Good morning. I'd like to call the Public Utility Board meeting for the City of Denton
Monday August 8th, 2022 to order. First item is going to be, are there any presentations
from the members of the public? I didn't see any comments or anything. So we'll move on
to the consent agenda. I already have requests from Mr. Ryback to pull D, E and G. Yes sir.
Are there any others? Okay, if you'd like, we'll entertain a motion to approve A, B, C, F, H, I, J, K, L for approval. So moved. Motion second. All those in favor please say I. I.
Any opposed? Okay, let's go to item D, Mr. Ryback. I just wanted to get some more information
on this. I know the City Council had a meeting on Saturday and may have reviewed this in
more detail, but I'd just like to get a little update on this. Thank you. Board, board members
or chair, board members, Krista Foster, customer service manager. Items D and E are actually
not budget related. Our meeting Saturday was the budget workshop. This is simply Texhoma
Council of Governments has federal funding that they currently have in place with us.
Our customers have access to utility assistance for electric. They have now found a funding
source to be able to assist our customers with water bills and we have to bring that
forward for approval. Item E is simply asking for an ordinance that says as long as we're
working with a nonprofit or governmental agency that is funding assistance for our customers
at no cost to the city, that we authorize the city manager to be able to execute those
so that we can do them in a more timely and efficient manner to be able to get our customers
access. So what is the funding source? I do not know. That's TCOG has that funding source.
It is a federal source that they have. Okay. So these are federal funds that are being
managed by? By the Texhoma Council of Governments. Correct. Yeah. The agreement is just confirming
that we understand how we have to apply and use those funds when we receive them. So we
do not yet know what the amount of those funds will be? We would not know what their funding
is. We don't with their electric sources. We don't know what their funding sources are.
They manage their budgets for that. This is why I have trouble with these. I'm like, okay,
there's money coming from somewhere. We don't seem to know how much it is. We don't seem
to know who it's from. It's the same as... You're asking us to approve this going forward
and I just left me a little... We're not approving any actual fund expenditures. It's the same
as if our daily bread or another community service group provides funds to pay for electric
bills. It's just that with certain ones, sometimes it can be a FEMA program, sometimes it could
be a Texhoma Council of Governments that because of stipulations that they have to follow in
order to receive funds, they have to do a vendor agreement that says we understand when
they send us money, this is how we're to use it. That's the only thing we're looking at
is how we apply those funds. Well, back to my question. So there's an amount of money.
We don't know what it is. We presume the funding source to be federal, but all we know is it's
being managed by this Texhoma Council of Governments. Correct. Really, we don't look at their budget.
We don't look at their budget. They manage that and determine... But they also are not
advising you what the budget amount for us to use will be. We won't be receiving that
type of funds. The customer applies through their program, goes through all of the documentation
process and is approved or denied by Texhoma Council of Governments, and they simply write
a check and send it to us. Okay. So essentially, we are a conduit for this funding. We are
not actually managing or handling this money. Correct. We'll see. Now, that was not clear
from this write-up. If I could add something, Tiffany Thompson, Director of Customer Service
and Animal Services, we've been receiving these funds for several years. This is also
just... Legal wanted to also have an executed contract on behalf of the city manager as
well. So we're just trying to be transparent that we've received these funds on behalf
of customers for several years. We're just making sure that we have it on the books that
the city manager can execute this contract. So we get funds on behalf of the customers
for several years. We just want to make sure that you're aware of it and then also with
the additional to the water as well. Well, I was not aware of it until now. So we don't
know how much because they could say, "We want to pledge $100." Also, we're not handling
the money. That was also not clear in this. So the customer client, our current electric
or water customer separately applies to the Texoma Council of Governments. We simply make
them aware of the program. Is that essentially what goes on? Sometimes we make them aware
of the program. Sometimes they are referred from another agency to that program. Basically,
we are just... They'll write a check to say, "This is going to cover this particular account
for X number of dollars." And we are receiving and applying the money on behalf of the customer.
