ORDER-2018-184 : Water Enterprise Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2019 in the amount of Five Million, Two Hundred Nineteen Thousand, Sixteen Dollars and Sixty Nine Cents ($5,219,016.69).

Transcript (~15 min @ 2:32:45)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 2:32:26 Speaker 10: If you pay, even to renegotiate a contract and to give them back pay, I need 1.5% of that, 4.5% of that. So it's always been a guess. We've always guessed it too low. We've always had to come back. This year we're trying to address it and get ahead of it, and we hope this number holds. Or if we need any money next year, it'll be less.

▶ 2:32:47 Speaker 8: Thank you.

▶ 2:32:49 Peter D. Mortimer: Motion to accept the bottom line on this budget, Madam Chair.

▶ 2:32:52 Speaker 10: Second.

▶ 2:32:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Motion to move the bottom line may be Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Boisselle on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We'll move that forward as well. Thank you, Mr. Flavin. Thank you.

▶ 2:33:05 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: The next order before us this evening is Order 2018-184, Water Enterprise Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2019 in the amount of $5,290,060.69.

▶ 2:33:20 Speaker 8: I'm joined by Mr. Shenna and Mr. De La Russo.

▶ 2:33:42 Speaker 4: Hello again. Hello, hello. Good evening. Good evening.

▶ 2:33:50 Speaker 4: I am pleased to be here with you to discuss the proposed fiscal 2019 water and sewer budgets in conjunct with Mr. John Shenna, the Director of the Department of Public Works. i want to first extend my gratitude to the water and sewer committee for their diligent work on the fy 19 water and sewer enterprise fund budgets and i want to really commend them they did a phenomenal amount of work it was excellent work for those that had the good fortune to be there i think they would appreciate all that was done and i personally want to thank the committee under the direction of the chair john chena it's uh it is my opinion that we have clearly turned the corner

▶ 2:34:38 Speaker 4: as evidenced by the fact that our tax rate has consistently been approved without issue by the department of revenue division of local services in large part i would argue to the commitment we have made to provide for healthy fund and reserve balances Specifically, we will have reached our target for fiscal 19 of a 10% reserve fund for both enterprises with the passage of automatic order 2018-192 for 1,079.3.10 for water, bringing the water fund reserve to 613,717.90. and Aldermatic Order No. 2018-193 for $16,287.90 for SOAR, bringing the SOAR Reserve Fund to $876,658.60. First and foremost, this means the stated objectives of the Board of Aldermen and the commitment made to the Department of Revenue Division of Local Services has been reached.

▶ 2:35:58 Speaker 4: The city needs to always strive to fulfill its commitment to maintaining these reserves at 10% of respective budgets. The fiscal 2019 water volumetric rate is increasing by 1.5% over last fiscal year. and the sewer volumetric rate is not increasing at all the second year in a row. The city's determination on the type of tiered structure which best serves its constituency has paid dividends as we see revenue requirements being realized year after year and stronger positive communications building between residents and the DPW staff on water and sewer issues. That has been significant. The city has implemented in October 1st date for charging residents the new voted rates. Implementation of revised and aggressive senior and related discount programs has been completed. The city has implemented an opt-in monthly billing capability for residential and commercial customers who prefer to pay their water and sewer bills monthly rather than quarterly. We have 600 out of 8,500 accounts, or approximately 7% of the customers. We would anticipate this number growing over the next year, and residents can switch over any time now by emailing or calling the administrative office. The city, having met its reserve goals, has minimized the need to raise as much revenue each fiscal year as it had before. This has assisted in reducing future rate increases, as we have seen. The city has implemented successful IEI programs aimed at reducing lost water. Over time, this will and has assisted the city in reducing future rate increases from the MWRA.

