ORDER-2022-123 : Water Enterprise Operating Budget for Fiscal 2023 in the amount of $6,119,429 (Six Million, One Hundred Nineteen Thousand, Four Hundred Twenty-Nine Dollars).

Transcript (~6 min @ 2:17:28)

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

▶ 2:17:20 Jen Grigoraitis: Motion hold second even motion to hold made by president's Nellis seconded by Vice chairman. Migliorelli any discussion All in favor aye any opposed. Hey, that is held. Now we are back to order 2022-123 water Enterprise operating budget for fiscal 2023 in the amount of six million 119,429. And I will I know you've both talked about this already a little bit in your presentation are there any Additional comments from you or questions from counselors specific to the water Enterprise budget.

▶ 2:17:57 Shawn M. MacMaster: Counselor McMaster, it's a question. Thank you madam. Chair, good evening. Thank you. Both for being here Ms. Process Ellis. You may recall that prior years. I've raised concerns about essentially what we heard tonight from a member of the public which is billing.

▶ 2:18:11 Speaker 5: time

▶ 2:18:14 Shawn M. MacMaster: On both of these these matters Water and Sewer. to other departments for time spent addressing Water and Sewer related items. Yes based on the concerns that I've read in the past and I don't need to get into them in detail. But have we made any changes to that where we continuing to base? What's being? Budgeted for their time on a good faith estimate of what we think those employees from other departments are spending in terms of their time addressing these issues.

▶ 2:18:45 Speaker 1: Yes, so there are two different. segments of that one is the employees who are budgeted in the Department salaries line item. So Jim has provided a memo that has the the split of the employees who are actually within the operating budget. Those are people like myself city engineer staff engineer Deputy city engineer all the engineering division because they spend substantial time on Water and Sewer projects and obviously the water and sewer billing Clerk. Is divided 50% water 50% sewer and then a number of our admin team. Who provide services directly to the water and sewer division? So those are those are on the budget. We didn't change any of those percentages this year. Those are still I believe them to be accurate as to the amount of time that the DPW staff spend on these items that we have. We have detailed knowledge of how our own staff spends their time. And so I feel these are very good estimates. The other side is indirect costs, and those are Bits and pieces of other people's time who are not within DPW, they're not charged on the DPW budget. They're charged as one whole line item that's captured as indirect costs and the finance department. manages that process those indirect costs include all the health insurance benefits for the people who Are employed by the Water and Sewer division? That's a big chunk of the costs. But then it also includes a piece of let's say the city solicitor. Spend some portion of her time helping with you know, if we have a contract dispute on a construction project. That's for sure. You spend some portion of her time on that the contract negotiations with the laborers union. A number of those employees 12 of them. I think are employed in the Water Division. So, you know a portion of her time negotiating their contract is applicable to water all of that happens through the finance department. And so they tweak those every year based on on changes with Um their knowledge of you know, the collector's office and who's collecting the the water and sewer bill payments and and that sort of thing. They look in detail at those every year and then they give us one whole number for water and a whole number for sewer that we plug into the model to model the rates. They feel strongly that those are accurate representations. They've discussed it in our water and sewer rate committee meeting but I can't speak directly to how they come up with those numbers. So thank you to your

▶ 2:21:34 Shawn M. MacMaster: knowledge. Nothing's really changed substantially from last

▶ 2:21:40 Speaker 1: year and the so nothing has changed on on this end for sure and on the indirect cost side, you know, they nothing substantial has changed. They make tweaks. I can tell you how the numbers have changed if you're interested in the totals. No, that's

▶ 2:21:54 Shawn M. MacMaster: okay. I mean my you know, very briefly my position is just been that I feel like as much as I trust that they're good faith estimates that We could or perhaps should be looking at some sort of algorithm or metrics to. Rather than a good faith estimate considering that we're pulling from other departments. So that's that's where I continue to land on the issue. I understand is really a matter for the administration to decide if it's going to be doing that differently. I respect that, but I'm consistently opposed to these two orders for that purpose, and that's just my attempt to get on the public record as to why I continue to vote this way every year. So, thank you. Thank you.

▶ 2:22:37 Speaker 3: Any other questions from counselors?

▶ 2:22:40 Jen Grigoraitis: I will entertain a motion to recommend order 2022-123 ocean recommend

▶ 2:22:46 Speaker 2: order 2022-123.

▶ 2:22:49 Jen Grigoraitis: Emotions recommend made by counselor Eccles seconded by President sonella. Is there any discussion

▶ 2:22:56 Speaker 3: Seeing on Mr. Clerk. Can you please call the world?

▶ 2:22:59 Speaker 13: Nice chair mclarely. Yes counselor McMaster. No.

▶ 2:23:06 Speaker 13: Counselor Eccles. Yes Council Here Pay. Yes counselor. Jamaladin. Yes. Counselor Stewart, yes. Counselor crime Shady. Yes counselor bremsky. Yes counselor Williams. Yes president sonella. Yes. And chair Gratis? Yes, that's 10. Yes,