Okay. So we do handle money. We do receive the funds from Texoma based on the application
from the customer. Correct. Okay. Again, it's the same as if someone does go to our daily
bread or interfaith ministries. They manage what their budget is. Now, we put funds into
interfaith ministries, right? But they manage it. They determine the qualification guidelines
and they determine if they have funds available to distribute. And then if they do, then they
would make that determination and we just receive them. When you're looking at something
like one of these agreements, typically the funding sources that require those types of
agreements simply states, for the case of TCOG, that if that customer terminates services
and part of that credit is money that came from this funding source, that we're pulling
that back out and we're going to provide that back to them so that we know that... Or they
know that it went to the actual bill. It's small things like that is what they require
the agreement for. Okay. Thank you. Here we go. I thought I saw you turn it on. Okay,
so my understanding, and there's no strings attached here to this money, the intent is
to help low-income families and they can either apply for it if they're aware of the program
or can something be done on DME's end where we see there's a need out there in the community
and we alert them to them and help process the... We do some of both. Okay. First line
of resource for our customers is we will refer them through Interfaith Ministries or United
Way based on what program guidelines there are because we know that we have an established
relationship with both of those entities. If for some reason they have exceeded the number
of assistance referrals from Interfaith or through United Way, they also provide a list
of other funding sources that the customer may qualify for. If the customer does not
want us to provide them a referral to Interfaith or United Way, we also will provide them a
list that tells them the different places that they can go to look for assistance. So
we are looking for those things to try to help our customers. So if you see a homeowner
that's missing payments, that would be a red flag for y'all to get them active? Typically
it's when they contact us and they're expressing that difficulty or we're seeing that in their
payment history that we will initiate those conversations. Got you. Thank you. So is it
fair to say that D&E are basically, it seems like we're just talking about allowing a third
party to pay a bill, a utility bill. That is correct. And we're just defining who that
third party is and saying that it's okay. And saying that it's okay. Because for us
to come through the entire approval process, we're delaying customers access to those funds
for up to eight, 10 weeks sometimes. Okay. So this would allow us to more quickly get
that revenue stream for customers. Okay. We're good. Okay. Can we do the, can we take these
three together? Review them? Ask the questions about F and then do D&F together? Yeah. Unless
somebody pulls out, or D&G, excuse me. Yeah. We need to talk about G first. So just making
sure that's okay. Okay. Mr. Rabat, you had G also. Yes. I have a G question. Good morning.
Jerry Luper, Division Manager System Operations, DME. Well, thank you for coming this morning.
I'm sure it was on short notice. I apologize for that. I'm curious about this contract,
not because of the amount or, but because of the work on the contract. I'm very familiar
with Burns and McDonald's as an engineering firm. No problem with that. This looks more
like a master systems integration kind of contract and I am not familiar with them having
those skills, attributes and personnel. So I'm a little curious about why we're retaining
an engineering firm to do a master systems integration project. So if you could help
me out there. Yes. So right now we have three engineering firms in our professional services,
engineering professional services. Out of those three, two provide some technology support,
Powers Engineer and Burns and McDonald's. Burns and Mack have an edge there with the
owner's engineer contract and they've already done a couple of large scale utility network
migrations. So we've chosen them to be the owner's engineer for a massive program or
massive projects going to be spanned the next two to three years. It did look that way from
the write up. It is and we'll try to contract Powers to actually do the conversion, Burns
and Mack to oversee it. Okay. So Burns and McDonald's is serving as the overseer or manager
of this process rather than as the implementer of the process. Yes sir. Okay. Well that makes
a lot more sense to me. Thank you very much. Yes sir. Okay. Looks like there's nobody else.
I entertain a motion to approve DENG. So moved. Second. You got a second down here with them.
All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Now we are at items for individual consideration.
Consider approval of the July 25, 2022 minutes. Move to approve. Second. All those in favor
please say aye. Aye. Opposed say the same. Item B is consider recommending adoption of
an ordinance of the City of Denton. Establishing the reach for water and water services repealing
ordinance number 21-2112. It's a rush album. Providing for repealer. Providing for a severability
clause and providing an effective date. Good morning PUB members. Danielle Stanford and
her own budget manager. We're just seeking your approval this morning for the utility
rates. We do have a presentation if you have questions but we are just seeking approval
this morning. Ma'am could you move the microphone a little more in line with your voice? Yes.
