public utility board meeting to order. We have a work
session to begin this
morning, a few items, so we'll dive right into that. First
item in work session is
to receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff
direction regarding the
Denton Energy Center air permit review, which is being
conducted by Black and
Veatch Corporation. Brian, you want to make the
introductions? Good morning. Brian Langley,
Deputy City Manager. We had several questions about the air
permit that was
filed for the Denton Energy Center and through the City
Council and also through
the community, and so we hired Black and Veatch to conduct
a study to look at
that and to bring back their findings back to both the PUB
and the City
Council. So today they'll make that presentation to you,
and tomorrow the
same presentation to the City Council. We have Diane Fisher
that's here with
Black and Veatch, and so I'm going to ask her to go through
the presentation and
answer any questions that you may have. Diane.
Good morning. It's great to be here in front of the PUB
today. Again, my name is
Diane Fisher. I'm Associate Vice President with Black and
Veatch and the
Project Director for this project. I have with me Michael
Fisher, no relation, also
Mike Rinkle. Michael Fisher is our Project Manager. Mike R
inkle is our
Environmental Engineer, and then Paul Lee is our Air
Quality Control Engineer. So I
want to tell you a little bit first about Black and Veatch
so that you have a
sense of who we are and why we're doing this work. Black
and Veatch is a
engineering consulting firm. We've been in business for
about a hundred years. We
celebrate our 100th anniversary in 2015, and we do mostly
infrastructure projects.
We do work in the power industry similar to the Denton
Energy Project. We also
work in the water and wastewater industry. We do oil and
gas projects and
telecommunications projects. We also do those type of
projects both for the
private industry and then also for the United States
government. And
we serve in a variety of roles. Sometimes we build projects
like Denton Energy
Center ourselves, and then other times like this we serve
as owner's engineer
where we're looking out for the interests of the city. So
we have about
11,000 employees. We do about 7,000 different projects
every year, and we
work throughout the world on six continents. And so in this
project like
this, we are again looking at the needs of the sea and
making sure that what's
happening on this project makes sense for the city of Dent
on. What I'm going to
talk about today, or what we're going to talk about today
again, is the project at
hand. I want to tell you a little bit about the folks that
are doing the work
today and a little bit about me. My background, I've been
at Black and Beach
since 1992. I was 10 years old when I started, if you're
doing that math. And
most of my background is actually in air quality control,
so I've done a lot of
projects like this, although now I serve more in an
oversight role. And so I
graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in
mechanical engineering.
And so that's, it's been a fun time. I've enjoyed my time
of Black and Beach.
I'm first Michael Fisher, who's the project manager, as I
said. He will be
talking about the assignment that we did here for Black and
Beach, and also giving
you a summary of the conclusions that he came to, that the
project team came to.
Michael has 26 years of experience in the power industry.
He's served in a
variety of roles. He's been an engineering manager. He's
been a project design
mechanical engineer. He's done construction and startup in
the industry.
He's also served as an honors engineer, similar to this
project. He has a
mechanical engineering degree from the University of Tulsa,
and so he will first
start us out and kick it off. Then we'll turn it over to
Mike Rinkle. Mike Rinkle
has a bachelor's of science degree in chemical engineering
and a master's
degree in environmental engineer from the University of
Nebraska, and he has 17
years of experience all in permitting, and he'll be talking
about the permitting
process that was done on this project. And then finally
Paul Lee will finish us
off, and he will talk about the emissions issues and also
the air quality control
associated with the Denton Energy Center. And Paul Lee has
a chemical engineering
degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has
been in the power
industry for 13 years. So we have a very experienced team
who's going to talk, and
with that I'm going to turn it over to Mike Rinkle to kick
us off on the details of the
work. Thank You Diane. It's a pleasure to be here this
morning discussing this
with the PUB. So as Diane has indicated, I'm Michael Fisher
. I'm the project
manager for this for the Denton Energy Center work. First
thing I'm going to go
over here is the the overview of the assignment and the
conclusions, and after
I give that overview then I'll turn it over to my team, and
my team will get a
little bit further in depth with what they with what the
conclusions were from
from this work. We were contracted as Black & Veatch was
contracted to do an
independent review of this of this project, Denton Energy
Center. The Denton
Energy Center is 12 reciprocating and internal combustion
engine engines,
commonly called rice, within the with that's an industry
term, and it's used
for the Denton Energy Center is used for peaking purposes.
Wartzilla is the engine manufacturer for the Denton Energy
Center, and Burns and
McDonald is the engineering constructor. The surrounding
community has concerns
with the permit application and the permit process, and
therefore Denton
Municipal Electric retained Black & Veatch to perform an
independent
analysis of the permit process and the application. DME has
requested that we
compare the DEC to the Red Gate facility. Red Gate facility
being another rice
unit that's down in South Texas.
So our conclusions from this from our work was that the the
DEC permit
application was filed correctly, and the the DEC permit is
valid and filed in
accordance with the EPA and the TCEQ requirements. A little
bit about the DEC
permit was that it was permitted as a peaking unit in an
ozone non-attainment
area, and it will get into some of the definitions a little
bit further, you
know what non-attainment and a peaking unit is. Well I'll
have some of my
colleagues address that. It was permitted as a minor source
using standard permit
designation, and the units are limited to a number of
limited to run hours to 3,200
hours per year. That's out of a total of what would be
considered 8760 would be
the maximum run hours, but this this unit is permitted for
a maximum of 3,200 run
hours per year per unit. Our conclusions continued would be
that Black and Beach
has no concerns with the DEC project meeting the emissions
limits in its
permit. That the DEC has an enhanced admission control
package and the
emissions testing performed by a third-party agency using
procedures
approved by the EPA and TCEQ with witness by individuals
from the TCEQ
and Black and Beach. And finally it's it's an industry
standard for the
emissions performance to be backed by contractual guarantee
from the engine
manufacturer. With that I'll turn this over to Mike Rinkle
who's our
environmental engineer and our permitting specialist.
Thanks Michael.
Good morning everyone. Morning. My name is Mike Rinkle and
as Michael said I'm the
permitting specialist for this project on this team. Today
I'm going to talk to you
a little bit about the permitting process here in Texas. In
Texas well
actually the Clean Air Act is the program that regulates
the emissions
of pollutants into the atmosphere and EPA is the agency on
the federal side
that regulates or promulgates the Clean Air Act. Here
within the state of Texas
EPA has delegated that authority to the Texas Commission
Commission of
Environmental Quality or TCEQ. So TCEQ is the agency that
has the authority to
issue the permits under the Clean Air Act. Within the Texas
Commission of
Environmental Quality they've developed a hierarchy of how
they want to maximize
the use of their resources within their agency. Obviously
there are a lot of
industry here in the state of Texas and so to maximize the
effective use of
their resources they've developed this hierarchy of doing
the permits within
the state of Texas. And as you can see from this pyramid
the top is the
de minimis. That basically is the most easiest way of
obtaining a permit in
order to be able to construct your emission source. What
that is is
basically saying that there are very discernible emissions
going to be
polluted into the atmosphere and TCEQ has basically said
they didn't want to
waste the time of their resources to have to kind of go
through and develop a
permit for those types of sources. There are obviously
restrictions that you have
to meet in order to be the de minimis so you have to have
very low
emissions in order to be a de minimis source and so that's
the de minimis
source. The next category beyond that is again you're gonna
have probably a little
bit more emissions but you're still going to have less
resources having to
be spent from the TCEQ in order to get those types of
sources and that's what
they call the permit by rule. There are approximately
around a hundred different
types of facility types that the Texas Commission of
Environment Quality has
developed that if you meet certain emission limit
requirements and you emit
lower emissions you can go ahead and attain a construction
permit via their
mechanism of a permit by rule. The third mechanism to get a
permit is what the
Texas Commission of Equality calls is the standard permits.
The standard permits
are basically they've developed a lot of similar type of
facilities within the
state that have the similar type of emissions and as long
as they're all are
similar then they're gonna have the same type of permit
requirements and so
they've kind of categorized those into what they call the
standard permits. The
standard permits are basically types of facilities that can
't meet the
de minimis or the permit by rule emission limits or
requirements but they
do not require to go through the more exhaustive type of
the NSR, new
source review permits and so then the new source permits
are the ones
where it's going to be taking a lot of time and effort by
the Texas Commission
of Environment Quality staff to review the application and
then develop the
permit and then as Michael Fisher mentioned earlier the DEC
and Energy
Center did get their permit through the mechanism of the
standard permit
whereas the Red Gate facility went through the new source
review permit
mechanism. This slide is similar to the last slide in that
but this kind of goes
through a general overview of how the Clean Air Act process
really works. So
you have what we call the new source review under the Clean
Air Act and
within the new source review you have two different kind of
categories that
you're going to be going through your permitting process.
The first
differentiator is you look at where the facility is located
at. Is it
located in a non-attainment area or an attainment area?
What that basically
means is the EPA has developed on national ambient air
quality standards
for several criteria air pollutants and that means that
they've developed
national ambient standards or limits that are in the
atmosphere that areas
must be able to obtain. If your area is above those limits
then you're
classified as a non-attainment area and as Michael
mentioned before the city of
Denton is in a ozone non-attainment area so it'd be
classified as a non-attainment
area so you're following that non-attainment area pathway
within the
new source review permitting process. Within each of those
two different
categories either attainment or non-attainment you look at
whether or not
your facility or your project is going to be classified as
either a major or
minor contributor to that air pollution and then that just
basically then
develops whether or not you go through major permitting or
minor permitting. As
discussed DEC went through the standard permits so they
were all classified as
minor permit action under the Texas Commission of
Environmental Quality
whereas the Red Gate facility went through the major route
and they went
through what we call the prevention of significant deterior
ation permitting
process. So that was the permitting process for the Denton
Energy Center so
with that I'm going to turn it over to Paul Lee. Good
morning so I think to
start off as important to recap some of the things that
Mike and Michael have
referred to although the Denton Energy Center and Red Gate
are utilizing similar
engines the intent of the two facilities are very different
and it's very important
to note that Red Gate is a base load plant it runs all the
time 8,760 hours
is the number of hours in a year. The intent of Denton
Energy Center though is
a peaking facility it'll be running limited to 3,200 hours
per year so when
energy demand is high such as summer times when everyone's
using their
air conditioners that's when Denton Energy Center could be
turned on. Therefore
the DEC or Denton Energy Center could apply for a standard
permit whereas Red
Gate being a base load facility had to go through PSD
review. Also in addition to
being similar engines the control equipment both facilities
are the same.
Selective catalytic lid of reduction also commonly known as
an SCR is used to
reduce NOx emissions with the injection of a reagent
ammonia in both cases and
also both facilities will have an oxidation catalyst which
I think I
accidentally hit a button. Oxidation catalyst is used to
reduce the CO and VOC
emissions as well as any ammonia slip that could go past
the SCR. However the
emission rates are different at both facilities. As you can
see from this
table the things that are in bold are the higher emissions
rates between the
two facilities. Emission rates are provided by the
equipment manufacturer
in this case with Rosilla to help develop the air permit
within the
constraints of all the regulations TCAQ, Federal EPA and as
you can see the CO
emissions are slightly lower but the NOx are significantly
lower as well as the
SO2 and the VOCs. So the question is why? If we have two
similar engines at both
facilities and they're both utilizing the same emissions
controls and how is
one facility such lower in NOx CO and VOC emissions? Well
similar to how cars
are not all the same, not all SCRs and oxidation catalysts
are made equal.
Some parts of the country have very very stringent and
tight regulations such as
Southern California for example where pollution is very
very high. For this
purpose Rosilla has created an enhanced emissions package
and the Denton Energy
Center is equipped with this same type of package so
therefore the SCR is just
a higher performing SCR, the catalysts as well as the
oxidation catalyst. It's also
important to note that the emission guarantees are a make
right guarantee.
There is contractually no way that they can buy themselves
out of these
guarantees. They are responsible and liable to to use all
the financial funds
as well as the manpower to make these emission limits met.
So now we have all
that covered then how do you demonstrate that emission
limits are met? So the
Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, has
developed a series of test
methods that is used throughout the industry and those will
be used once the
plant is built and constructed and starting up to
demonstrate what
emissions are being produced. The engines will be at full
load in order to
challenge the engines at most maximum potential for
emissions and then we will
hire a third party contractor to execute the test. The
third party contractors
specialize in these tests. They have a certification as
well so I'll call the
qualified stack testing individual. So they're certified,
they're
third party, there's no collusion or fake news with what
they do. They will
perform a test and prior to a test 30 to 60 days before the
test occur will notify
TCEQ. They'll have every opportunity to come to the testing
facility and make
sure the apparatus is set up correctly, that there's no
operating errors that
it's occurring and they often do come, not always, but they
at least have the
opportunity to come. Regardless of whether or not they
witness the test, the
test report will be developed and submitted to them. They
'll have to review
it and make sure the emission limits are met and then they
could issue an
operating permit. Only then can the facility actually
operate. So emission
limits should be met regardless when this facility is
operating. So with that,
that was a presentation and I'd like to open up for
questions.
Questions?
[inaudible]
These are from the permanent application. Yes. So these
figures, they are all
within the minor source permit and specifications for a non
-attainment zone.
Deb, would you mind? I'm sorry. No, thank you. So these
figures, which are all
fit within the requirements for a minor source permit in
our non-attainment
zone, these were taken from the paperwork of the
manufacturer of Wurzala.
This is what they said on paper. Yes, so these are taken
from the apartment and
these are provided from the OEM, in this case Wurzala. Yeah
, so just to
understand where you guys fit in, so Black and Veatch is
not, you're not
standing behind these and saying we guarantee that when
they turn on the
plant, these, you know, it will test exactly like this.
What you're saying is
I understand it is we are confident that if it doesn't end
up testing like this,
that Wurzala is responsible for fixing the problem. Is that
correct? Yeah,
correct. We are not standing by Wurzala hand-in-hand saying
that the
make-right guarantees are going to be met. There's just a
review of the
permit itself. Yes. So these were provided from the OEM or
Wurzala and we're just
evaluating how they submitted and how the permit was done
and were executed.
Yes. In our opinion it was done correctly. Yeah, and the
permit is just a
matter of, and correct me if I'm wrong, when the permit,
the air permit is
submitted to TCEQ, TCEQ as I understand it, they look at
the paperwork and they
make sure that the numbers are where they're supposed to be
and they say kind
of like you're doing, okay, but if something goes wrong
then it's on you. Is
that correct? By you I mean, you know, the, whoever's
submitting the permit.
Yeah, so the permit is approved by TCEQ and if the initial
limits aren't met, I
had to go back to that make-right guarantee aspect. Yeah.
That the facility
won't get an operating permit if the initial limits aren't
met. Exactly. So
therefore Wurzala has to meet these guarantees. So if we
get to this, to
start up with the third-party contractors that's doing the
EPA test
methods, if CEO comes out higher in a pounds per hour basis
than the standard
permit allows, then they need to fix that oxidation
catalyst. Whether that means
purchase the whole brand new one. There are many options.
Exactly, there's many options, but they are
responsible for the labor, the parts, and as well as the
lost money. Yeah, and
so that's why you're not concerned because you know if
something goes
wrong, is that correct? Correct. Wurzala will take care of
it. Exactly, in our
experience make-right guarantees are very, very sensitive
as you can imagine
and they're typically met. My experience, they're always
met. Yeah, end up being met.
They end up being met somehow. Exactly. Brendan, I think
you had a question. Yeah, some of what
y'all just discussed confused me a little bit. So in the
application for the
permit, Wurzala submitted their performance emissions, is
that what
you're saying? You mentioned OEM stats. So these are the
stats that the engines
are going to perform at or they're the stats for what's
allowable by the permit?
Why don't you put a mic here a little bit. Because the
engines
perform at something and the permit should be separate than
what the
engines actually perform at, right? So when an application
is developed, the
the client will go to the OEM or the manufacturer of the
engine and they will
get what they call these guaranteed values. And so the
manufacturer will
provide a guaranteed value of we can meet those levels of
emissions.
Obviously since there will be a contractual obligation to
meet those, the
manufacturer will want to be able to operate at a level
that is lower than
that. They don't want to be right at that level that they
're going to be
operating. And so they give these contractual values that
are used for the
application when you're developing the permit and say we
will not go above
these levels. And so those are the levels that will get
into the permit and the
permit basically says you shall not emit above these levels
. Okay, so then the
the TCEQ won't allow us to operate these engines at any
higher than what you've
got published right here on this slide. That's not fact
ually correct. Okay. These
these numbers are what was used to develop the application.
