associated with all those areas and again this is where we get down into the to-do list. What are the specific programs and actions that need to be done to move us towards carbon neutral across these many different and distinct areas of work throughout the city and then I'll? Just give you a work through again some animations here and show you a tangible example of how this works.

G

So this is opportunity number five distributed renewable energy and in simple terms that means rooftop, solar or renewable installations at homes and businesses, and so within each of those opportunities. We have a target this one's hap. This one happens to be quantitative, something that we can measure. There are others that are a little more qualitative or action focused, but this sets the expectation of what needs to happen uh in that area and then from there we did an analysis to try to calculate the benefits and that will help us, while all these areas are important.

G

That'll help us to prioritize um as we as we work through near-term and long-term actions, which are shown here in rough terms near term, is about one to three years and then long-term is beyond that.

G

And then you can see there highlighted inside the red box. The one at the top is an action, that's related to improving opportunities for energy storage, and that would be something that ties back to that principle of economy so again bringing those guiding principles down to into the actions, and then the one at the bottom is talking about community solar installations.

G

That would benefit community members who might not have access and there's an example of how this would tie back to equity or to people.

G

The arrows demonstrate actions that are underway already, so any of you who've looked through the road map. It's a big document, there's a lot of content in there, but there are many things that are already happening throughout all these city programs. And then one thing that steve wanted me to point out and share to you is in that last box that came up.

G

That's our metric for how much solar we want to see installed in the city and that number came out of boise's energy future when we developed that plan and we're really excited to share that we're doing some analysis on our first two years of progress and that number thanks to the participation of our residents and businesses is already being surpassed. So we're really excited to see that.

G

I'm going to run quickly through some current. I know that was a lot of content there, but I'm going to run quickly through some of the current and upcoming initiatives. These are all pretty visually oriented, slides and should go pretty quick and then we can come back and take any questions that you all have, but a couple things that we're working on.

G

Currently, um those are those of you who were around when we worked through boise's energy future, as you recall that focus pretty significantly on how we transition electricity to clean sources, and it touched at a high level what we do in our thermal. So that's our heating, which is primarily fueled by natural gas in our geothermal system, and the way that was left is that the staff would come back and develop a specific plan to try to address that transition in the community.

G

So we're working on that currently calling it the thermal plan and anticipate wrapping that up uh by the end of the year and suspect, we'll have some more information to share as we get closer uh to completion just uh to bring in the picture.

G

Those are air source, heat pumps, so those are a new technology that is coming along in heating that helps us get to all electric buildings, and that picture was taken about a block from here in a new apartment building, so excited to see some of that technology deploying also developing a municipal climate roadmap. So I walked through the community roadmap that was very broad, very specific to how we want to accomplish goals as a community.

G

But you saw the earlier slide with our municipal emissions inventory and we need a pretty detailed plan within our organization to help us with decision making around transitioning electric vehicles, improving efficiency in buildings. Looking at buildings to go all electric where that might make sense- and this document will help us do that as well and also on a completion time frame of approximately the end of the year.

G

We've been talking to idaho power for a couple years now about more opportunities for customers to purchase clean energy, both the city and then potentially other industrial, commercial and residential customers excited to see those conversations continue and anticipate some next steps coming along soon. That we think will be pretty exciting for the community.

G

I know some I know at least chair was at the grand opening commissioner ellis. I think you may have been as well, but obviously super exciting to see these electric refuse trucks out on the road. I was riding my bike the other morning and I felt the trash truck coming behind me and it was really quiet and it was a little eerie at first, but uh I know we're super excited to have them here and excited for for more to come across the course of the coming months, also in regular electric vehicles.

G

That's a new charging station that was installed down at the down in the basement at city hall, anticipating the arrival of eight new nissan leafs and those will help replace some of the combustion engine vehicles that we have currently in the motor pool and those are general use vehicles that folks, like the staff that you see here, who don't drive every day, would take out if they needed to, and our maintenance folks have been really pleased with the evs that we have currently and think these are going to be.

G

A great addition to the fleet touched a little bit on building electrification.

G

The city opened uh an all-electric uh police, mic police, downtown police micro district station. That is an all-electric building to try to pilot some of those new technologies in heating and see how that does and then. In addition, following that up, we did an analysis of 10 additional buildings to see what it would take to convert them uh to all electric as well, and we'll look at expanding that pilot phase from the micro district to a couple more of those buildings in 2022.

G

And then finally wanted to close with the youth climate action council and some of their work here you can see this is their effort to speak to climate stories in this instance through art and poetry, and uh it's been really exciting and inspiring to work with those uh the students in that group for the for the little bit of chance that I've had to do so, and I know we're really excited to see them wrap up their work over the next couple months. Here.

G

Probably a few other things going um that weren't mentioned, but probably good to pause for now and see if you have questions and and discussion. Thank you.