▶ 2:38:20 Speaker 4: The near completion of the citywide meter replacement project, new meters offer leak detection, better customer service, and the ability to offer monthly billing. combined indirect costs for both water and sewer enterprises is at 10.94 percent approximately 11 the lowest percentage in five fiscal years the city has added two melrose citizens to the water and sewer committee the city has reinstated the second meter program and it is here to stay As far as moving forward, the City needs to proceed with the water and source service programs currently underway. This is no time to change course. We have witnessed a sharp decline in customers that are not satisfied with the services or fully understanding of the billing processes, partly due to staying consistent with our rate and billing structure over the past several years. The City needs to always fulfill its commitment to building and maintaining reserves. The City needs to continue to provide the Department of Revenue Division of Local Services with the confidence that we have met the financial obligations of both funds and seek to realize continued tax rate approvals for the years ahead. city needs to continue to stabilize rate increases from year to year and the city continuously has to look for opportunities to reduce overall costs and like proportion with reduced demands for services in addition it would be beneficial to the city to seek legislative support to initiate efforts at providing financial relief to mwira communities through the state budget process thank you thank

▶ 2:40:25 Speaker 3: you i just want to echo our auditors comments and thank the water and sewer committee especially ken who's here tonight and mary whirler they were new additions to the committee this year

▶ 2:40:38 Speaker 3: appointed to the chamber of the almanac board of aldermen and they were very engaged and very

▶ 2:40:45 Speaker 3: interactive and with discussion and they were quick learners and I appreciated what they what they brought to the discussions and I just want to peel it

▶ 2:40:53 Speaker 2: back one more layer I want to thank and acknowledge Lisa Patterson our water

▶ 2:40:58 Speaker 3: and sewer billing administrator and Donna Cardillo and the billing staff they did a tremendous job this year we instituted monthly billing we were

▶ 2:41:09 Speaker 2: still aggressive with our meter replacements but more importantly we

▶ 2:41:14 Speaker 3: started to we started to maximize the technology that the new meters bring where we will reaching out to people where we've that we felt had leaks and

▶ 2:41:24 Speaker 2: that's something new that we did we started sending letters out to them and

▶ 2:41:27 Speaker 3: they were really engaged in and making those changes and trying to help people

▶ 2:41:33 Speaker 2: so that went well discussion has been going on for several months concerning

▶ 2:41:37 Speaker 3: these this package of orders that that are before you they we as a committee

▶ 2:41:45 Speaker 3: conduct those discussions openly in a combined group effort package it's before you was unanimously supported by all the members of our committee one

▶ 2:41:56 Speaker 2: component of the budget is the MW IRA assessment and I forwarded a lot of

▶ 2:42:05 Speaker 3: information over the last 24 hours but a section of it is MWRA consumption our consumption in Melrose for water increased 2.2% and our consumption for sewer increased 2.9% so combined it was a 2.7% increase if you look at water and

▶ 2:42:20 Speaker 3: sewer assessment together and what we delivered what we have to pay to the

▶ 2:42:27 Speaker 2: MWRA similar communities as us that are 100% dependent on both water and sewer

▶ 2:42:33 Speaker 3: with the MWRA so our average increases of four point two and three point nine

▶ 2:42:44 Speaker 3: percent so overall we were below average below the average increase in both water and sewer and similar MWRA communities overall our consumption what we consumed

▶ 2:42:57 Speaker 2: from the MWRA was less in 2017 than 2016 we read our consumption was down 8% in

▶ 2:43:02 Speaker 3: what we brought in and I think we saw about a 7.7 percent reduction in what we

▶ 2:43:13 Speaker 3: build out to residents so people did consume less water and they correlate from what we brought in and what we build out that was good to see the

▶ 2:43:27 Speaker 3: package of orders that are before you they adequately staff and fund all of

▶ 2:43:31 Speaker 2: our department our material expenses our contractual expenses but more

▶ 2:43:39 Speaker 2: importantly the package addresses three things that are important to the

▶ 2:43:43 Speaker 3: administration and I know that have always been important to the board of aldermen and that's affordability stability of funds and stabilities of