So then the TCEQ
or Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, when they
write their permit, if you look at the
actual permit, I believe that the permit limits are in what
they are in an
emission unit called pounds per hour. And so you take these
numbers and you would
develop a pound per hour emission rate. And so in your
actual permit, the
actual permitted limit is on a pound per hour basis. So you
cannot emit above
that number. Are any of those numbers, if you convert them
into these
numbers, greater than these numbers? They are equal. Okay,
thank you. Susan, do you have a question?
I didn't and I think there was a slide in the beginning
that this is the normal
utility practice. What Denton Energy Center did is normal
standard in
getting going to the standard permit versus the NSR.
Correct. The way the
project the project's goals were developed by the city. And
so you take
those project goals and it defines the project. And so once
the project is
defined, you then go look at the mechanism within the TCEQ
realm of
requirements and they fit into the standard permit realm.
And it's really
because we were not a baseload. We are a peaking facility.
Is that correct or is
that not correct? That is correct. When you're comparing to
Red Gate. Okay. That is
correct. Thank you. Can you speak to the process if the
plant after it's been
issued its operating permit, what occurs if it starts to
operate outside of its
emissions limits? Like if we're in non-compliance with our
permit? So they
so the city then would then they are required to submit
semi-annual and
annual reports to the Texas Commission of Environment and
Quality. Okay. And in
those reports they will state their compliance. If they are
out of compliance
they have to notify the Texas Commission of Environment and
Quality that they are out of
compliance. The TCEQ then will determine the severity of
that non-compliance and
they will make a determination whether or not to issue what
they call a notice
of violation. But that's all done within the Texas
Commission of Environment
and Quality. Okay. And it's all and all the testing is it's
a self-assessment
type system, self-assessed and self-reported then, right?
Like all the
emissions testings that's all done by our personnel or
people we contract. The
testing is usually done by a third-party testing agency.
Similar to the
initial testing. Correct. Okay. Thank you. They need to be
certified testers to perform that. Yes.
And it would be similar to an independent audit of
financial records
only on the environment side. Correct. Thank you.
Questions? Charlie? Questions? Okay. Thank you. So I
understand that the Redgate
plant is a baseload plant and the deck is a peaking plant
so they have different
purposes which means that the Redgate runs more hours per
year. But when
testing occurs is the use of the plant factored into the
emissions testing at
all? As I understand it, it's simply a matter of what
emissions are in the air
you know and then calculations are made based on that. No,
when the third
party company comes out to do the performance testing they
need to be at
certain limits of operation within their realm. So I
believe it's
90% above 90% of their capacity that they need to be at
when they perform the
testing. Yes, it's at the moment they perform the testing,
correct? Correct.
Yes, so just to be clear so that people understand and then
that the
public understands that when emissions testing is happening
they're not
thinking oh well this is a lot for this moment but they're
only gonna run it X
number of hours per year, right? It's simply looking at the
emissions at that
moment. Yes, under the requirements of the law that is how
you perform
the testing. Yes, thank you. I understand that I just
wanted to
because I think there's a little confusion in the public
about that and
just wanted to clarify. Thank you very much. Any other
questions? No? Thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Okay next in the work session. Can we discuss this amongst
ourselves? Sure.
Yeah, I was I don't know if anybody else had but I was
wondering if we could have
a discussion at some point about if this does end up
happening dot the emissions
at testing exceed the permit what our options might be and
you know of course
we don't if that ends up happening we don't need to decide
till that moment
comes but in the sense of you know because it's good to be
prepared for
these things. I would would appreciate a discussion at some
point before testing
about you know looking at different hypothetical scenarios.
I don't know if
that would have to be a closed session if you know be if it
was a legal issue
and we had questions about liability but I would like you
know to know ahead of
time what our options might be. Do you mean the testing
before we get an
operating permit or do you mean after we have an operating
permit and we're and
we'll get meeting. Before the initial before the testing
when they're
when they're finished and you know to see if they if they
grant the permit the
initial right when they turn it on before that moment. I
would think and I
have to have and you're correct it may need to go discuss
because it's going to
go back to the contract with the engine manufacturer but if
there's a make right
clause in the contract I'm assuming that would kick in at
that point. Oh of course
but I mean you know in the sense of I would hope that we
don't just leave it
up to that if that were to happen that we wouldn't just
leave it up to Wurzilla
to decide how they're going to fix the problem I would hope
that Wurzilla that
we would be able to work with them and we would have
options. The I guess the
short answer to your question is we would obviously enforce
the make good
provision we would have independent verification that they
've made good on
their on their promise in order to clear that contractual
hurdle but we would not
we would not sign off on the make good provision until
independent experts have
verified that they are in compliance. So we would if should
that happen we'll enforce it immediately.
Oh yeah yeah but in terms of the different ways I mean
there are a number
of different ways of getting in compliance you can have
them you know
they could keep tweaking the emissions controls for years
and years and years
you know while the plant remains non-operational and the
assets
depreciate or you know we could we could tell that we could
ask them to
say you know take it to take away some of take back some of
the engines I mean
to what I would hope that we meaning not just PUB but the
City you know council
would would have some say in the methods by which those
emissions requirements
are met. I think those those methods have already been
prescribed in the contract
and it's pretty simple they're they're either going to have
to comply or you
know we can certainly they would be legal for not not comp
lying with the
terms of the contract but it's a fairly simple thing I mean
if we're gonna
there's gonna be a cure provision in the contract which
there is if the if the
engines don't initially perform as necessary we'll have to
provide them
notice which they don't want you know that's and I think
the gentleman from
Black and Beech sort of alert you know alluded to that is
it is definitely their
best interest to comply immediately and we're not going to
be in a position where
we can cancel a contract or necessary scale anything back
they're going to be
allowed to to cure right away if they get to a point in
theory where they can't
cure then within that brings a whole nother set of
variables in the ear that
you're discussing but they're gonna be given a time period
that's well defined
the contract to comply immediately okay and it's not and we
're not gonna have
much say in terms of how they do it they're just simply
going to have to
make that technology work they've guaranteed us it will I
see I see and
this is all in the non redacted contract because I've only
seen and
because PUP has only seen the redacted contract we haven't
been allowed to see
the unredacted contract so the emissions figures are taken
out of that I assume
that these they're identical that's what I assume right so
they are contract
they have contractually bound themselves to meet those
standards and
obviously that's where our rights come in if they can't
then the whole contract
is obviously called into question but they will be given a
cure period to come
into compliance okay and is that period prescribed in the
in the contract and
again because I've only seen we've only seen the redacted
version I need to
defer to our legal counsel on that I'm sure it is I just
cannot remember it
that period would be okay I wanted to know if anybody knew
if the contract
allowed for changing of the the permit if if for some
reason the testing is out
of compliance and they try to get it in compliance if we
can change the permit
to have greater emissions as you know I think we're kind of
getting off into
discussing specifics of the contract and I don't know that
okay well I mean I
thought I think that I take it just discuss the image yeah
I take it that
there's a right there's a right to cure in the contract and
there's certain
things we can do sure within our rights to do that I also
go back to comment
mr. Lee made I believe about the initial attainment of I
believe you you gave a
when the percentage but it was basically how many times on
these initial permits
the manufacturers did I not hear that right that there was
a certain amount of
time I'm not exactly sure what coming in front of you when
I said that in my
experience the the OEMs in this case where Zilla do meet
the emission limits
I don't want to put you before you're guaranteeing it but I
just your
experience has been exactly my experience is that the OEMs
do meet
emission limits they are such a sensitive issue and they
will not back
up things that they have to meet because there is no
financial buyout some other
performance guarantees if they don't meet those there are
agreed upon financial
terms where they could say okay we didn't meet this sorry
here's a million
dollars this case they cannot and it can therefore incur
millions it's got to
work yeah so my experience yes but I definitely don't know
sure I don't I
don't want to put you on the spot it would guarantee
anything I want to
follow up and what I and correct me Brendan if I'm putting
words in your
what you were trying to find out though we cannot change
that permit at this
point in time we have to meet the permit that we've
submitted yes as I
understand yes so we can't change that if testing says we
didn't meet it we
can't change that at this point great yes live up with that
yes and I had not
seen you guys contract so I don't know the answer to that
question you're
asking but yes miss Parker I can do believe that and just
to go back to what
you were saying sorry this kind of repetitive it just but
then but just to
make clear when you said that that they always that you
know the manufacturers
always follow through because they have a stake in it you
're not saying that
they never fail the initial testing you're saying that they
always will do
whatever it takes to make it comply eventually well I
should in my experience
it's always been the first time but um regardless I think
if we were to take a
survey of hundreds more people like me that to get a better
survey of all of
the experiences out there yes yeah there's documentation of
failing testing
and tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and tweaking forever
correct forever is not a very long you're talking you're
talking worst-case
scenario and I mean the sky's not gonna fall in I mean
these these guys know
what they're doing and we have rights under the contract to
make it work to
meet our permit standards and we sit here and debate all
day about what if
what if what if what if you know it's either gonna work it
's not gonna work so
I want to add a little bit to what Paul because my
experience both Paul and I
have worked together for many years and my experience is
also air quality control
yes you can find examples out there where people have had
to tweak and tweak
and tweak they are rare very very rare most plants pass on
their first try that
is that is common for the exact reason that Paul said in
that they will fail on
something else before they fail on air quality that's just
the reality of the
situation to your question of what do we do if in the
unlikely event that this is
the plant that is in that rare situation how do you come up
with a plan to deal
with that situation the the first thing you have to look at
is why is it
failing and so to come up with a action plan in advance of
how to deal with that
that's it's it's it's hard to do that but what what my
recommendation to you
would be is that's frankly our role as owner's engineer to
help you with that
in addition to this assignment we're serving as your owner
's engineer so how
we would handle those situations and how we have in the
past is to look at the
cause step through and figure out is it the ammonia system
is it not tracking
emissions properly is it something in that that's causing
problem is the
catalyst not functioning properly is something wrong with
the catalyst is the
engine not properly inhibiting oxidation in some way and
that's what's causing
the the NOx to be a problem is the fuel you're using not in
accordance to spec
so we'd have to go through a step-by-step diagnostic
process to
figure out what the cause is and so that that was that
would be the activity that
we would go through and and we couldn't do that until the
situation actually I
see so so you're saying so if I understand correctly and
this might
involve me kind of retracting my or at least tweaking you
know my suggestion
about having a work session about possible scenarios that
because there are
so many different possible if something does go wrong there
are so many
different ways it could go wrong but you really would not
know what our options
that we couldn't even say well it would have to be one of
these five options
right we really don't know right so the action plan would
be immediately get
together in a mitigation group to assess the situation and
that's your job that
that's what we would do as your owners engineer okay yeah
thank you very much
and the I don't know if you followed the there's a similar
work Silla plant in
Humboldt California that failed emissions initial testing
recently and
they tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and twe
aked and yeah that so I
have a sense and you know anybody can look that up and see
to see what kind of
difficult complex work is involved not for the layperson
thank you very much
uh-huh okay thank you thank you any other questions
comments okay any
direction I mean I think direction the staff I think we're
pretty much we've
got our we're online we'll just we'll see when we when we
get there I think
we've got got things lined up to make sure it tests and and
black and beach is
working on our behalf that's correct yes yes we have to put
our faith in them and
they're a good firm yeah okay all right moving on then
actually the of the five
items for work session two were with consultants and three
are with staff so
what I'd like to do is move in the work session if it's
okay item C next which
is to receive a report hold a discussion and give staff
direction regarding a
review of this solid waste department's procedures and
internal controls by
Weaver and Tidwell LLP good morning PV my name is Ethan Cox
I'm the director of
solid waste we have John Lawson which is a partner with We
aver and Tidwell here
with us this morning just a little bit of brief
introduction about how we arrived
at this point so over the last several months as many of
you are aware we've
presented or brought forth some projects agreements things
of that nature in
solid waste that we found some concerns with following a
recent change in
management a lot of those were really related to system of
controls
standardized procedures a lot of that's related to project
management as well as
contract management and so earlier in the fall the city of
Denton contracted
with Weaver and Tidwell to come out and perform a review of
our processes
controls resource utilization things of that nature in the
solid waste
department so what we have for you today John Lawson is
here he'll go through
Weaver's findings at the conclusion of his presentation I
'll be back to the
podium and I'll walk through what our management responses
are our plan of
action for all of those findings so with that I'll turn it
over to John.