A

Yes, thank you exciting work, uh any questions or comments from the commission.

A

Not hearing much, I think we are just flabbergasted at how great a job you all are doing and we're excited to see what's coming next.

A

Well, I do commend you on all of the hard work that you've put in. uh I look forward to all of the next steps and please do keep us in the loop if there's anything that the commission can do to advise or assist in any of the efforts, I'm sure that we are more than enthusiastic about uh doing what we can.

A

E

A

What was that? Oh, yes, commissioner,.

I

Crowley we do have one hand.

B

Oh, thank you kathy, uh mr chair. I just wanted to um echo your comments. I I think the presentations uh that all of them today were really very well done very relevant and full of meaningful content.

B

I was wondering if it'd be possible, to get copies of john's presentation, water supply and drought issues, and also I'd like a copy of steve's presentation on the climate action roadmap, very, very interesting material and very nicely done. Thank you.

A

Awesome, yes, I believe that we will get our hands on that fairly soon uh anything else to come before the commission, director burgos.

C

Chair cravat, thank you. uh First of all, thanks for staying sticking with us, that was a lot of um pretty uh heavy information, uh there's a lot of things going on and um a lot of big challenges and and we're trying our best to stay on top of it.

C

So thanks for your patience- and that was a lot of information and just a reminder that we do have a bond election happening in less than a month um and just to reassure the commission that we're we're starting the kind of full court press on educating the community as a reminder of staff. We can only educate, we cannot advocate for the bond, but for those folks that want more information that want to know what a yes vote means.

C

What a no vote means we are more than willing to come out and give you a talk or be available for questions. So if you have any folks that are interested, certainly reach out, let us know I've got a lot of time blocked out in my next three weeks, just to make sure that I can be available to anybody who has any questions on the bond so and then we're also being very proactive with neighborhood associations and other groups that that typically, we would reach out to to provide information.

C

So just wanted to share that with you.

A

Great thank you for that reminder. It's coming up quick, uh your.

H

A

Yes, uh council.

H

Member halliburton, just a quick question from steve on that um I know. As a council member, I do have the ability to tell people what I think that they should vote for when it comes to this bond. I believe the commissioners do as well, but staff does not. Am I correct in saying that the staff can only educate, but council members and potentially commissioners can advocate for or against it.

C

Sure, gravette, um council, member halliburton, I'm going to let our legal counsel answer that to make sure that we do not mince any words and make sure we give you the best answer possible mary. Do you mind taking that one.

K

Certainly, thank you chair, gravatt and council member hallie burton.

K

um I would concur with what you've stated and again just a reminder that, as a council member, you have the ability to state your opinion on it and then there's a little bit of a nuance with commissioners in the sense that you are not elected officials and as long as you're, not representing yourself on behalf of the city u.s commissioners may also have the ability to speak as to your opinion on the bond, but it would be in a personal capacity and not as a representative to the city of boise.

K

So hopefully that provides the clarification you were seeking. Council member.

H

Great mary- and I think that you also may have sent us a memo about that as well. I just wanted to make sure that people were aware of what some of our abilities were.

K

No certainly, I appreciate um you asking about that distinction.

A

Awesome. Thank you great clarification to have uh commissioner crowley.

B

uh Thank you, mr chair. I'd, um I'd like um to request. If, um if one is available kind of a summary of the bond issue in the election that we can use for education at a local level um and also whether or not there, somebody would be available to join us on a bba n, a board meeting next week, thursday uh 6 30 to to discuss the bond election and what it means and and.

B

Not necessarily uh express support or or get politicized about it, but at least explain it. So we just as an educational effort.

C

Check our vat um commissioner crowley: absolutely we can do that um I'll talk to natalie monroe who's. Our communications lead here in public works, while colin hickman's out on paternity leave. We will get information over to you education, information on on kind of what what a yes vote means, what a no vote means and then, if you can send me the information we will be there um next thursday to provide that educational material. Absolutely! Okay! Thank you. Steve.

A

Awesome, thank you and I believe that there is a page on the city's website as well. That has uh some information. I can drop that link in the zoom meeting chat, so we all have that before we take off. So we have something to work with in the interim.

C

Thank you chair. I blanked on that one. Thank you.

A

All right, great reminders, great conversation, uh anything else to come before the commission.

A

Just double checking, commissioner crowley. Your hand is still up just want to make sure I'm not missing you.

B

Sorry, miss jared just uh pour some habit.

A

All right well uh hearing nothing. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

B

Mr, I would so move.

A

We have a motion. Do we have a second.

F

Emotion I suck at that motion.

A

uh The motion has been made and seconded all those in favor, please indicate by saying aye hi hi any opposed the same sign hearing, none the motion carries and we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody for a great meeting. I look forward to seeing you next time. Thank.

L