Was there any discussion? Any questions? No? If not I'm going to entertain a motion for
item B. Got a movement down here from Ben. Second. Second from Larry. Thank you. All
those in favor please say aye. Aye. Item number C consider recommending adoption of an ordinance
of the City of Denton, Texas. Establishing the schedule of rates and fees for wastewater
service. Repealing ordinance number 21-2113. Providing for repealer. Providing for a severability
clause and providing an effective date. Same thing here. Just seeking approval. We do have
a presentation if you have questions. Got a question first Mr. Rebett? No it was first.
I would like to see your presentation if you have it available. Sure no problem. Thank
you. Thank you. So this is just quickly going through the presentation objectives. The rate
change history. The water wholesale rates. The wastewater rate changes. And the solid
waste rate changes. And then next steps. This table just shows our rate history since 2016.
There have been no rate increases for the City of Denton utilities since 2016. The water
wholesale rates. You will notice these rates have changed for the 22-23 proposed budget
since the last time you saw this. These rates were not available during our last presentation
to PUB. Since then the data from the City of Dallas has become available so these 22-23
rates are reflective of that. Wastewater rates have not changed since you last seen this
presentation. We only have two. The dino dirt per cubic yard and the dino dirt bagged per
cubic foot. Solid waste did have a handful of changes. These have not changed since the
last presentation. And then our next steps. This slide is dated but we did have our budget
workshop on Saturday and then we will take these to council for approval on September
27th. I'm just curious the raw waste, the raw water, is that from Dallas or to Dallas?
This is from Dallas. This is our pass-through rate. So that's what they're charging us.
Steven is going to come up. Good morning PUB member Rybeck. The wholesale water rate is
actually what we sell. We sell upper Trinity from our resources in Ray Robertson Lake Louisville.
So we are selling this. Yes sir. And we base that rate off of 85% of what the Dallas raw
water rate is. That's how Dallas gets into the conversation. Very good. Thank you so
much. We do have a member of the board, Devin, you are a raw water guy. Do you have any comments
or thoughts about this? I know these look like they're probably in line for large industrial
use of wastewater. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? One more. Move approval down
here and down here. I have one more question. Oh I'm sorry I thought you said move approval.
So I think two slides down on the solid waste. Yes sir. The construction and demolition rate,
that's a new rate, right? Doesn't exist in the previous rates? That is a new rate, yes
sir. I think I might have just found a minor clear clear then. The red line version shows
it as if it's not new, like it's just already in the body of the ordinance. Okay. So I think
maybe I just got like a bad red line. Sure we can follow up on that. Okay. Devin's moved
approval. Anyone? Lee? Lee, you got a second down here? All those in favor please say aye.
Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Are you Dee also? I am. Okay. Consider recommending adoption
of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas establishing the rates and fees for solid
waste and recycling collection service, providing further information regarding such collection
and establishing indemnity of the city, incorporating and applying sections 26.3, 26.4, 26.5, 26.7,
26.8, and 26.9 of article one of chapter 26 of the City of Denton ordinances repealing
ordinance number 21-2114, providing for repealer, providing for a severability clause, and providing
an effective date. I guess this is very similar, the minor changes here. Anybody want to see
the? It's the same presentation. This is for the slide that's shown now. Oh, okay. Sorry.
I have a motion. Larry the second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?