Good morning everyone as Ethan mentioned my name is John
Lawson I'm a partner in the risk advisory group at Weaver
and just to kind of let you know what that means we look at
process so we review process
internal control similar to what an internal audit function
might do so what
we've what we worked through was not digging into any one
specific issue I
know y'all have had conversations much as Ethan mentioned
about some specific
issues that have happened but to really try to understand
the process the
internal procedures behind some you know just general
standardized operating
procedures and certain controls that you would expect to
see or would like to see
that help make sure those procedures are executed the
appropriate way every time
they happen so you know we started off by having a you know
we started off just
in meetings with with Ethan and different members of the
management team
trying to figure out well where are we going to focus this
project and and
through those conversations and talking about just some of
the some of the
challenges and and in the middle of the transition wanted
to evaluate some of
the processes we identified six areas that we were going to
focus on in our
review so the first one which we kind of came up with these
titles landfill
commodity sales and cash collections so really what this is
is you know
there's you come into the landfill you go through a scale
house there's
procedures to to to weigh a vehicle to process that
transaction you have
vehicles coming in and going out and how do we make sure
that that those what are
the what are the processes and the controls to make sure
that we that we
record every transaction that we weigh every vehicle and we
also included did a
little bit of looking at where there's commodity
specifically just metals where
there might be a market for selling these out of the
landfill how do we do
that and what are the controls that we use to make sure
that those are done
properly when that happens there was as Ian as he as he
said that Ethan
mentioned a lot of focus on just project management initi
ating a project
documenting the person the the protocol for a project what
is the the
preparation the review the documentation evaluation of
initiating a project
within the landfill and that could be really implementing a
new business
initiative you know changing up processes construction
projects that
might happen on the landfill a lot of this could take a lot
of different
avenues but what you what we would what you want to see is
that there's some
protocols and some procedures in place as we work up to
approving a project and
then managing on a go-forward so we tried to get deep into
how this happens
at the landfill and then associated with that a lot of
times you'll have
contracts so we looked at you know contract management
recording and
tracking within the landfill as well as part of this
process purchase
requisition this is not the centralized procurement
function of the city we were
focused at at the landfill so kind of running up to before
you would do
procure of you know formal procurement what are the
procedures internally to
make sure that this is really something we need to purchase
that the sears not
you know maybe another way that we could obtain these
materials and the
authorization and documentation that happens within within
the landfill for
purchasing budget preparation you know we talked about we
looked at the process
internally within the landfill to develop their budget kind
of up to the
point where it's turned over to finance and then and then
consolidated into the
budget with the city it was really the the specific
procedures within solid
ways to develop the budget for their department and and and
kind of monitor
it on a go-forward and then we looked at fixed asset
inventory and tracking and
really what that was you know there's a lot of equipment
and assets out at the
landfill and you know having an inventory of those and
tracking and
utilization of those we tried to understand how that's done
out at the
landfill and then the last one is contract labor and
overtime there's a
lot of contract labor at the landfill and we looked at the
process for
engaging that labor monitoring what they do approving it as
well as approval and
tracking of overtime for the for the full-time staff at the
landfill so you
know it was a lot of different processes and pieces that we
looked at and you
know what just to kind of be able to give you a little bit
more idea of what we
actually did so we spent a lot of time on site at the
landfill and and with
Ethan's team from the management team to operations
supervisors to the to the
folks working in the scale house we we walked all around
that place we had
meetings with just about everybody I think and really we
wanted to understand
how these processes occur we wanted that to talk to people
about how they're done
we wanted to observe them being performed we wanted to see
when I have
to log into a system to enter a transaction how does that
actually
happen and what does the screen look like that where I
record that so we we
we were at the individuals workspace trying to observe and
understand how
these activities occur and one of the key things that we
look for our internal
control so as we were preparing for our walkthroughs or our
interviews we would
say well what are the what are the controls the activities
we would expect
to see that kind of give us ourselves and my team a
benchmark of you know if
I'm gonna go if we're gonna do let's just take purchasing
for example if
there's if we're gonna purchase something we'd expect to
see that
there's a delegation of authority there are certain levels
of approval and those
are documented budgeting you would expect that there's
identification of
individuals that own certain parts of the budget that they
've worked through
that and there's approval of that we look at system
controls so we did some
evaluation of access who has what what are what are the
access privileges within
these systems that they use the landfill and what does that
allow people to do so
we kind of trying to develop some expected controls that we
could use as a
benchmark to when we went out into the field to evaluate
the activities that
are actually happening and so we use that to map when we
looked for these
controls and didn't have to match exactly what what we
thought we'd see we
were looking for the objective of that control being
achieved and so we mapped
those out and where where we saw a gap we we provided we
had an observation we
provided what we call points for consideration or
recommendations to
management if we didn't see a control where we thought we
would see one that
resulted in a recommendation or if we saw control or a step
in the process
that we thought could be enhanced made more efficient that
resulted in a
recommendation as well so all of our recommendations here
are risk rated as
high moderate or low which is a judgmental risk rating you
know it really
something that's high would be if there was not a control
somewhere where we
thought there needed to be one if we thought there were
gaps in the process
you know or lack of a formal process which we'll see some
of the high-risk
findings specifically where most of them are in the project
and contract
initiation and monitoring procedures formalization of
process so that people
know what to do and how to do it that that those types of
things we would say
you know that's a higher risk finding there's a likelihood
that you could
have mistakes or errors without having some kind of formal
procedure there or
controls to make sure that it's done the way the way you
expect it to be every
time moderate would be you know maybe there's a control but
it's not really
designed to fully address what it's supposed to or there's
some kind of
segregation of duties issue maybe you've got people that
have too many steps in
the process and we need to break that up lower risk
findings tend to be more
operational this is something we could do to maybe gain
efficiency or better
utilize some of our systems or technology so what we found
is you know
across these six areas there we found controls in all of
them even in some of
the areas where there's not what I would say a formal
process talking to
different people there there are controls and things that
they would do
that make sure you know these some some level of procedure
or review occurs may
not be standardized but we did identify controls across all
of these areas and
for the most part we found some recommendations in all of
these areas as
well I was planning to focus on well these 10 items where
what we would that
we risk rated as high and kind of summarize these these
kind of more
significant findings for you guys so the first one and
really the first two here
relate to the landfill sales and commodity sales process
the first one is
we're recommending a cost of service study and and really
what that is if
when there's rates that are established out to landfill if
you come in and you
you go through the scale house your vehicle will be weighed
you'll pay a
rate to to dispose of your waste there are multiple rates
though you know let's
let me let me give an example of say a refrigerator if I
want to dispose of a
refrigerator at the landfill I believe it's $25 to drop it
off up I think
that's the rate but but there's a defined rate to dispose
of a refrigerator
well how did we come up with that rate is what we would ask
you know what is
the what are the steps that we go through to establish that
rate does it
cover our costs to receive store process properly dispose
of a refrigerator well I
don't personally know the answer to that question but but
having some kind of a
study that supports the rates that we use is what we're
recommending so
there's a lot of different rates they're established in the
paradigm system but
having some kind of analysis of of what those rates are and
and how they cover
the landfills costs and how we've determined that that's
the appropriate
rate is the basis of this recommendation the second one is
enhanced system access
controls within the paradigm application so at the scale
house and
within this process of you know processing transactions at
the landfill
people coming in using the landfill paying their fees
recording those fees
in the system there's there's there's there's an
application that's used
called paradigm and one of the things that we look at or
really anytime you're
considering internal control is there are the manual steps
that happen so this
is what I do as a person working in this process I come I
use the system I talk
to the customer the things that I would do but there's also
what you have the
ability to do within the system and it might not be part of
your normal process
but access allows folks sometimes to do more than what they
should and just
because they don't necessarily know that or do it on a
regular basis doesn't mean
we don't want to restrict access it's a system control it's
a preventive control
that we can do so specifically you know we noticed that the
folks that can
process transactions in the scale house also have the
ability to change the
rates and access within the system when we started digging
a little bit deeper
really just needs a needs some fine-tuning to make sure
that people
can't circumvent some of the good controls we do have in
that process by
by using some of their their access even though it's not
necessarily part of what
they would normally do and in in their part of the process
so the next five so
three through seven really all have to do with project
management and contract
management and not not to rehash and I want to want to
clarify you know we
didn't look at any of the specific issues that have
happened over you know
mining or or the CNG facility that I know y'all have had a
lot of conversation
about over recent months but some of the some of the back
office processes for
those we did we did talk about with with the solid waste
team and and really
formally defining what constitutes a project is the first
step here so having
you want to get to having procedure and some standard
operating procedure and
control but it really starts with what having a definition
of when that that
procedure would would be required so you know it would be
new business
initiatives capital projects on the landfill we've given
some recommendations
to management of when this would specifically apply but it
's really
having a documented clear definition of what a project is
so they can be
communicated to the team at the landfill when we have an
issues like this or
initiatives like this we've got a protocol that kicks in
and so defining
that formally is really our first recommendation and a lot
of the
following ones kind of key off of this first one initially
so another another
recommendation is having number five is I'm sorry number
four a business case
analysis which we've provided some really specific kind of
detailed steps
steps to Ethan and the team on how to start to initiate
this but it having
having a staged approach so once once we we determine okay
we've got a project
based on our definition of what a project is we're going to
go through a
protocol of what are what is the purpose of this project
why are we doing it is
it the result you know is it is it are we trying to be
innovative and we think
we can you know we think this could be a revenue source or
this could reduce our
cost or is this something that we need to do because there
's a new TCEQ
regulation and we need to comply with it it could take a
lot of different things
but what's the driver for us wanting to do this project and
what are what's the
desired outcome documenting all this out formally so you
can have you know
conversations within all of the kind of key stakeholders in
the team is really
kind of a first step and then say okay well here's kind of
an initial
documentation and expectation of what we want to achieve
let's start with that
conversation and document it and then we start to move
forward into more more
detailed parts of the plan so what are the what are the
what are the risks or
the things that we think could go wrong what what are the
different options that
we're going to look at that we we know we think this might
be an avenue this
could be an avenue what do we think the best way to go is
and why is it better
than our other options what are the financial what's the
financial
feasibility of this project revenues expenses running some
kind of sensitivity
analysis on different outcomes so so there's a there's a
full project and I
guess evaluation business case analysis that we would like
to see or you know
that we've recommended be implemented and documented
thoroughly throughout an
internal preparation and review process the next one here
is again kind of once
you approve a project we have to manage it on a go-forward
so one thing we've
we've recommended and and when you have you know
potentially multiple large
projects going on at one time having whether it's even just
one person or
multiple people someone that's focused on managing projects
and so that that
knows what the timeline is what the milestones are what the
expectations are
where we should be along the path of the project that's
really monitoring that as
a centralized component at the landfill is a right is is
what we're recommending
here so whether they're the specific project manager that's
how executing the
project could be different but someone that's overseeing
and making sure that
projects are where they need to be and if they're not how
are we going to get
them back on track so the next the next one item number six
kind of really goes
more and getting more into the contract part of what we
looked at here but the
really what what are we ask questions what what are the
different types of
contracts we have what what are the different activities
that would require
a contract and and you know having a clear definition so
that folks out at
the landfill and the management team out there kind of
really knows what what do
we when do we need to have a contract what constitutes a
contract is something
we're recommending here and and and I would say this this
goes into this would
include leases purchase contracts of which you know your
procurement team is
going to be involved in that at some point but you could
have purchase you
could have sale contracts you've definitely got leases but
but we need to
have the clear definition definition of when we would
expect a contract to be in
place and and then kind of adding on to that one number
seven here is specific
levels of review and monitoring procedures for a contract
so if we are
going to enter into a lease of which there are multiple le
ases at the landfill
who needs to review that well I was I would assume it would
be management team
at the at the landfill but it might also be the general
counsel for the city
other members of senior management in the city so laying
out who are the
required people that need to review a contract and any kind
of form that could
take as well as how are we going to inventory those
contracts so we know at
any given time what our contractual obligations are and who
they are to and
being able to monitor those terms of the contract and you
know when does it expire
are we going to renew this and actively working to manage
that contract on a go
forward we've provided some recommendations to management
on that
as well so that that that's a lot of meat there on the
project management and
contract process from there number eight really was getting
more into the
budgeting process strategic budgeting and so really what we
're talking about
here is having some clear guidelines or expectations and
process on when we're
developing the budget at the solid waste department
internally before it gets
pushed up the chain to finance and and consolidated with
the rest of the city
they have to develop their budget and you know what are the
different
departments what are the different individuals that are
going to own
certain parts of the budget what's the timeline with which
the budget is going
to be prepared you know what are what are the expectations
within the budget
and the documentation for certain assumptions so you know
you don't have
instances where it's just well we had we had that number
there last year so we're
not going to roll it forward we want assumptions if there's
going to be an
increase in cost for certain areas if there's large budget
line items that
have big values in them what what let's break this down let
's talk about what
really goes into this so that you have more of a strategic
initial budget but
it also helps you monitor the performance against your
budget in a more detailed
kind of progressive way as you go forward these last two
have to do with
contract labor and overtime a strategic staffing plan is
what we've recommended
here and it really gets into beyond just lay direct
contract labor and overtime
but more of a detailed analysis of you know how much time
does it take to
really operate the landfill and how much labor do we need
on a daily weekly
monthly annual basis what are those people in different
positions doing what
do we need them to do at different levels what kind of
capacity do we know
we need because we can go from being really slow to really
busy in a very
short amount of time and how much do we want to rely on how
much are we relying
on contract labor now how much do we want to be relying on
and you have a
benchmark not to say that it's would never deviate from the
plan but you have
some kind of expectation that you can then manage from so
that's that's that's
the that's the recommendation there and then really just
there is a lot of
labor and overtime and having some more kind of oversight
and management of you
know be a bit of all of that but also looking back over
time and seeing where
where where are we using our direct labor what are we
asking them to do are
we happy with the service that we're getting why do we have
certain people
maybe that are constantly working over time and is there
some more strategic
way we could do scheduling to reduce over time maybe do
some some staggered
scheduling that you have people coming in at different
times and reduce any one
individual working working over working over time so those
are kind of the key
our key findings the high the items that we dubbed as
higher risk from this point
forward in the presentation we've got supplemental
information here which I'm
happy to continue walking through if you if you would like
or I can stop here and
ask answer any questions yeah does anybody have looking
through the
supplemental information I think you've touched upon the
high priority items
which is great but you know if there's any questions or
concerns about some of
the moderate items or moderate risk recommendations or even
the low as far
as that goes or even more and just I gathered from the
information that
they're working on all of these high medium low yes ma'am
so I believe once
I'm done talking Ethan has is gonna come and give you a
brief on all 21 high
medium low they're all they're working to respond to each
of them that is
correct well and I just want to say I think this is a
healthy thing for every
organization to go through and if you don't have high
moderate and low there's
probably something wrong so I think it's very healthy that
we identified these
things and I had a question about the process I was just
wondering did you
work with the city auditor in this or to what extent we we
did not work with the
city auditor in this and well to the extent that the city
auditor had done
some procedures out at the landfill prior to us coming on
site we we tried
to not duplicate that effort so we wanted to make sure that
we were
spending our time looking at you know not doing something
that had just been
done by the city auditor and really focusing on things
where we could where
we could be of best use to to to the city and to the
management team so from
a standpoint of making sure we weren't duplicating effort
that was that was
definitely a consideration. I have a comment or maybe a
question it appears
that everything that was brought up and mentioned are
common-sense basic business
principles that I don't care if it's widgets or digits
people ought to be
doing. In sitting on this board over the last year and a
half I don't I'm not
sure that there's not one area that we haven't had
presentations on so
somebody's looked at. Then they come to the board for
disclosure and comments and
then they go to City Council. So what I'm getting out of
this is that while you
found this high medium and low it's not that these things
aren't being looked at
but they're within the departments from a control
standpoint there's not as much
formality and in some cases procedure to monitor that on a
regular basis day to
day month to month. That's an accurate statement so you
know they're
still doing business out there and people are trying to do
their job and
what they they think they need to do but from when we come
in we're looking for
kind of we're looking for standard process we're looking
for internal
control and we also want to see some kind of documentation
that that we can
roll so so I don't say oh this control you've got a control
here but the only
thing I can base that on is that somebody told me that they
do that. So
you know like you said there's there's there's business is
happening they're
there they're working through things they bring things here
for you all to
review. The level of documentation that we were able to see
that would support
kind of the the procedure and the review and the
preparation and the performance
of some of the controls you know that that's where some of
our review art some
of those moderate and lower risk recommendations go is to
formalizing and
documenting some of those procedures so that you know that
it just really helps
you make sure that they happen every single time and that
they happen
thoroughly and consistently.
Any other questions? No? Okay thank you. Thank you all very
much. Now the solution.
John gets the fun part of the presentation. I drew the
short end of the stick today. So I'm
gonna go through these at a fairly high level and so
certainly if you have
questions as we go through the staff responses and the
status feel free to
stop me. One of the things I'll say at the outset is is I
want to thank my
staff they spent a lot of time with John and his folks and
I'm continually
impressed about how open-minded everyone is out there. A
lot of this was
challenging what they do every day. Show me how you do it
and I'm just always
really appreciate the the openness and the willingness to
go through these
processes and willingness to change and make no mistake we
have a lot of things
going on in the solid waste department right now. There's
21 of these here like
I said I'm gonna hit them at a very high level. Overall I
want to kind of echo
what John said though is that a lot of this comes down to
making sure that we
have clear roles, responsibilities, the delegation of
authority. I think in my
short time in solid waste that's one of the things that I
've seen is really one
of our biggest challenges is whose job is this? Because of
his five people's jobs
we have a real hard time staying consistent. That's
especially true when
it comes to contracts, project management is a lot of the
operations managers out
there were really relied upon to be the sole driver of
those ships and
whenever that happens something has to give and I think
that's kind of what
we've seen in a lot of cases. The other thing is making
sure that we have those
standard operating procedures. In some cases we're going to
be adhering to what
the city already does. In some cases we're going to build
some of this from
scratch and so and lastly I would say like John said there
's there's a routine
review of this type of stuff is and it's not just hiring
someone like Weaver to
come in and help us out it's my job the management staff's
job to make sure that
we're keeping an eye on this stuff on a regular basis
making sure it's working
number one but then also making sure that people are adher
ing to it and when
that doesn't happen we course correct and learn something
from that. So with
that I'm going to go through these very quickly again stop
me if there's
something that piques your attention. PFC 01 again those
are points for
consideration the first one was to formalize the process to
evaluate and
set tonnage rates. Like John said we are going to be
looking at a cost of service
review we actually have this within the procurement
department right now is
scheduled to go out for solicitation. A couple of things
that we need to do
ahead of this and we're actively working on is realigning
our business units
within our budget and also making sure that we're alloc
ating our costs
correctly. So for instance my position is overhead I can
have a fairly big impact
if I allocate my cost incorrectly and that comes home to ro
ost with the rate
payers and so our staffs done a fantastic job over the last
few months and we are
completing that process as we speak that tees us up for
that cost of service in
quarter two. PFC number two is evaluate the process for
accepting and monitoring
on-account customers and on-account customer is someone
essentially that
we're extending credit to that could be somewhat large haul
er that does business
with us on a regular basis it could be someone that this is
the first time at
the landfill and they want to do business with us on a
temporary basis
for the next three quarters. There's standards there that
exist we're not
consistently monitoring that and staying on top of it and
so we are going to be
assigning staff and making sure that that is something we
keep an eye on on
a regular basis. John mentioned a little bit earlier about
system controls and
making sure that the securities are in place I believe the
thing that he
mentioned is adjusting rates on the fly for folks at the
scale house this goes
back into clear roles and responsibilities delegation of
authority is who should be responsible for adjusting rates
if one needs to be
adjusted what is the thought process and the audit trail
behind that separation
of duties would tell you that whoever is handling the
billing should not be
handling the cash and so we have made some of those changes
that if you are
adjusting rates you do not need to be in the scale house
that needs to go to
someone else. We have this is December 2017 I think that's
a pretty easy fix
for the most part but we do need to go through with tech
services and do a
securities review and make sure that we update all those
permissions in our
billing system. The next two are low priority you have
monitor commodity rates
that is mostly for like our metal sales sell of concrete
sell of soil we have a
number of revenue lines there if you will and we just want
to make sure that
we're getting the best rate possible as we move through
those we have assigned a
business analyst to keep an eye on that and we will be fir
ming up that process
and formalizing that moving forward. This is also a great
opportunity for us to
look and say does this constitute a contract is do we want
to be playing the
commodities market on a regular basis and trying to strike
at an appropriate
time or would we prefer to contract this out and have a
little bit more
stabilization on our revenues. So we'll be looking at that.
