REPORTS - RULE 53

Transcript (~3 min @ 5:52)

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▶ 5:58 John N. Tramontozzi: president um i do have a report of the uh water and sewer committee okay on february 24th of this year 2021 i attended the first meeting of the water and sewer committee what i learned was the following the city of mevros water usage as per the mwra for fiscal year is about 14 above the fiscal 20 to date our billing for water is up about nine percent and our billing for sewer is up about six percent. Additionally we have received the MWRA advisory reports and retail rate survey and it shows that at the end of December 2020 our water flow is up an average of 11 percent for the year. It was also noted that in December it was up 17.4 percent because of a major water leak that has now been repaired. The good news is that our wastewater flow is down because of our INI repairs and improvements, that's inflow and infiltration into our sewer

▶ 7:15 John N. Tramontozzi: system. What does all this mean? Based on the preliminary assessment from the MWRA, it looks like there will be a 425 000 increase to our assessment which in the opinion of our dpw director is a one-time increase due to the covid 19 pandemic why you may ask well it appears that water usage from mwra member communities such as boston have seen significant reduced usage Obviously, the pandemic and these commercial businesses, employees working from home, so the rates have to be adjusted, which affects residential communities like Melrose. The City Auditor reported that the Water and Sewer Stabilization Reserve funds are holding steady as well as the free cash component of the Water and Sewer Enterprise budget. And speaking of budget, we are still waiting on more data, but it is anticipated that the City Council will receive the budget around May 3rd. The water and sewer budgets are anticipated to be, quote, level funded, except for salary increases. But this will probably translate to a rate increase for the rate payers. We will see. all this time if anybody's interested in specific numbers on the uh stabilization reserve and free cash components i'd be happy to uh supply that thank you counselor what is from the calendar