▶ 2:43:51 Speaker 2: increases also in the package that I provided I went back to fiscal 2012 to

▶ 2:43:56 Speaker 3: give a brief history of the rate increases this is something we did with

▶ 2:44:05 Speaker 2: the water and sewer committee number one to give the new committee members some background but also to reflect back on what what it was like and what it is

▶ 2:44:16 Speaker 3: today and how the goal today is to maintain stability and keep that increase as low as possible and I think we were able to do that and that history

▶ 2:44:25 Speaker 3: and that chart shows that the days of increases nearly 7% 5% behind us and

▶ 2:44:37 Speaker 2: hopefully the behind us for a while I mentioned meter replacements so at this

▶ 2:44:42 Speaker 3: point last year we were substantially complete but substantially complete still meant that we had a little bit of work to do and i'm happy to report today that 97

▶ 2:44:53 Speaker 3: of our accounts have meters that were have been replaced and 98 of our second meters were also

▶ 2:45:03 Speaker 2: replaced but what's that mean there's still about 300 customers out there that have meters that need

▶ 2:45:12 Speaker 2: to be replaced we used the ordinance that the alderman passed last year

▶ 2:45:22 Speaker 2: there were about 230 manual read feeds fees that we initially assessed 230 people received the certified letter saying change your meter or you're going to be assessed the fee they didn't

▶ 2:45:32 Speaker 3: we assessed the fee and we were able to get 77 of them replaced after the fee was assessed the first

▶ 2:45:41 Speaker 2: time hence waiving the fee but there are still 153 meters out there that of people who receive letters

▶ 2:45:49 Speaker 2: that have to be replaced so we're still doing that in-house regards to our opt-in program

▶ 2:45:56 Speaker 2: about eight to ten percent of the community has opted into monthly billing we started offering

▶ 2:46:05 Speaker 2: that in the fall we went section by section throughout the uh throughout the city we've

▶ 2:46:13 Speaker 2: everyone in the city has received the opportunity and received the letter to opt in to monthly billing if they'd like to and now we're going to actually try to get a note right on the bill

▶ 2:46:21 Speaker 3: and whoever wants to do it can do it regardless of you have to do it according to your billing cycle

▶ 2:46:26 Speaker 3: so it would have to be at the time you receive a bill but that program is available for whoever

▶ 2:46:31 Speaker 3: wants to switch to monthly billing if you prefer to do your finances that way and more importantly it allows you to keep track of your consumption and leaks in the home the majority of the water

▶ 2:46:52 Speaker 2: and operating budget the water budget has an increase of 1.4 percent and the sewer budget

▶ 2:46:56 Speaker 3: has an increase of 1.8 percent debt aside nearly 48 cents of every dollar that we collect in water

▶ 2:47:07 Speaker 3: is going directly to the mwra and nearly 75 percent of every dollar we collect is going directly to the mwra and sewer and to emphasize that or to to demonstrate that in your packet

▶ 2:47:23 Speaker 3: you'll see a pie chart and the pie chart still shows how overwhelming the mwra will help

▶ 2:47:31 Speaker 3: overwhelming of a presence the mwra is to our operating budgets i've also included excel

▶ 2:47:37 Speaker 2: spreadsheets that break the budget down and also give a description of why the

▶ 2:47:46 Speaker 2: increase or decrease and at this point if there are any questions thank you

▶ 2:47:55 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: very much for that information and overview we do have just a reminder the water enterprise operating budget in front of us at this point motion to

▶ 2:48:02 Michael P. Zwirko: combine orders and seek to combine orders 2 0 1 8 dash 1 8 4 with 2 0 1 8

▶ 2:48:09 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: dash 1 8 5 second a motion made by President Zwirko and seconded by Alderman Forbes to combine order 2018-18 for the water enterprise operating budget with 2018-25 the sewer enterprise operating budget all in favor of combining the two aye aye any opposed the combined order is before you thank you thank you for