We also restrict flow
and track visitors entering and departing the landfill. We
actually have
what's known as a bypass lane at the landfill that is for
our folks that do
frequent business with us they're not having to go through
and take up a
scale house attendees time on a regular basis they come in
enter their weights
they move through and then we build them at the end of the
month they're an
on-account customer. One of the things that we've seen
other landfills do is
kind of set up a toll tag system if you will where they
have the RFID tag comes
through a camera reads it snaps it they weigh and they're
on about their way one
of the things that we're going to be looking at for our
capital improvement
project or capital improvement budget in the years ahead is
should we redesign
our inbound and outbound lanes to be more efficient and to
also tighten up
some of these controls at the same time using RFID
technology. Talked a little
bit about formalizing the definition of a project John's
definition is very
accurate I think for us whenever I started we had a number
of initiatives
that were defined as projects but I don't know that they
were necessarily
projects and whenever we do run across those and I'll hit
on this in the next
slide is we want to make sure that there's business case
analysis for each
of these whether it's a new initiative like landfill mining
that turns into a
business unit or if it's something like compressed natural
gas vehicles that
there is a defined start in terms of initiation proposal
validation and then
project management if that does get the blessing of the PUB
and council. I think
a lot of this stuff was to the earlier point being brought
to PUB and the city
council one of the things that concerned me a little bit
about some of that going
back through it is there wasn't a lot of diversity of
thought meaning that this
may have been one or two person projects that took it from
proposal to validation
to implementation the process that we've talked to Weaver
about is there needs to
be multiple checkpoints kind of a gatekeeper system if you
will of this
does not get past my desk unless it meets certain criteria
and so by the time
we bring something to the PUB or the city council we will
have gone through
all of those internal controls ourselves to make sure that
we have a very sound
product and that what you see is is really a consensus
effort on our part
that plays into number seven so I'm not going to repeat
there number eight was to
establish a project management office the project load that
we had several
months ago is very heavy we've scaled that down a great
deal you've seen a
couple of those that we brought forward we did have a
reorganization in August
that addressed a number of the roles and responsibility
deficiencies that we
found namely solid waste was without an administrative
office a lot of that fell
to the operations to do themselves and so you had a lot of
redundancy a lot
overlap a lot of confusion so we do have an administration
office now that we're
building up we also have a project manager position that we
created and
that to that gatekeeper comment a moment ago this this is
really one of those key
positions that whenever you have a project that's got a
sponsor and we want
to submit it for further consideration this person is one
of those important
gatekeepers that says well let me sit down let's do kind of
a feasibility
study on this to see if it warrants a further financial
analysis and so
there's three or four of these types of positions in our
office now that we'll
kind of walk these through whenever a proposal is made same
thing with the
condition in which contracts should be utilized I think
just in general we are
working with legal and purchasing on a number of these we
have 50 plus
contracts within solid waste right now that we've gotten
our arms around a
couple of things that we're going to be doing is formal
izing how that initiation
review much like project management is you're gonna have
those gatekeepers to
make sure that this is a passing muster and then that will
tie into the the city
process that involves legal and procurement down to PFC 11
we have
contract management procedures part of the task for the
administrative staff is
creating kind of a contract repository where we always have
eyes on this that
would also alert us when a review is due a couple of PFCs
later on talk about
vendor performance there's not a consolidated way in solid
waste right now
in which we evaluate vendor performance you really have to
go dig into the
contract and say what what are they supposed to be doing
and so we want to
make sure that we have those out there in a repository that
that information is
easy to get to and easy to manage so that addresses 11 and
12 those are quarter
two completion dates currently that also goes into the
vendor performance like I
mentioned that is something we'll probably need to partner
with procurement
and talk about how does that process work if we have a
vendor that's not
complying or maybe they're behind schedule we don't want to
go rogue and
go out there and try to enforce contract terms on our own
we definitely need to
partner with legal and procurement on that so once we have
our bearings with
our contract management we will circle back with them the
verification of a
purchase requisition that one was kind of low-hanging fruit
there was not a
formal process for how requisitions were requested before
there were two or three
people that could open a purchase order we've restricted
that and centralized
that to where there's only one or two and there's a
prescribed way in which
those are submitted approved verified the whole nine yards
so that one's
complete one of the things I will say even on these that
are complete doesn't
mean that we're done and we're gonna walk away a lot of
this this is a great
example is these forms are submitted via email right now I
'm not a big fan of
email it doesn't have a great audit trail on it so a lot of
these we really
want to try to formalize and standardize and then automate
how some of these
processes work that you have not only the audit trail but
we also have some
reporting and it gives them the managers and also myself
with a higher degree of
visibility and a little bit more accountability as we move
through in
terms of reporting with paradigm we are going to be working
through and
establishing a routine reporting for both operational
financial performance
data we're data driven environment and we have a lot of
data but not a lot of
information and that's something that is going to be a work
in progress for us
over the next 12 to 18 months the budget preparation
process like John
highlighted we have corrected that deficiency one of the
biggest issues we
had was there was not security locked down on budget
documents and so some of
the financial analysts we go into that document say well
how did that number
get there and it wasn't anything deviant an operations
manager was simply
updating information as they got it they were trying to be
helpful but it really
put us in a challenging environment of well if I don't know
where that number
came from I can't source it how am I going to defend it and
so we have locked
that down there is a formalized process for budget
preparation that goes through
17 and 18 as well is there is a strategic budgeting process
that we are
in the currently in progress right now we're going through
our CIP budget as we
speak essentially there's three to four series of meetings
from myself the
financial analyst all the operations managers where we
really go through and
vet this out and make sure that there's that diversity of
thought there's
dialogue and that this isn't something that we're throwing
together at the last
minute and so I think we are going to have a much better
product coming
forward through the budget process moving forward and
something that we all
have some buy-in as an input into lastly a couple of things
here
utilization monitoring for equipment this is the fixed
asset finding that we
were identified is we have a lot of equipment for lack of a
better term
we're a transportation department we just don't transport
people we transport
garbage and recycling so they're much less vocal whenever
they get in the back
versus a taxi maybe but in terms of transporting that
around it's really
important for us that our vehicles that we manage that
fleet effectively that we
keep a close eye on one of our maintenance our repair costs
when is the
appropriate time for us to replace vehicles and so we are
utilizing
utilization guides and reports to make those decisions now
we think that that
will make a big difference in this year's budget and it's
something that
we're eager to share with the PUB and the City Council as
it develops lastly
talked about the strategic staffing plan and oversight for
contract labor and
overtime following the closure of the mining operation we
did decrease our
contract labor a great deal we went from about 14 to 15 on
average contract
labor per day now we're down to about four one of the
things that we are going
to be looking for in the next two to three months is that
strategic staffing
evaluation and creating an operational model that we can
use as managers as
directors to guide our day-to-day operations it's really
taking us from
being in a reactive situation which gets you into that
contract labor that over
time is I didn't anticipate this happening today I need to
go find
workers to get this stuff done we want to be in a more
proactive situation more
proactive posture where we say I anticipated that and this
is how we're
going to address it so that's really the goal with with it
and I'm confident that
as we work through that we will probably see some further
organizational changes
moving folks from one operation or maybe one responsibility
to another and then
hopefully in turn what we will see is a reduction in
contract labor as well as
over time for our staff I know that's a lot of information
to take in I hit it
really fast so I'm happy to stand for any questions that
you might have
questions you guys been busy yeah you know can you go back
to the like the
first slide it was maybe there second slide I'm sorry yeah
the the business
case analysis obviously I mean that's that's kind of on
everybody's mind
given you know we had to make a decision on landfill mining
and who knows if we'd
had that before I'm not trying to second-guess anybody but
as it turned
out but but I think that's before we you know I don't want
to kill the
innovation that we've had at the landfill because I think
we've done some
great things there but at the same time I'm glad to see
having a project
management office and also the business case analysis that
's more formal process
now I'm encouraged by that and having a business case doesn
't necessarily
decrease innovation it just correct correct has diversity
of thought is well
sometimes a business case analysis might be how much money
can you make or how
much money do you expect to lose yeah and put a price on it
so that's that's
but you got to know right you got and I think the
interesting thing to to kind
of bring staff into this is the CNG the mining both of
those operations there
were split opinions within our office even as I got there
and so I think back
to the diversity of thought and making sure that you convey
risk and that you
understand it and that you try to put a dollar amount to it
that's really
critical and that really flows straight into business case
analysis is it's our
duty to be innovative but it's also our duty to convey what
the risk are and
then allow this board as well as the City Council to make
those decisions on
do we want to allocate our funds in that and is the return
worth it so and this
is something that you're doing citywide yes and I guess we
recently also just
set up and established a chief procurement officer function
in a
contract compliance officer function as well one of the
things well I think
Ethan's doing a good job getting you know improving the
process on the front end
really the back end is where we're having more of the
issues in terms of you know
we recently did an inventory and had just under a thousand
active managed
actively managed contracts leases that sort of thing within
the city and my
concern was is are people assigned to those particular
contracts are we
closing them out properly are we enforcing the provision so
we've got a
team now that is set up and actually housed in our office
which is why you
see the construction that is going to be working with all
the department
directors to make sure that the best practices are brought
to them and that
we're giving the proper training out to our staffs as well
so I really applaud
Ethan and his team for embracing all these recommendations
moving forward it
really will help set a template for everyone else
good very good thank you certainly City Council received
the same presentation
next week and then it would be our intention that we circle
back at some
point in the future let you know how we've progressed
through the remainder of
the recommendations we haven't implemented yet it's good
thank you very
much thank you okay now let's since we we went over item B
so let's let's go
back to item B which is to receive a report hold discussion
and give staff
direction regarding the credit and collection policy of the
city utility
system good morning I'm Tiffany Thompson the customer
service manager and coming
back with a follow-up presentation in regards to credit and
collections so a
little bit of background in November of 2010 we did approve
an ordinance that
changed our credit and collection policies this was due to
the high debt
that we had we had about 1.4 million and I wait and no nine
and that was due to
an affectionate ineffective credit collection policy
specifically with
credit scoring deposits and fees and so after the last
couple years we've seen
a reduction in our uncollectible debt for 1516 it went down
to five hundred and
thirty six thousand dollars in our overall delinquent
accounts has
decreased by 34 percent since that time and so last month
we came before the
board and City Council to let you know about the progress
of that and so today
we're just going to follow up on a couple of items from
that presentation
and then get direction from you and council tomorrow so the
focus areas for
this morning is to talk about the meter and billing cycles
some of the survey
comparisons that we did how we do fair and credit fair
credit scoring our
overview of our fees and how we're going to review deposit
options and what we
may want to do with those if we have any changes and then
additional funding to
the plus one program so first on the meter and billing
cycles didn't municipal
electric does utilize two different type of AMI meters you
have the AMI meter
that has remote reads and two-way disconnections 47% of the
meters
deployed right now are the AMI meters 53% are the AMI
disconnect meters which
allows for the two-way communication in addition to being
able to connect and
reconnect remotely or disconnect pardon me and reconnect
remotely and so in
addition to that whenever they go out to read the meters
the water meters are
physically read and so we do have the capability to do
remotely with electric
but again just the water is physically read out in the
field so we do have our
cycles build out into 21 different cycles so we can go out
to the different
places in the city everyone's has a specific cycle assigned
to them so they
can go out and read that meter and then we build it
accordingly and we have it
distributed out that way so we can be able to handle the
workload and also
with the customers calling in to us we can actually kind of
spread that out
throughout the month versus the first or 15th due date or
payment arrangement
date with that and then we also have a greater flexibility
now with our
payments we implemented a new payment portal this last
summer that allows
customers to go in and schedule their payments if they do
have that need for
the first of the 15th they're able to do that and also
setting up reoccurring
payments we have a budget billing and so we have a
different additional payment
methods to give our customers greater flexibility now and
then if we did
change to a first or 15th due date or payment arrangement
cycle that actually
would influence the number of accounts that would go into a
past due status
just because you wouldn't be able to disconnect them on a
regular basis
because we do disconnects about three times a week right
now and so having
that set first or 15th would create a lot of manual
processes and some
customers would actually actually experience about three
bills on their
account and so that is just a little bit of information on
why we bill how we
bill and why we spread it out into multiple cycles
throughout this
presentation we did survey comparisons with eight
comparable cities to us and
so you're just going to see some of that data throughout
this I just wanted to
illustrate the cities that we did get information from and
it's also included
in the backup so in regards to compliance and credit
scoring the city
does utilize online utility exchange to make sure that we
are compliant we do
have to be red flag compliant meaning when a customer comes
into the utility
system we have to identify verify their social security
number and their IDs in
order to make sure that we're mitigating any type of fraud
or identity theft with
that in addition what we glean from that is an assessment
of the customer's
credit that's coming into our system and so we're able to
deem do we need to
charge them a deposit is it waived what deposit would be
appropriate for that
customer coming in and how that is assessed is through a
vantage score and
advantage score is different than a FACA score the vantage
score does have data
from all three credit agencies Equifax TransUnion and Exper
ian and the
vantage score is different from the FACA score because it
is soft credit pool on
that customer's report so that means that the customer does
not get
adversely affected by having us pull it that way and it's
also much more cost
effective if we were to pull it based off of a FACA score
it would cost about
ten dollars to do that and it would be a hard credit pull
on their credit so this
is why we utilize the vantage score and for any customers
that we do assess a
deposit to they're providing an adverse letter that lets
them know the score the
contributing factors to that score and how they can get
additional information
so for the cities that we surveyed 33% of the cities do
have a credit
scoring module like the one that we use and do offer
ability to waive the
deposits 45% do not use a credit scoring and have one
option to waive the deposit
and 22% of the cities do not have the credit scoring but
they charge you a
mandatory deposit meaning regardless of your credit history
you would still be
charged a deposit and I wanted to note that and whenever we
expand the sample
of cities that we benchmark it actually was much higher
almost 64% use a credit
scoring module but for the purpose of this presentation we
kept it to the 8
but I thought that was worthy to note and then also the
city of Denton offers
the most amount of options to be able to waive a deposit
out of the surveyed city
we had the letter of credit, co-signer form and also if you
set up reoccurring
draft with a credit or checking account will waive the
deposit so we have three
options where most only have one. So in regards to fees
what we have found
through the survey is the fee structure is highly variable
and depending on the
city with this and so what we found is we were right there
in the middle in
regards to some of our fees compared to the other cities
and 86% of our customer
base pays on time on a consistent basis and again since
2010 with the
implementation of our credit collection policies we've
reduced the number of
delinquent accounts by 34% with that and so deposit usage
we wanted to discuss
the ways that we utilize our deposits we have 21% of our
customer base has
security deposits on the account the reason why we seek
deposits is we are
in a post-paid environment and so at the time of disconnect
ion or when you turn
off services you could have upwards of two and a half
months worth of usage on
your account and the highest deposit that we're requesting
is up to two
months with that and so 44% of the cities that we surveyed
do have that
average two month deposit like we do and we're also seeing
an increase in
customers leaving the utility system without contacting us
formally to let
them know to let us know that they're disconnecting
services so they're just
letting it turn off and we're not getting a reconnection
from them and so
that increased last fiscal year by 9% so we think that that
's even more
important while we want to make sure we have proper
security deposits on the
account with that increased trend and so how we used the
deposit usage for
fiscal year 16-17 56-69 final accounts held deposits 54% of
them had their
entire balance paid with that deposit which meant that they
were able to move
out and have additional funds to be able to connect
services wherever they're
going and then 46% of them still had an amount owing after
that deposit and we
don't know the final impact of on that for uncollectible
debt because we don't
deem debt uncollectible until 180 days but we do have data
for 15 and 16 and out
of the 5,500 accounts 53% of the deposits paid off the
final bill 47% of them
still had an amount owing and after that 23% overall ended
up leaving a debt that
turned into uncollectible debt so on average about 25% of
the total is or 23%
in that case is still even with the deposit refunding to
the balance they're
still leaving a debt on the account and for the two fiscal
years prior to that
it's it's about the same it's about 25% so we're seeing
that's a consistent
trend with who leaves ultimately results in uncollectible
debt with the deposit
refunding for the plus one program this is the prevent loss
of utility services
for fiscal year 16 17 we assisted 231 families for a total
of about $80,000
the contract with interfaith ministries is expiring next
month we have a six
month extension that we've already signed off on so we can
incorporate data
or pardon me a feedback from pub and council and those
specifications that
we're gonna write six out of the eight cities that we
survey do have a program
like the one that we have here at the city and so some of
the things that we
want to talk about and get direction from you and council
tomorrow with a
again we're trying to create the specs for that contract
now so we can get that
out to a competitive process and so one of the things we'd
like to have you
consider is do you want utility plus one funds going to
utility deposits right
now if someone seeks assistance deposits is not in scope
for that and so it can
only go towards balances so there's an opportunity if you
wanted funds to be
able to assist with customers deposits we have an
opportunity to incorporate
that into the contract now and then also establishing a
requirement that the the
vendor the new vendor or incumbent established written
program guidelines
that the city would review on a yearly basis and so this
would allow us an
opportunity to understand what's going on in the community
then it may be not
three years out when the contracts up for service or for it
to go back out for
competitive process and then what we also found is that we
think we need to
get richer data as far as monthly results from interfaith
ministries
currently and whoever the new vendor may be just so we can
know what are the
barriers that our customers are experiencing and is there a
way for us
to help them so we'd like to incorporate richer data on the
monthly reporting and
then training not only for city staff but for the vendor to
make sure that
they understand what type of authority they have in
qualifying assistance for
the customer and then we talked about last time we do have
a six month tenure
criteria in the current contract and so we think that we
could change that to
say that you could assist the family regardless of the
tenure at the address
and then assisting families more than once in a 12 month
period right now you
get assistance once and then you can't get assistance for
until the next year
depending on the circumstance and this was a 50% of the
reason why customers
were denied assistance was because they needed assistance
again so we think this
is an opportunity to put into the criteria where what is
the appropriate
amount I put up to three times but that's definitely open
for discussion
today and tomorrow and so after last month's discussion it
was brought up if
we did want to change something with the deposit process
what would that be and
what options are there and so just as a reminder the way we
charge deposit is
based off of credit scoring we'll run the credit to see if
you need a deposit
if you don't deposits waived if it's fair it's a one month
deposit and then if
it's a risk factor then we're going to charge up to a two
month deposit on the
account and so some options for new and existing customers
for residential that
we have is we would maintain that credit scoring and if you
're good credit
scoring we wouldn't charge a deposit so the option number
one is only charge a
deposit for that one month of utility usage as opposed to
if they need to have
two we would change to where it would only be one and as
the customer
establishes their tenure and their payment behavior or if
they got
disconnected for non-payment then we would seek the
additional one month
deposit to get them up to two months on the account the
second option that we
can do is charge a deposit again only a one month deposit
when they come into
the utility system and then based upon their payment
behavior or if they're
disconnected for non-payment increase their deposit by $50
increments with
that until they get up to that two month average on there
and then option number
three would to be only secure a one month deposit no
additional increases and
then option number four you know is going to put it in
there right no
changes to the deposit process and we could continue to do
payment arrangements
like we do now but that's definitely an option that we can
vet out with that so
at the end of this we're going to open that up for
discussion we could
collaborate it with community development because as we're
talking
about the deposits we thought that this was a very timely
conversation
especially with the recent emergency solutions grant that
just went through
is what other people can we assist specifically with a
deposit waiver we
do have in ordinance now that victims of family violence
that are working with
friends of the family have a deposit wage and so they
provide us a form
letter if they're going through that scenario we do not
charge them a
deposit and so we think this is another opportunity that we
can incorporate this
into city ordinance if someone who is working with the help
agency and they're
being going through either that rapid rehoming process or
any of the agencies
that's helping with homelessness they can provide us a form
like they do for
the victim family violence and we can waive that deposit so
again we think
this is a timely conversation while we're looking at the
deposits and so
with that and the discussion today and direction that we're
seeking is on the
plus one program and for the deposits so for plus one do we
want to increase the
funds to that for next year specifically because we're
going through the contract
competitive bid and then also do we want to allow funds to
go to the deposits and
staff obviously had recommended some of these criteria but
we're definitely open
if there's additional criteria that the PUB and council
wants to incorporate
into that we want to start working on those specifications
so we can get that
contract going as soon as possible and then for deposits do
you want to
incorporate a deposit for people experiencing homelessness
and if you do
want to make any changes to the deposit process what option
would you like to
select and with that I'll open it up to any questions and
direction questions
yes last time we talked about this I said aren't there any
agencies that also
help with this and I noticed in the paper the Denton paper
the Texoma
Council of Government's energy services program also
provides funds do we work
with them we don't work with them directly but we have like
a list in
addition to plus one where our customers are reaching out
to us they're
struggling we have a list that they will provide them they
are on that list and
in my previous perfect presentation we did have almost 1200
customers were
being assisted through those various agencies with Texoma
Council of
Governments being one of them and last fiscal year they
gave or assisted our
customers with about $135,000 worth of payments on there so
yeah we discussed
that last time with it but I'm glad you brought it so yes
we do make our
customers aware the additional resources that they have out
there for them is
that is that applying deposits or I know plus one is we're
talking about really
applied to deposit not but there's a Texas Council of
Governments that
assistant them or balances I'm not sure how it works here
in Minnesota it was it
had to be electric only really deposits it couldn't be
water and most of them
are definitely balances but you know it's an opportunity if
we're allocating
funds we can deem how we want those allocated so I think it
's it's a good
conversation to have yeah okay but there are programs out
there in addition to
what we're doing to help you some you mentioned that was at
eighty thousand
and change or something that we the plus one program was
that yes for this year
it was a little over 80,000 we allocate about 86,000 to
them every year for it's
a hundred thousand fourteen thousand goes for admin costs
for the vendor to
administer it and then they distribute eighty six thousand
dollars they have
those funds and so you can see they're not even using all
of those funds right
now we don't tell anybody no then I guess I'm sorry we didn
't tell anybody
no we did tell quite a bit of people as people know and we
talked about this
last time some of the reasons why fifty percent of the
reasons why they're
getting decon is they need assistance more than once with
that and then the
other fifty percent is the documentation wasn't filled out
the
applicant didn't show up for the appointment or they didn't
need
assistance any longer but I think it goes back to that
point of getting that
bit that richer data to get a better understanding so we
know how we can
address those needs with that so do we know if we were to
increase it to up to
three times a year would we need more funds or do you think
we would just use
the funds that we were already allocating do we I don't
know the exact
answers to that question I think we're going to need to my
recommendation is
changing the criteria to make it to where we can assist
more customers and
seeing what the impact is of that I think that we would
definitely utilize
this especially if you incorporated deposits in there and
then you remove
that more than once in a 12 month period I do think you're
going to see a greater
need for that but without having that in place it's hard to
determine I wouldn't
feel comfortable telling you yes they need this and I did
have a conversation
with interfaith ministries and they had suggested maybe
doing an increase of
$25,000 in addition to the criteria changes and then seeing
how that goes
with that but again it's your discretion that was gonna be
my next question is
can we amend it later we could put that in the contract so
that would be make
sure I'm saying that right I'm looking at legal I don't be
like yeah we can do
it you're like no you can't with that so I think we could
put that in the contract what I'm trying to get is I think
your deposit process is probably one of the better ones and
I would rather keep
good credit policy in place and provide assistance in the
limited periods where
it's going to be needed and I don't even have a problem
with it going towards the
deposit if they meet the criteria and they need the help
but I don't want to
get away from sound policy. I have a question. I'm sorry
there's probably gonna be an amount of
situations where that deposit goes to just pay the last
couple of months of
their utility bill right like we saw it was pretty
expensive so if they can't
having trouble affording it already they might just so that
deposit might actually
end up just paying for electric rates. Yeah exactly. So
just in a different way.
What is the source of whatever funding of that money? We do
have a customer
contributions that give I think it's about eight thousand
dollars a year that
our customers make donations to the plus one program and
then the rest of it is
funded through the city through we do an allocation to the
utilities so that's
how it ultimately comes back out so there is a the rate
carrier is subsidizing
the additional that customers aren't donating. And so what
is the source from
the city? The source from the city. Our rates. So it
affects our rate structure. Yes.
Okay there was a list that I think Susan brought up of I
don't know whether
they're nonprofits or church organizations or whatever that
obviously
see a need I think you mentioned quite a few of those that
helped up to 1200
people. We have a specific I would call it a public-private
partnership or
contract with one entity to administer the funds that the
city does if I'm
understanding it. I don't know if it would make sense but
to have maybe that
public-private partnership with expand that some to other
organizations or if
they're doing that voluntarily maybe there's no need to do
that. So one of
the things with those additional resources that miss Parker
brought up we
do work with them because they reach out to us to ensure
they understand what the
customer needs are they let us know what amount they're
going to be pledging so
we can make sure the customer doesn't have any interruption
of service until
we get that pledge payment on there but as far as contract
ual we only have the
one with interfaith ministries for that so am I
understanding that maybe not
having just one contract but multiple with agency is that
what I'm asking I
don't I don't know that that's even viable or needed if all
of these other
agencies are already doing it without having to formally
enter into an agreement.
I think I may be able to address some of that we did an RFP
for that service a
few years ago and interfaith was the firm or the nonprofit
that wanted to do
the service there is some administration that has to go
along with it you need
to have some infrastructure to do that so there may be
others that would want
to do that we're certainly willing to talk to them if you
want to have more
than one partner I think that would be fine it's just
matter of finding someone
who's willing to do that for the programs already have in
place perhaps.
Again I'm asking for understanding not necessarily
suggesting that okay needs
to be done because I agree with Susan you know the business
side the credit
standards your deposit that I've seen too many businesses
fail when they start
loaning credit standards banks cities housing authorities
and on and on and
on and I've seen that from firsthand personal because I
foreclosed on or
suit them or whatever so I don't think we should ever lower
credit standards and
policies but to help from a social side this type of thing
and how do you make
it better and how do you solicit more money or how do you
how do you raise
more money without necessarily jeopardizing increasing
utility rates
is a challenge but also worthy of trying to do. Okay
understood. I'm sorry no I
talked too much. Go ahead Lily. You've got some background
on. I do I do in my time
with United Way as their CEO for about five years and then
also as a fundraiser
for the United Way everyone on staff had to answer calls
from the community
asking for assistance and more times than I can count they
would not were not
able to get funds for their to go towards their bills for
electricity
because they had already gone once before or other
organizations had already
run out of funds and so there might be a whole bunch of
organizations out there
but they have very limited funding for this particular
thing and so it really
doesn't cover the need that is out there. The other point
that I wish to make is
that while addressing homelessness that is a huge problem
problem that a lot of
families even families who have both spouses working still
run into this
problem of not being able to pay all of their their funding
and so you ask you
have to ask yourself the question is are we going to you
know have these people
thrown out on the streets because they couldn't pay their
electric bill or are
we going to help them this time and let them continue to
work and make money and
provide for their families so that they can also pay for
their electric bill on
a regular basis and quite frankly up to three times a year
I think would be the
kinder thing for us to be able to do and also not only kind
but also to ensure
that families don't become homeless because they couldn't
have their bills
paid that one time a year. Yes can I piggyback on that I
just want to say I
completely agree with with what Lillia just said both about
the the homeless
deposit waiver and up to three times more a year assistance
and the
connection between these two issues because as our Denton
homeless
coalition you know makes clear that people that low-income
people are on
the verge of homelessness and that home and that homeless
is not a kind of
person but a state of being that that that anybody could
fall into at one time
and so there's a direct connection between these two. I
would like to have
staff consider bring to the table the possibility of a low-
income deposit
waiver because these are precisely the people who you know
low-income people who
are being asked to put more upfront when they don't even
have the money to simply
pay their bill and I find really interesting if you wouldn
't mind going
to the additional information slide the follow-up
information slide or the
let's see this is page page seven of the follow-up
information. Sorry let me get
a hold up.
Yes it's with the additional funding yes yeah starting
right there yeah so you
see um so where it says it a hundred thousand dollars right
towards the plus
one program and then you scroll down to the next item item
11 which is this
breakdown of uncollectible debt and that a hundred thousand
dollars is just a
little less than half of the uncollected residential debt
that exists today right
so we're really looking at you know when I when I look at
this and I found this
so interesting and I'm really grateful that you know you
put this on here as
far as thinking about you know not just does the deposit
system work but how
does it work you know what I see is that the commercial
debt has shrunk so
significantly both in terms of the amount of money and the
overall percentage
the piece of the pie of the uncollected debt and you can
see that in terms of
percentages the commercial category has literally switched
places with the
residential category we go from 46% of the total uncoll
ected debt being
commercial to 46% of the uncollected debt being residential
so what that says
to me is that the deposit is that since we enacted this
deposit system that
we've we've shrunk the total uncollected debt down but we
've done that by
shifting the burden to you know from essentially the you
know rich but I could
say from the rich to the poor you know from from the
commercial entities that
can pay these deposits because you can see there's so
little uncollected debt
now from commercial because they can pay right they can pay
their deposits most
of them can and then you have these residents and I should
say I've been you
know since I started on PUB I am contacted every every week
by multiple
you know low low-income people who are struggling to pay
their bills which are
augmented by these extra you know as you know and you know
more about it than I
do because you talked to him you know more of these people
than I do so you
know what I would like to propose again is following up on
what I was saying
before and I'm just using this as the as the data to back
that up this is what
gave me the idea you know if we could you know keep the
commercial deposits and
and include not just a waiver for people who are homeless
but for people who are
on the verge of always on the verge of homelessness which
is quite frankly low
income people in Denton in general and and then we could
even if you're taught
if you're you know looking at the plus one program so I'm
kind of jumping from
you know one to the other and back because they are such
related issues and
but and I and I push for that reason I appreciate having
both these issues in
the same presentation you know what about since so if you
scroll up to that
scroll back up to the plus one so if what we're doing with
the you know plus
one program is we're giving a hundred thousand to a third
party and they keep
fourteen thousand for their operations and then they're
giving the rest of the
money back to our ratepayers to give back to us you know
why not from a point
of view of just you know practicality and you know fiscal
responsibility just
kind of cut the middleman and have staff have you know have
customer service you
know do away with the low-income deposit which means less
time spent on on the on
the phones you know I think more you said said previously
at council work
session more than 50% of the time on customers not 10% but
I went back and
research okay so it is less okay yeah but but but you
remember that yeah that
question yeah so but you know a significant part of time so
what if
instead you know you were able to spend this time it would
be helping the same
kinds of customers but having being able to provide that
assistance at the level
of staff and I don't expect you to actually be able to
answer that right
now I do have a thought on that if I may yeah with that
they customers are
divulging a lot of personal information with getting
assistance like do they
meet the criteria what's their financial need health I mean
you got HIPAA stuff
in there too and I don't know I don't necessarily know if
the city wants to be
brought into scope with all that and being us saying no to
you and yes to you
with that I think that's one of the primary reasons we do
do a contract for
this so we establish the criteria and then the customer
goes to interfaith
that make sure they meet the criteria in addition that they
know the additional
resources that are out in the community because it isn't
usually just one need
with utilities it's probably a combination of needs and so
interfaith is
that that resource for them to be able to get the
additional resources that
they may need with us thank you for bringing that up
because I was just
gonna say we don't want to know that Deb we don't want to
know that about our
customers and and I think using this third party is a
better way and if that
means we help them with deposits and they will get other
resources do they
need food do they need you know clothing for their children
and things it's a
really is a more efficient interfaith does a lot of things
besides utility
assistance and so you know for fourteen thousand dollars
that is a very
efficient very cheap administrative cost especially if the
city to take it on I
think you you would have to budget I don't know what at the
budget to
administer that program but it would be I just don't think
it'd be very efficient
I think having a third party that also takes care of these
other needs school
supplies medical referrals that type of stuff
transportation see yeah really
really makes because they're getting the information anyway
I think we agree on
the outcome we're trying to achieve oh of course yeah yes
yeah of course yeah I
just it's because I know from having talked to you so many
customers and also
having talked to you know customer service that you know
you guys are
hearing these stories anyway I completely understand why
you don't want
to you know get involved but it's all but in design
customer services is also
making just simply by being customer service ending up
making decisions
because it's not an exact science and you can't predict
what every individual
case is going to be you know ending up deciding in certain
cases for instance
there are certain customers who have come to me in dire
situations and by
the way I have yet to meet anyone who pays deposits who's
not in some kind of
difficult circumstances it so I would like to see also more
information about
not only and I'm glad you're asking for plus one for more
assist for more data
on you know the kinds of obstacles in people's way I'd also
like to see more
about the income levels of people who are being charged
deposits so I got a
map and I appreciated the map that shows kind of where you
know the clusters of
where people who pay deposits are that's included in this
but I would like to see
data on the income levels of the people who are asked to
pay deposits
because I think what will my guess is what we'll find and
what I've seen
anecdotally is that it is our low our lower income
customers on average who
have to pay these who have to pay these deposits I think
the criteria for
deposits is what their credit yes that that's and that
determines whether or
not they're gonna pay us back or not and so from a business
standpoint we got to
be good stewards from business standpoint of making
business decisions
and that's what Susan we go back to that pie chart the
reason why commercial
started paying their bills because they were required to
put down a deposit just
like everyone else yes and I look at the chart the
residential there in half to
multifamily didn't have quite as much but the reason isn't
the reason that
that's lower is because you all instituted tighter credit
controls and
tighter collection policies yes and so that encourage
people to start paying
that's why that's down yeah probably and we can figure out
a way to help those
people who need help yeah well you know that in my from
from what I have seen
from talking to ratepayers whose lives have been really you
know that these in
in ways that some of us you know can't can't think of the
kind of decisions
that they have to make every day these deposits have been
really successful at
the commercial level and they have been successful you know
for at the
residential level but at what cost and what I'm seeing is
the cost of making
poor people's lives pretty miserable and I don't think it's
if it were up to me
I'm one voice on PUB but I don't think it's worth that
savings you know the
difference between that that the residential savings the
difference
between that five hundred thousand and that two hundred
something thousand when
we're already committed because as you said Susan because
we all do have that
same goal of wanting to you know help it's just just a
matter of different
ideas of how we get there I completely understand that but
you know we're all
we're already committing to okay we're putting a hundred
thousand dollars down
to help you know why not step back and look more at and I
think the interfaith
can help us with this and providing more of this
information how this this the
inability to be able to pay this extra money upfront is
affecting people's
lives and what would happen economically without just
assuming oh we can handle
it you know actually looking at you know at adding up the
figures from a risk
analysis perspective what if we exempted low-income people
how much money we have
from the deposits how much so I would really like to see
that how much money
would you know would we be losing or how much would we be
gaining an
uncollected debt I really want to see that because I've
seen how this has
really ruined people's I think you're making an assumption
between low income
and bad credit because you can have high income and have
bad credit and you can
have low income and have good here for 35 years and I
believe the first few
years I paid deposits because I was right out of high
school I didn't have
any credit and now I don't pay it was that before 2010 or
after 35 years so
when I'm when I'm here that was when everybody paid
deposits because it used
to be that everybody paid $150 deposit we still had we
still had options to
waive and one of the things is we do not collect data on
income so we wouldn't be
able to gather what the income level is for people that
were charging deposits
and nor I think going back to the miss Parker's point nor
do we want to ask well
are you low-income or get into that okay so if we can't do
that then we can look
at if you look at national averages of you know who it is
in this nation who
has the bad credit you will find overwhelmingly that it is
low-income
people who have bad credit because it's living in America
is expensive and it is
not in most people who have bad credit it is not because
they're spending
extravagantly you're not managing their money it's because
life is really
expensive and I know that you hear these kind of stories in
United Way and I know
you hear them in customer service you know I'm sorry to you
know take the floor
the floor on this but but I because I am also concerned
about you know the
dollars and cents of it and risk management and I do what
you know want
to see that this is that it would be fiscally possible but
just when I just
look looking at that looking at this and looking at the
data that we have you
know I'm not convinced that requiring people with bad
credit who now who you
know in terms of nationwide averages tend to be low-income
people in terms of
everybody who's come to me low-income people I don't see
the advantage
financially in charging them for this and having so many
staff hours spent you
know chasing down people to get them to pay I would like to
see more more data
more information since we're all agree we want to help
people why assume that
that these two ways or you know the ways the ways to do it
charge people a lot
and then give a third party extra money to pay people so
that they can give us
back the money so the deposit is indicative of what their
usage is going
to be going into that address and that's why we're
collecting it but the map on
exhibit four does demonstrate that these deposits are
throughout the city yes
there's a specific group or area it definitely represents
that yeah it is
throughout the city so so just understand your point of
contention here
is that you would just like to see us waive deposits for
low-income people yes
what is what's low-income well that would be something to
be determined I
mean that right here yeah we don't want to ask our
customers that you know I
don't think we want that information we don't we can I
bring us back into center
here for a second we're talking about increasing how much
money and we're
talking about allocating more money to allow deposits to be
paid out of the
plus one or whatever right whatever money we're gonna
allocate for that so
it makes the deposits and let's let somebody else determine
what low income
is and that's what that's what interfaith does that's what
other
agencies do city does not need to be in that business so if
we allocate more
money to and allow deposits I think we've accomplished what
you're talking
about but but we we put a limit on it because it's a here's
what we're gonna
budget for this year and so they'll have a blank check we
can't do that we can't
say we just from business standpoint we can't do that so we
we just need to look
at from a budget standpoint how much money do we want to
allocate and do we
want to allow that money to be used towards deposits as
well as the utility
bills and I think that's where we're at yes and so as far
as giving staff
guidelines I don't know other than other than that is kind
of the bottom line you
know when we get it if we want to we've got a we've got a
contract that's coming
up in December there may be some things that in working
with interfaith that
come out of some some ideas on how to be more effective and
more efficient in
assisting families that need it if it's more more than once
the 12-month period
so be it we can put it in there well let's just let's just
kind of see what
where that goes and then let's let's tweak the the policies
we have and then
and then allocate more funds what well if it as long as we
have deposits then I
do so you know if if if we're we are charging people with
bad credit these
deposits then I do support very much so it's plus one a
plus one program
assisting people with those deposits and I do very much I
mean I want to support
you know struggling ratepayers however we can because
people are really
struggling so I just want to make it clear I do support
these aspects of the
plus one program but I also want to which is why I'm glad
these two are grouped
together look at the root of the cause of why people are
finding themselves in
this situation you know having a hard time paying their
deposits and no amount
you know no policy you know deposit even even though
deposits have helped with
some people resident poor residents paint being able to pay
it has not helped
all and the statistics prove that because of the you know
uncollected debt
that we still have and no policy is going to make money
magically appear you
know in poor people's pockets other than actually giving
them money or subsidizing
them and I'll just say and then I'll shut up but this is
one of the reasons
why I wanted to be on pub because it's a really important
issue for me when we
were hiring for the new our new general manager one of the
one of the
interviewees was from Seattle and he just happened to
mention that at the his
utility in Seattle they subsidized sixty print I haven't
checked up on this but
he mentioned that they subsidized sixty percent of low-
income ratepayers I'm not
saying so then let's do that you know but but that's just
an example of you
know the kind of things that could be possible and I I won
't say no to
anything until I see the numbers and how that adds up but
our options you know as
far as I see I mean I had to read over those four options a
number of times to
be able to differentiate between what exactly is the
difference you know
amongst those those options anyway so I will stop now and
you know thank you for
for hearing me and I do agree that we're all you know we're
all on the same page
with with wanting to help help help people
the PB is okay with incorporating or do we want to increase
funds to the plus one
program you know I think I think the consensus is let's
look at what we can
increase it by and what the effect would be if we included
deposits in that plus
one reimbursement and increase up to three times a year yes
yeah we're never
gonna be able to write enough money to take care of a
hundred percent I mean
that's just not possible and I think that if we increase I
mean they didn't
use all the money they were given this last fiscal year and
that might be
because they're having to refuse people because they've
only because I've already
used it so so if we if we increase that if we increase that
to three times a
year is their way we can put some provision in the contract
to increase
the amount of money if we realize that we upped it to three
times a year and
we ran out of money halfway through you know is there a way
to that we come here
and leave the hundred thousand that we have now that we
allocate to them but
put into the new contract that we can amend that increase
funds dependent on
need or maybe go ahead and bump it up what they had what
they had
something that will allow it to based upon the revised
criteria we're saying
we definitely need more data so we can make better
decisions and always yes
yeah and in addition to the other new data that that we're
requesting I would
like to see of those what is it 231 families that we've
assisted you know
how much money is not on average but family by family since
it's only 231
without names of course or any identifying but but how much
money is
going to each family because my impression was that it was
a kind of a
small percentage of the total bill but I recently I talked
to one rate payer just
yesterday who just had her entire bill paid for by by inter
faith and so you
know if you just if you do the math I mean I I have data on
that now yes yeah
oh excellent that would be great to see thank you dollar
amount of the yeah so
I'm guessing that that situation is very rare where they
pay the entire bill but
again that's why we want to have good criteria so if they
want to make have
that authority to make that decision and Randy on the
homeless waiver do we have
consensus on that the homelessness waiver and that waiver
comes through an
organization that their progress correct yeah that's a
great idea and then with
regards to the deposits you had all these four options I'm
not sure I'm not
sure we've decided what we wanted to get where we wanted to
go with those four
options I'm an option for yeah that's where I'm at and just
to make certain
the deposit process at this point in time is that right now
whenever a
customer comes into the utility system we'll run that risk
assessment if
they're good no deposit if they're fair it would be a one
month deposit and then
if they have a higher risk could be a two month deposit and
with any of those
deposit requirements we offer payment arrangements for that
deposit so we'll
split that deposit out for them on a monthly basis for them
and so we work
with their specific situation on that and if they can
provide a letter from
their past utility it's waived letter of credit cosigner or
if they say I'll go
on draft and we'll waive the deposit for them for that as
well the real purpose
for the deposit is to make sure that those utility bills
get paid so that we
don't we're not in a deficit because they start out in a
post but we're in
essence issuing credit to when someone comes into the
system because it's post
paid and so that's why we do the credit assessment on them
because it's
postpaid with and again to note what we discussed last
month is we have the
prepaid utilities coming on board very soon which would neg
ate all the deposits
and the fees for these customers I just I know you just
said it but when is that
coming on board next year yep that's the plan hopefully in
the summer summertime
for that so deposits I'm hearing that no changes in deposit
but include the
deposit waiver for homelessness and then include this
criteria for plus one
potentially start out the increase to 125,000 with the new
contract with the
ability to amend that based off of needs that we are able
to pinpoint and bold
face the more data and then up to the three times a year
that's another
agreement from yes I have one question that's sort of
related how is it that
if I move out I could possibly have two and a half months
of unpaid utilities if
y'all are billing me once a month I guess I could have not
paid one month
okay that's it that's you didn't pay your previous month
and now you have your
current bill behind on billing no sir once you get your
current bill you're
already two weeks in to your next billing cycle so if you
didn't pay and
then you have a new bill and then it's two weeks in so it
could be upwards of
two and a half months thank you any other questions I will
say just about
just about the map I mean it is that people are spread out
all over town but
you know if you look closely you can look at in the South
ridge and some
of the other more expensive neighborhoods you aren't really
finding
that many deposit payers in there so and so that's why I'm
you know because I
believe until I see proof to the contrary I am just going
to go with it
with what I see anecdotally and in terms of national
statistics that this
credit-based policy ends up targeting poor people I know
that wasn't the
intention so I support the homelessness deposit waiver but
I'm not part of the
consensus on you know supporting option option four but I
do support the
improvements to the plus one I know this is ready Dan but I
didn't have one
question since we have and they may do this but it's
discouraging to find out
that they're at whatever level their support there is an
agency that we've
been proactive the city's been proactive on and yet those
that need assistance
that are having such hardship fail either fill out the
application even
though they've been told or show up for an appointment now
I don't know if they
provide like for low-income housings homebuyer assistance
and things like
that to educate people more or credit but and this isn't
something that we
would get involved in but I'm just wondering if some of
these agencies that
work including the one the ministries offer something like
that or if it's
like take it or leave it here it is we have it and if you
might take the
initiative fine and if you don't well sorry
just a holistic approach whenever they're trying to help
the customers but
to your to echo your point I was very surprised that 50%
was declined or
didn't get assistance because they didn't show up to the
appointment didn't
fill out the proper paperwork I'm not surprised I'm not
surprised
okay I think you got your thank you
okay next we have actually we have I think items D&E are
pretty much on the
same presentation so we can just go through both of those
at the same time
sure well good good late morning Mario can is ours as a
city manager I just
wanted to bring a couple items to the board's attention
that were brought up
here over the last few weeks one of those is to a
suggestion was made on a
previous board meeting about placing certain expenditure
items on that were
on a pubs agenda for individual consideration and the
second item was to
give consideration that changing the meeting times of the
board meeting so I
just wanted to go over a few slides and then at the
conclusion see try to get
some understanding as to how the board wants to proceed
further on these
matters the first one was it was item was raised back in
late September about
placing certain expenditure items I believe it was fifty
thousand dollars or
more for individual consideration but before we just delve
into that exact
item I just wanted to go over a few things that things that
are placed on
the pub agenda and and why and just so you again just for
the for the public
that's watching or maybe streaming it later they get an
understanding as how
the pub agenda works as you heard earlier this morning we
have number of
work session items that are placed on the pub on a regular
basis to bring
information to the board seek direction or just really
share information so that
at some point in the future the board can make a a
consideration whether it's
on the individual consideration or even for the for consent
during the during
the spring and summer every year we bring forward operating
budgets related
to the utility to utility funds we also bring capital
improvement budgets to you
all for you all to review and give feedback to the staff
about how we're
proceeding as we build our upcoming budget for the next
fiscal year or future
years on occasion we have closed closed session items when
we're bringing
forward things related to legal matters real estate matters
as as those things
are brought forward and even on competitive a competitive
electrical
rate matter so again to make sure that we are making sure
that we're
competing appropriately on the electrical rates and not
disclosing any
information that that is that is not appropriate recently
the board reviewed
some information related to not-for-profit how we how we
sponsor
not-for-profit entities the council recently considered an
item from the
from Denton municipal electric also utility fund and and
and wastewater
funds on the not-for-profit so anything over $2,500 is
brought forward to the
PUB for your consideration on it for individual
consideration with the staff
report and then it also be brought forward to the City
Council at their at
one of their upcoming council meetings any time there's a
procurement matter
will bring forward if it's $100,000 or more that will be
also brought forward
and at a PUB and then for council for their consideration
there are occasions
where an item may be brought forward that's under the 100k
threshold but
usually it's for some things that are non recurring unique
things that are just
fall outside of the ordinary and again just more to bring
to the PUB's
attention and give your consideration and guidance as we
bring those things
forward and last but not least things that are special
projects unique things
that are brought forward certainly the the Weaver and Tid
well report that you
heard this morning the Black and Beach report those things
that are that are not
typically done on a year-in-year-out basis but are special
projects we bring
those things forward whether it's to engage into a
consulting contract to
give you the scope of the project allow you to give you
give you some
information so that you can then consider that so that the
staff can move
forward if you deem so if it's appropriate and then we'll
bring those
things forward for you for your review certainly anything
related to policy
matters if we're amending a policy adding a policy deleting
a policy just
like what you just heard just a moment ago about about
deposits and things that
age or so it falls right in line with some of the things
that that that the
PUB considers and then as I mentioned earlier just these
new does not a routine
one-time expenditure items that are brought forward for for
your attention
to review. Mouse is going a little haywire here.
So we use a consent items again the consent agenda item
just like with any
board governing board it's allowed it's it's intended so
that you have a
slated items on your agenda if it's posted accordingly
where the governing
board can make one motion a second and approve that those
slated items
accordingly to again to make the agenda run more
efficiently certainly a member
with a city council member or governing board can pull an
item from consent to
get additional information from staff or receive a report
or go through some
details about the item and and and greater detail and then
the board could
then consider that individually so you always have that
option but really the
items for consent that we typically use those things are
for more of those more
routine things that that are brought forward whether it's a
restocking item
certainly utility funds and I gave some examples here pipes
valves maybe on some
occasion contract contracts with a consultant things that
are done on a
more routine basis for again just a cost of doing business
for for for our
utility operations more belts and suspenders kind of items
those things
are typically well they will be budgeted within the
operating budgets or the CIP
budgets they've run through our normal procurement
procedures so they've been
vetted through a bid or an RFQ RFP process so again these
things are more
routine in nature and the purpose of that as I mentioned
earlier is to allow
it to for your your agendas to run more efficiently and the
intent is to allow
the board to have higher level discussions whether it's
regarding
policy matters or other important issues so that you have
some time to really
delve into the topic have debate amongst yourselves develop
develop consensus and
give staff direction so that we can move forward so that's
really the use of the
consent and the agenda and not many more slides I mean
certainly we just want to
get some direction from you all if you want to consent
consider excuse me
continue using the consent agenda process and how it's used
as described
earlier or if you need additional information or if you
want to go a
different direction we're just here to present some of this
information so that
we know how to build your future agendas and I'll have
comments questions yes is
there a mechanism or a tool where we store this information
like you just
told us like some procedures and policies that we follow as
as a board
but we don't actually have I mean I imagine they're in our
minutes if we
wanted to go back and look and see what we do but in this
situation we have we
we had a situation where a board member wanted to change
something that we do
it's really a loose procedure but as you pointed out it's
something that we
typically do well what we've what we've done at least in
the time that I've been
here obviously you have the minutes that you can always go
back and see and so you
know any board member is welcome or any member of the
public is welcome to reach
out at the city manager's office to or any of our public
utility or see me any
utility departments to to try to get historical information
of what a
previous board or even a more recent board decision was
made so we can look
at the minutes the other mechanism which we use is the ACM
new business matrix so
as items are brought forward at the end of a board meeting
at concluding items if
there's something that you you or any other board member
would like to get
more information on or would like for staff to do some
research on we take
that and then we we work internally as far as a staff and
determine the amount
of time it might take to to research a matter and if it
takes something that
takes a little bit more time then then what we try to do is
bring bring that
information to you at the next board meeting to give you an
idea of when that
item may be forthcoming so kind of schedule your your
discussions
accordingly and the other thing that we're doing to that's
at least
relatively new thing based on some other comments that were
made in previous
boards is to try to keep a track of upcoming board agenda
items so things are
of higher of a higher importance not necessarily just
typical procurement
things but things that may be a policy matter or just
things that that may
require some discussion or a consultant that may be coming
forward we'd like to
keep track of those future agenda meetings so that you as a
board kind of
getting a feel for what's coming in December or coming in
January as we
start building those agendas is that answer your question
or sorta sorta okay
we can visit later and to kind of get a little more details
I guess I guess you
know maybe a handbook or bylaws or something like that oh
okay committees
will have you know something that you know outside of
Robert's Rules of
Order that governs their activities and rules procedure
yeah we can certainly we
can certainly build a rules procedure book you know in
terms of incorporating
how we've typically run the meeting we certainly have that
for the City Council
and but I think that the feedback Mario is trying to get
from you is kind of an
explanation of how something winds up on a consent agenda a
lot of time there's
there's sort of a call there depending on how busy you are
but you know it's
it's we can certainly put you know something together for a
few pages that
kind of dictates how we're gonna put these agenda yeah I
was really using just
the opportunity to bring that's kind of on I would I would
like that I think
that would be helpful and it'd be helpful we're gonna have
some slots
opening up and when new people come on I and I don't know
what y'all are gonna
think about this I'm curious to see how the rest of PUB
feels about this but you
know since we're an advisory committee to council we're in
an advisory capacity
to them they obviously have you know so many things to deal
with because it's
the whole city so I understand why they need a consent
agenda I do understand
that us having a consent agenda definitely makes meetings
shorter I
understand that but I myself would support doing away with
consent agenda
for the public utility board so that then the public can
see that that
everything that ends up getting voted on by council even
utilities items that go
on their consent agenda have been vetted and discussed or
at least had the
opportunity to discuss on the public utility board I think
that would be a
really good move as far as you know a gesture to the public
you know showing
what what we do and how seriously we take what we do on the
UB if an item
comes up that's just you know a simple item hey we need
this equipment and
here's why we needed any questions no then that's you know
what five seconds
ten seconds more I don't think you know looking around the
room I you know I I
can't imagine that we would have you know huge
conversations on items that
appear to all of us to just be okay that sounds good you
know we don't need a big
PowerPoint presentation on everything but just to show the
public that we've had
the opportunity before it goes on the council consent
agenda anyway I would
I would support that doing away with consent agenda for PUB
thanks I think
just because it's on a consent agenda doesn't mean that we
aren't paying
attention and vetting it and asking questions and still
have the opportunity
to remove it from consent agenda for a further discussion
there are some things
that are just routine in nature and and I support keeping
the consent agenda for
those reasons but I love the work sessions that we're doing
getting into
those things and if we've gone through a work session and v
etted it very
carefully then it could go on consent agenda I don't want
us to you know act
like we're not paying attention I don't know what the thing
you said we are
vetting those things we do take it seriously it I
understand and again I
mean when when things come up on the consent agenda I read
everything I know
we all we all study everything on the consent agenda
contracts oh yeah no life
so yeah no no I'm not talking about so on the one hand
there's like what we do
you know which is and you know and I know we're all
studying it but just in
terms of perception to the public I think it would be a
good public relations
move to show them on camera that we're doing this because
they can't see us and
again I know I myself know that we're working on this stuff
you know but as
far as the public's concern anything that doesn't happen on
camera in this
room around this table they don't get they don't get to see
it so we've opened
things up so much in this city and it's having a positive
effect at a critical
time so anyway but just to be clear that I do know I know
you're doing the work I
see you know I see it and I do know that we can always pull
something so I'm
really thinking almost exclusively about perception issues
any other opinions
consent agenda you know these things I don't know how much
time you say but
doing consent agendas it is I have seen it where we've we
've had consent agenda
items after a work session we've already spent a lot of
time on so you know why
do you open it up for discussion again after you've already
discussed it you
know having the opportunity to pull one at any time plus
all the backup is there
and it's the backup is there not only for for us but also
online you can pull
the I legislate backup material it's open to the public so
I don't think the
consent agenda is there to try to hide something certainly
it's just to make it
make it more efficient and if if if we leave things on the
consent agenda we
always have the opportunity to take it off is my if there's
a question or some
clarity clarification or something like that so the
information is available is
that correct yes ma'am all agenda items have agenda
information sheet and then
if there's a contract a contract and any other supporting
documentation actually
I think it's rare that we don't have at least one item
pulled off of the consent
yeah I agree it's very I think we had one meeting in the
last couple years
where historically I think when they've been pulled it's it
's one quick question
a lot of time presentation or need to abstain from a vote
or whatever yeah yeah
there's something interesting that you just wanted to get
an overview absolutely
okay so what's the direction yes keep putting on the
consent agenda but just
know that it may be pulled off okay so just continue it
works well keep doing
okay as long as the information is available to the public
yeah it's it's
online all the backup is there I think that needs to be
stressed that even
though it's on a consent agenda every bit of the backup and
supporting documents
or whatever it is is online yes so thanks for thanks
everybody for
discussing that and thanks staff for putting that item on
the agenda the next
item is again as I mentioned earlier but consideration of
scheduling future PUB
meetings meet excuse me PUB meetings into the evening only
one slide as you
know we the PUB meets on the second and fourth Monday in
the morning at 9 a.m.
there are some options that the board can consider as
listed here on this on
the on the screen you can continue doing the way you've
been doing it you can go
to all the evening meetings or you can do a hybrid where
you can alternate one in
the morning one in the evening or consider other options
that we did look
at just some quick scheduling just a little back at just
some logistical
things just so you are aware didn't go to every single day
of the week but this
is a very busy room it gets used quite a bit and so as you
know we record all our
PUB meetings so video record and stream and and it's
recorded so that people can
watch it and into the future past meetings and so there's
some quick
checking with the city secretary's office at night so if
you were to keep
it on say a Monday if you were to move it to a Monday night
meeting just to
make you aware there is a conflict with the Traffic Safety
Commission meets on
the first Monday of the month on the second the historical
landmark
Commission meets on in here the third meet the third Monday
I don't believe
there's any conflict based on what I could find at this
moment and the fourth
Monday I don't think they meet every single month but the
zoning Board of
Adjustment meets on those fourth Monday so I think those
are more ad hoc but
they may have a more of a something schedule on a periodic
basis but just to
make you aware of just a little bit of the conflicts that
may occur doing a
moving it to again not dissuading you just letting you know
that just the
scheduling issues - right was there any is there any
problem with bringing it
back to where we used to have the meetings is it because we
don't have
media in there how hard would it be to include media in
there we didn't look at
that but I believe it was brought here because hey it's a
hall it's a visible
icon and you know you can easily get to again the
multimedia assets of it as far
as the connectivity and the use of the cameras and so just
to make it available
to the viewing public is why what about the downstairs room
there's no there's
no man chambers council chambers does chambers does I had
not not checked that
schedule so I get this an option I mean my opinion personal
opinion is I would
like to see us do more evening meetings yeah I don't know
if that's every other
you know once a month if we have two a month one is gonna
be in the evening one
in the morning I know we've had evening meetings in the
past to accommodate
public comment when we especially when public comment on
transmission line
locations or substation locations things like that so I
think it's again just
because it's the way we've always done it doesn't mean it's
the right way and so
I like the idea of an evening meeting if we can find on a
regular basis would it
be the fourth Monday or the second Monday of every month I
'm all for it I
don't know but you said the third Monday was the one that
was open in here as far
as I can tell second and fourth Monday is our that's
correct and we have no
bumping rights or anything yeah what about does any group
or I mean you said
you don't know so that you didn't check into that but just
offhand if there's no
group that meets in council chambers on Monday evenings at
all there then maybe
just consistently Monday evenings in council chambers as a
I'm just throwing
that out there yeah and when we're talking about evening
are we talking
about five o'clock or are we talking about four o'clock or
three o'clock what
do we it came out of part of the interviewing process where
you know we
the community needs to have an opportunity yeah yeah I just
wanted more
often a little bit better well just a great for a good
historic landmark
committee I think they start their agendas at 5 traffic
safety is at 530
530 traffic safety so council meeting starts at 630 on
Tuesday nights but
they have work sessions start a lot earlier than that on
those Tuesdays so
it's really more up to the up to the board's call and your
availability as to
when you'd like to do those yeah yeah I would advocate for
a time closer to you
know 630 so just so that we know working people I mean
everybody has different
hours some people work nights but you know so that most
working people can you
have a commute I shouldn't even say most some more than
otherwise would be able
to attend 6 6 30 time frame okay I like six yeah so okay so
we'll look at that
time are you wanting to do the one in the morning one in
the evening or all in
the evenings or which I like alternating I think it gives
more more opportunity
for people to see it live or come here you know in person
if you alternate I
personally don't want to see any change at all but I'll go
with the group on
this you know and also they might not want to meet me at 6
o'clock
of when we do have an anticipated public comment items that
it can be scheduled
specifically in the evening because we have had public
comment items at 9 o'clock
on Monday and we don't get a lot of public comment so so we
'll look at
having again that you meet on the second and fourth Mondays
so again just trying
to narrow down this focus here so we know what to do would
it be safe to say
that we'll do the first meeting of the month in the morning
and the second
meeting of the month in the evening yeah is that okay yeah
okay and then we'll
look at see what's available whether it's here I know there
's conflicts
already but we'll see what's available here if this is not
available at all then
then we'll look at the chamber council chambers for the
evening meeting on that
second sure yes sir and then have the meetings here in the
morning is that
okay yes yeah anything else on this item I guess I'm a
little concerned about the
impact on staff who already spent a lot of time up here in
the evenings and the
cost of possibly adding another business meeting to that
has been a discussion
internally but I think we can work around that certainly
the working through on
the video side of it just the actual recording of it there
is a that's just
another meeting added to that staff and then we had the
recording secretary
component so there may need to be some adjustments
internally as far as how
that's done and some assignments or or how it's done or who
is done by so so
we'll have some conversations internally kind of try to try
to make sure that no
single person or single persons are are overburdened
because that is that can be
quite burdensome especially if the same person is doing
multiple committee
meetings because there's they're really a part of that
recording secretary or the
as far as the videography and I don't want to look at Kim
because we'll work
through that and make sure that that not one person is over
burdened.
You're right. You're in a direct line of sight. You know
Charlie if you have more things on consent
agenda you don't need staff here. Anything else? Thank you.
Okay.
And actually there's no action item coming out of the
closed meeting so if
we can move that to the end of this meeting go through our
regular agenda at
this time so that anyone who does not need to be here for
the closed meeting
can leave after that so all right so we'll open the regular
meeting now at
1159 and first item items for individual consideration
first item A which is
consider approval of the Public Utility Board meeting
minutes of October 23rd
2017. Are there any comments questions changes additions
subtractions nothing
hearing none those minutes then will be approved as
submitted. Item B is to
receive a report hold a discussion and provide staff with
direction. We need to
make a motion sorry. We need to make a motion to approve.
We have it in the
past. I don't have to have motions and seconds and all that
. Okay. As long as there's no
changes. Okay. Yeah correct me if I'm wrong.
It's kind of approval by acclamation. Item B is to receive
a report hold a discussion
and provide staff with direction concerning the approval of
a public
works contract for the Cooper Creek interceptor 1 & 2
project consisting of
the replacement of approximately 7,000 feet of 21 inch and
24 inch clay
sanitary sewer with new 84 inch fiberglass reinforced pipe
and 30 inch
polymerized vinyl chloride sanitary sewer along Cooper
Creek.
All right good morning board. Good morning. I'm Todd Estes.
I'm the City Engineers. My first
time to be here in front of you so I'm a little excited.
Good to see you all this
morning. Cooper Creek interceptor 2. This is phases 1 & 2.
Phase 3 was
actually done five or six years ago and it sounds a little
odd that we're
working backwards in the sequence here but for whatever
reason that was the
process and progress through the design of this project.
Phase 1 & Phase 2
closes out the long-term needs what we need for this Cooper
Creek interceptor.
We have before you for consideration a contract with Condi
Construction who was
the low bidder lowest qualified bidder and responsive bid
der at 3.1 million
dollars. You can see here on the map that roughly the
limits of phase 1 & 2
extends from Old North all the way on the top of the screen
there under loop
288 down under University Drive and almost over to Promont
ous Parkway. There's
a couple of different pipe sizes in this and we'll get into
why that's important
here shortly. Existing interceptor is undersized to meet
today's demand and
for the future demand. So what this actually does is it
increases the
capacity of what we can provide for the future. It's also
replacing 50 year old
infrastructure with infrastructure that should last us from
now and into the
future. This project will provide the capacity for the
ultimate development of
this entire service area so as the entire area starts to
develop more people
come in more business come in we do have the capacity here
to handle it. I love
this mouse. Just briefly we had eight respondents you'll
notice seven on the
list here these are the seven of the eight that are
considered responsive
bidders. What that means is is they actually put in all the
requirements
that we asked for as part of the construction package. When
we send out to
bid we told them here are the qualifications that you need
to have to
be able to do a project with pipe of this size. We've got
30 inch pipe for the
majority of it then we go to an 84 inch pipe. So it's a
very large pipe
especially for sanitary sewer line. The apparent low bidder
that is the one that
you don't see on the list that person did not meet all the
qualifications at
least they didn't include in the submittal package and then
as we went
through and we talked to the bidder purchasing department
followed up with
them said want to make sure that we just didn't miss
something with this because
you are the apparent low bidder they still did not supply
sufficient
experience to show us they met the qualifications.
Condi construction company then by default became the next
lowest bidder.
Their increase in cost was about $150,000 over what the
original apparent low
bidder was. Still all of this was considerably lower than
what the
original engineers estimate for this project was was just
approaching four
million dollars so we're a good step below that. Our
intended construction
start is January of 2018 we expect it to go longer than no
longer than about nine
months. A lot of this is primarily through open field so we
don't have a
lot of constraints and restrictions that will slow us down.
In short keeping this
brief I'll be glad to answer any questions but staff does
recommend you
approve the contract condi construction for 3.1 million
dollars. Any questions?
Questions? I want to hear more about the 84 inch pipe. In
what vein sir? Well it's quite an
increase from what's there now. Seven times existing
capacity and you're
connecting a 30 inch to it? Yes sir I said there's a
variety of connections
but we do have both PS Aurora and Jim Wilder the design
engineer here to
answer the technical questions. I'm Jim Wilder I'm with the
engineering
department. The reason we have the 84 inch pipe is we're
actually using it for
storage. The 84 inch pipe gives us about a half a million
gallons worth of inline
storage to allow us to store the peak flow during the large
rain events and
that way we don't actually have to build additional
infrastructure at the Cooper
Creek lift station and downstream. We figured that it ended
up probably being
about a $800,000 savings to the city to do it that way as
opposed to building
additional infrastructure downstream. Thank you. And this
as far as the use of
the storage area is this the same drainage system where all
the flooding
was back in the big rain when they're well 2007 I think it
was. This is this is
what backed into the neighborhoods because it got it couldn
't handle the
flow. Yes the the Cooper Creek basin flooded of course the
concrete basin
also flooded I mean they all flooded but yes there were
pretty severe flooding
behind the area that's just north of University and the
subdivision west of
Old North or east of Old North. Okay thank you.
Just go back to the numbers. Yes ma'am. What was Atkins
thinking? They didn't want
the job huh? Must be busy. I mean I like it when they're it
's fairly compressed
that means you had a you know yes good bids. It's very
compressed throughout
the top six there. Yeah Atkins was a little bit outside
there yes ma'am. Okay.
Any questions? Questions? Comments? No. This is an action
item so we need a motion on
this item. I recommend approval. Second. We have a motion
and a second to approve.
Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?
Same sign? Motion passes.
Item C is to receive report, hold discussion, and provide
staff with direction
concerning the approval of professional services agreement
for engineering
design services related to the design bid phase and
construction services for
the Lake Lulz water treatment plant phase two
rehabilitation project. Tim
Fisher. Good afternoon. I'll go over this item.
My intent was to have this presentation in the backup so I
'm sorry but we'll go
over real quick.
Make sure okay. Believe it or not this project actually
started a little over
a decade ago when we did our preliminary design evaluation
for the Lake Louisville
plant. We hired Malcolm Perney at that time to look over
all the priorities for
doing work at the plant. We did the majority of those with
our 2007 upgrade.
That project actually took a fair amount of time to get
designed, get built. I was
about 32 million dollars worth of improvements. Very
focused on the
process, upgrading the process, and then also modernizing
the equipment. So this
goes over a listing of all the improvements that were done
a part of
that project. That one was completed about 2014. So we've
had an operational now
for a few years. Major work on almost all the treatment
units and processes. These
are some of the examples of some of the work that was done.
The one in the upper
left is the ozone contactor. So adding ozone to the
treatment process for
consistency of treatment and regulatory compliance was a
big component of that
project. Along with revamping the flocculation sediment
ation and filters. So
a lot of heavy lifting and upgrading the plant occurred in
that. Phase two upgrades
was budgeted not too long ago. We basically wanted to pick
up where the
other project left off. We had actually gone 23 years at
the old facility before
we did major capitalization. And it's a lengthy process to
go through the
planning and the implementation of that. One of the key
areas that didn't make
the cut the last go-around was the motor control center.
Our intent was to do that.
But we ran into some cost management complications and we
really needed to put
that in an exterior building. And then that became
something that we didn't feel
we could tackle on the original budget. So we're trying to
do that now in the
phase two upgrade. We also want to deal with the server
that we have for our
SCADA system. Our SCADA system server has been in a closet
from day one. We're
going to try to move that upstairs to what is now a
training room and then try
to provide that type of space in the new electrical
building with the motor
control center. So that's a big piece of it. We have a
variety of other things
relating to flow meters and polymer feed equipment and some
raw water pump
station improvements. That's a picture of the original
motor control center. It was
actually revamped by staff in the mid 90s. So we've been
able to keep that
motor control center functioning through a major rebuild,
but that was quite some
time ago as well. So it's time to kind of replace that
equipment. It's pushing 60
years old. Along with this project we had a zebra mussel
infestation in both lakes
that captured a lot of our attention initially. We went
through a zebra
control management preliminary design study that did
involve Arcadis. We are
now moving into the capital stages of that. We felt that
this was similar work
and so we incorporated it into, we've actually got three
projects, zebra mussel
control at both facilities, Ray Robertson Lake Louisville
on the raw water side
plus the phase two upgrades at the Louisville plant. I
think this picture
shows some of our early discovery at the low spot. That's
actually not a zebra
mussel infestation. That's where the zebra mussel shells
end up and accumulate.
We've also showing them within our raw water, or excuse me,
our pre-ozone
contact rep at Ray Robertson. So some of that debris gets
moved in there and so
those become things that we have to periodically physically
remove and what
we're trying to do is use chemical treatment processes to
prevent that
infestation to begin with. So this is a summary of where we
were from a budget
standpoint as far as the ten million dollars for the Louis
ville water
treatment plant plus the zebra mussel control measures. So
we had about 1.7
million budgeted for engineering and we had about a little
shy of 16 million of
capital. We went through an RFQ process looking at nine
engineering firms. We
actually started off with an SOQ which is an acronym for
statement of
qualifications who are out there looking for who are the
engineering firms that
we want to solicit proposals from. We basically had four
responses from that
statement of qualifications. We issued an RFQ and got
responses from three. A
couple of them did partner, Fries and Nichols partnered
with Arcadis and they
were the firm that we selected. Fries and Nichols designed
our Lake Ray Roberts
plant, had some design prior at the Louisville plant and
then Arcadis was
brought in as their sub-consultant to help with the zebra
mussel design. So this
scope includes final design, bid phase and basic
construction services. It
doesn't carry full resident rep through construction. At
this point we're not
necessarily sure we need that level of support but it does
carry construction
phase services through the approximate 18 month schedule
for the project. This
is where we started. We had a fee of about just shy of 2
million. We're a
little over budget on that so we went through a negotiation
process. We started
zooming in on the construction and the construction budget
so we had some
issues there that we had to trim some of the scope items
out of the
construction budget to get it down to budget level and then
this is where we
landed on the engineering fees. So we had just a little shy
of about four hundred
and seventy thousand dollars worth of fee negotiation
through this process. We got
this added level that we feel is more consistent with our
budget and what we
think is a reasonable cost of pay. This was the engineers
estimate that came up
just 114 million so we're within budget on the engineering
estimate going into
the design and I'll just open it up to questions at this
point.
I'll go back a couple slides. Sure. Which one? Right there.
Okay. What is the normal
percentage of engineering cost to construction? It's a good
question. What we
found from our experience at the Lake Louisville phase two
or phase one
upgrade we were just a little over 11% of construction. We
also looked at a
consultant benchmarking service that primarily focuses on
consultants and how
they are seeing what the market is for fees and we found
similar numbers there.
So our experience has been about 10% until you start
getting into the
construction phase component and that's gonna bump it up.
Okay. Thank you.
What is the length of time of the contract? We have in the
schedule right now about 10
months after we execute the contract to do the design phase
. We have another
three months go through the bid process and we have 18
months for the
construction and that's the preliminary schedule that we
have right now. So it'll
be approximately a three-year process. Three years. From
start to finish.
And this is like a not to exceed contract? This is a lump
sum. What does that mean?
It means they'll produce the scope and we will pay them
this fee. Okay. Which is
fairly common. Most the consultant contracts are lump sum.
But still limited to? Still limited to. I mean it is what
it is. It's not. It is a fixed fee contract.
Any additional scope we would have to bring back to you?
Yeah well yeah because
we look at them where it's gonna cost so much an hour
sometimes and not to
exceed X amount but we don't know what scope of work is
necessarily. Most
consultants would prefer to work under a fixed fee lump sum
basis and most of our
contracts are lump sum particularly if you can define the
scope well. Yeah.
Okay other questions? Anybody? I'll just say I really
appreciated the level of
detail of the zebra muscle manual. I learned a lot about
that and
ended up finding it just really interesting so I appreciate
that level
of information. Tim has become a zebra muscle expert not by
choice. Not a necessity.
What we're finding is that the bloom initially tends to be
a little worse
than the ongoing but we still see that it's something that
we need to put in
systems in place so that we don't get a problem in our pipe
systems in
particular Lewisville because they're smaller diameter they
're longer and we
don't need debris accumulations in the low spots.
Okay then is there a motion we need a motion then on item C
?
Move approval. Second. I have a motion and a second for
approval. Any further
discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same
sign. Motion passes. Item D
is our ACM update. Sure real quick excuse me in your agenda
you have a number of
articles that were provided to the board I believe one was
asked to be added to
the how to kill American solar that was asked by one of the
board members to be
placed and so that is on your on your list and the link in
the agenda if you
like go through that. Also on the matrix I believe we've
covered just about
everything that's been asked on the matrix I will ask that
you look at item
number 15 it showed that we would have something for you in
November that
should be December because there's only one meeting in the
month of November so
there's probably just a mistake on staff's part as far as
thinking it was a
second meeting but we'll bring the the billing issues on on
your wastewater and
the DME bill date change into your December board meeting
so and then I
think we also added a rules of procedures item number 16 to
the matrix
for future consideration. I think at a couple meetings ago
I asked about the
Tesla solar and if what whether or not we were going to see
how that was going
to impact us I don't know if anybody's been clamoring to do
it but. Comments
about the ACM updates? Yeah I had a comment and a request
to better
reiteration of the previous request about the the Puerto
Rico item so I was
the one who asked whether there was an interest among our
any of our DME linemen
to help get the power back on in Puerto Rico and while I
really appreciate this
this information provided about you know what what might be
involved in that what
the challenges would be it looks to me and correct me if I
'm wrong that DME
linemen still have yet to be surveyed as to you know
whether there would be an
any any interest in this and so of course I do understand
reading this and
just you know for the the public it says you know there
there is a need for a
team of about 20 line workers particularly on the island of
St.
John's but some of the crews are having to stay on on
cruise ships and have to
be shuttled to and from the island so there are those
complications the
commitment time for linemen crews is typically at least a
30-day period and
could be as long as six months so I would completely
understand why somebody
didn't you know if why somebody wouldn't want to volunteer
for that but I could
also understand why somebody might think that would be a
really great
opportunity to help out have an adventure you know when one
person's
nightmare you know 30 days on a cruise ship you know with a
bunch of dudes you
know some for some people that just be great you know great
time and I don't
I don't know that they're volunteer I think they're getting
paid well yeah
yes I'm sorry yes I mean I mean voluntarily you know within
they're
getting paid voluntarily come forward to say I want you
know I would like to do
this you know so that was my kind of initial and I do
appreciate all this
information that's part of the information I wanted but I
also wanted
to know you know are there any guys who would say hey you
know count me in I'd
like to go there and help out because if so then the
questions about you know
what the challenges are you know you hear the pros and hear
the cons that
could be determined by by the linemen if we can't afford to
send to lose you know
20 people then we see how many want to go and let those go
that's just my
suggestion I think the challenge is how much it costs I
mean I'd say it always
comes down to that so we haven't done a survey as you were
talking about for the
staff but I know we would have people who would be willing
to go it is a paid
it is paid time the question would be you know how long
would they be there and
really can we have them be gone from the city for that long
and I think that's
some of the logistical challenges that we looked into and I
know Brent can talk
about that a little further if we need be but that's we
definitely would have
people who would want to serve sure they certainly want to
help Brian get the
question though I think it's important for this kind of
discussion this the
city doesn't generally basically volunteer to impose itself
on these type
I mean as I understand it FEMA FEMA's got control both
those processes they're
actually the ones inviting the utilities in coordinating
reimbursement payments
that sort of thing so a lot of time when when you've you've
got mutual aid
requests it's a very orderly purposeful request of staffing
and then you've got
to follow the all the FEMA rules who's ultimately
responsible for coordinating
that so and determining whether or not there's reimburse
ment potential as well
so in this particular case they they have taken in and of
course the
situation over there's got a little more ugly given the
previous contract with
the Montana firm but they are controlling who is coming in
and out of
there and who's going to be hitting the reimbursement for
that so that's
typically how the process works is is you don't necessarily
volunteer to go
you're basically call on and they assume certain levels of
responsibility and
liability at that point for coordinating the process so
yeah I do understand that
but thank you just a lot more complicated with this not
being in the
contiguous United States and FEMA and Army Corps of
Engineers and lots of
different agencies involved okay okay thanks Charlie I have
a real quick just
kind of a question regarding a past item here about the
website data that I
requested we talked a lot about public involvement we
talked a lot about where
we're gonna have our meeting so we can have the cameras we
talked about our
agendas and our minutes being posted and the website data
that was provided in
that memo was fairly limited it only had counts for who
watches the strain and
and I think that's a shortcoming and I don't know if if if
I should approach
the the memo author about making those and put some
improvements there or if
you guys can approach them and ask if there can be any
improvements I mean
the the every click made on a website is tracked by the web
server so it should
be not too difficult and free to generate those you know
those metrics we
can absolutely follow up to see what we can do to improve
the caliber of the
data that we're getting out the website it just be nice to
know you know since
we're putting forth effort to make things public to know
find out if people
are paying attention or not yeah we'll ask Mario to put
something together for
the next step you'd be meeting on areas that we could
improve in thank you okay
concluding items which is an opportunity to place new items
or items on future
agendas as well as the matrix added a couple things to the
matrix already so
looks I have a rules of procedure and then something that
was missed on the
Tesla solar roof panels future agenda items suggestions I
have one future
agenda item suggestion and then the other is a possible
discussion but also
possible something that staff could just research and and
you know add add in
written form to future matrix the future agenda item is has
to do with DME
substations and the substation cost this is under the old
management you know a
bunch of new substations went on online and we were told
what the purpose was
were for those substations and what the cost would be and
now that you know
there's change of management I'm thinking this would
probably be something
that probably best to wait till then the new the general
manager comes in I would
I think it could would be really productive for us to
revisit that under
the new general manager and just to see as far as what the
substations that have
yet to be built or where or where improvements haven't yet
occurred or and
especially where contracts have not yet been secured just
to look over what the
projected costs are what the process is do we really need
this is that you know
etc so just kind of a fresh look on these things that are
already on board
you know even if it turns out okay yes you know yes we
really did need all of
those just you know before we I don't know exactly how much
money you know
we've spent already on that and how much is yes to yet to
be spent but as far as
controlling cost going forward just have a fresh look on
that would be nice
because we did have like a FERC reliability study which is
what where
these things come out of so maybe that a refresh and I can
tell you our staff
Brent Heath is also just kind of been leading the charge on
that taking a look
at the this five-year CIP making sure that we have things
broken down into
mission critical to comply with FERC as well as any
customer service issues we're
having and then what may be a candidate for being put into
a category of future
planning so we're heading down that path and in your right
our new GM
basically has already stated that's one of the first places
he wants to start
taking a look at so hopefully we can get you some answers
in the next and when
is he coming he starts November 27th excellent and then the
other and this is
I'm guessing this this might be probably more of something
to put in the matrix
for a future meeting but something that's a matter of
public interest that
people in the public had come have come to me with and and
that's about issues
about water pressure I I did some you know research on this
on my own but but
you know I assured these ratepayers that that's that's that
staff would you know
likely have a specific dent in specific answer be able to
answer that question
the first was from ropes and ranch actually and I haven't
tested this
myself I don't I don't live there but I somebody it
contacted me as a member of
PB to say that they have really low water pressure at ropes
and ranch and
what's up with that so I I didn't know anything about that
but I assured them
that I would ask and the reason I'm asking that publicly
even though I could
just send an email is just to show people out there if
anybody's watching
you know these are the kind of things you can you know you
can ask and that
the public utility board will get get answered for you so
and then the other
was a rate payer who contacted me and I wanted to know you
know how common this
kind of situation is a rate payer who had had a leak in her
a very big leak
actually I think a couple leaks in her home that were ended
up being taken care
of by the city under the low-income you know home
improvement plan and program
through I believe community development and the plumber had
found that it looked
like the leak was possibly caused by really high water
pressure on the city's
end and so he he told the resident that they should look
into this it was I
think it was that I don't know what the units are that
water pressure is
measured in but it was something like you know a hundred
whatever units of
water pressure when it should be only 60 and so in she told
me that she was
approached by the city and that she was asked to sign a
release form absolving
the city of any liability for the her leaking pipes so I I
was curious about
that I wondered you know why we would do that and I told
her don't sign that
waiver yet you know hold on to that until I get an answer I
told her she
would probably consult the lawyer on that it but I didn't
know I don't know if
you can answer that now but I wanted to know how common
this practice is I was
surprised by it there will be time we have an active risk
management department
that works closely with my office in the city attorney's
office and there are
times where we will go out and assist some of our residents
but in this
particular case I'd really need to get all the facts I'm
not familiar with the
case that you're bringing up but where you know if we could
get the facts we're
happy to look into it okay yeah sure yeah if you could just
either you or or
the resident contact either Mario myself will look into it
right away okay thank
you very much thanks okay any any other items PV related
okay hearing none then
we will and actually we will not come out we will adjourn
out of closed
meeting but at this time we'll go into closed meeting for
deliberations
regarding real property Texas under Texas Government Code 6