Motion passes. Okay. E's management reports. Is that you, Tony? Yes, sir. So, Mr. Chair,
members of the Board, we have a couple items for you in the management update today. So
we have an on-call storm water services and CIP and engineering contract that went to
the council before it came here. And so we're now bringing it back to you kind of per the
procedure that we had established with you. We have some staff here if you have, if anyone
has any questions regarding that particular item. Okay. The next item that we have here
is just, I previously emailed all of you, but DME was awarded the 2022 system achievement
award by TPPA for achieving 100% renewal. Actually it was 101%, right? Renewable offset of our
total load with wind and solar power. And so we did receive that award and we were co-recipients
with the city of Bourne. I think I mentioned to you in my notice, you know, it's interesting
because the city manager of Bourne actually started off as an intern here in the city
of Denton. So it was good to see him again and remind him that we didn't hire him in
the finance department when I was in finance. But it was all in fun. Now he's the city manager,
right? I think he, I think he fared pretty well. So, but, but it was, it was nice sharing
that award with them. And certainly we've listed for you the past recipients. So we're
certainly in a, in a very good crowd of other utilities in this achievement. The next item
that we have for you is a feature agenda items. Again, now, now that we've kind of gone through
the budget, yes, sir. Before we move on, can we at least say congratulations? Yeah. Congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And when I say, you know, we accepted that internally on behalf
of our community that, that established that goal, but certainly all the work of, of our
DME staff in making sure that we had the contracts in place and, and we worked very closely with
the city auditor and making sure that we, that we were doing that correctly. And anyway,
so thank you for that. So a feature agenda items now that we've gotten past the budget,
we don't have a whole lot of stuff here for you, but there's certainly a number of items
that we'll continue to populate for you. So August 22nd, there's a discussion with you
about some water related items also associated with the army corps of engineers. September
12th, we have some discussion with you as well about water rights. And it sounds like
this is all things that Stephen gay and his staff will, will be bringing forward to you.
But I think as those items continue to, to, to bubble up, we'll, we'll try to give you
advanced notice of what's coming in the future meetings. And then finally, under the new
business there, you know, we still have the one particular item. I can assure you that
we keep saying that every meeting we are working on that. We're getting closer to that. We
anticipate going to the sustainability committee sometime at the end of this month with a presentation.
I know there was a question that Mr. jumper asked, I'm assuming the last meeting regarding
potentially increasing the budget for, for solar rebates. That's certainly an option
that we'll be discussing with the sustainability framework advisory committee and then bringing
that to you and ultimately to the council and seeking direction. And so, you know, our
plan is to certainly have a number of different options for your consideration. Certainly
any increase to the budget, certainly if it's an increase to DME, as, as you are very well
aware starting next year, there is a plan drawdown of reserves already. So likely any
additional increase in budgets may mean some type of rate increase. That'll certainly something
for you to consider. We also have now another pot of money associated with franchise fees
all rise from the data center that's going into a sustainability fund, $4 million plan
for that for next year. That'll also, I think, be part of that conversation. But so again,
we're developing that. I think that that through that presentation, we'll be able to respond
to, to both of these items that, that are here on, on a new business action. So, so
with that, I'll surely stand for any questions that you may have.
Just want to look at on the back of that, Tony, are y'all seeing a DME, a significant
uptick in application for solar panels compared to previous years?
I think, I think the short answer is absolutely. I think part of the challenge that we're having
is that, you know, so we've dedicated $500,000 out of our budget for solar rebates. What
I can tell you is that right now, half of the solar installations that go into the city
go in without the solar rebate. And so I think from my perspective, you know, you can carve
up that $500,000 as much as you want. You can certainly add additional money. But what
I can tell you is that the initial, the original intention of those rebates was because the
cost of solar panels was considerably much higher, actually twice the cost that they
are today. So the same system today that cost 20 to 30,000 used to cost 50 to $60,000. So
the market and the pricing for that has certainly come down and made it far more affordable.
You could add, like I said, you can add additional money to that budget. But the issue is that
there's always going to be someone left out from that rebate, right? And so I think from
our perspective, and I'm probably going to get a little bit ahead of myself here, right?
From our perspective is when you're talking about energy efficiency, right, I think we
got to recognize one, we're already in a 100% renewable energy community, right, by the
goal that was established and what we've achieved. And then second of all, there's likely other
initiatives, even within our existing green sense program, there may be a bigger bang
for our buck. And then finally, the other thing that comes into play here is the issue
of who is able to install solar versus those that aren't, right? So we have a large lower
income customer base that has an older house stock that cannot, one, support the structural
pressure on their roof, so there needs to be additional investment in that. And then
not only that, but I think from an income standpoint, from a disposable income standpoint,
those individuals have a harder time being able to justify a $20,000 to $30,000 expenditure,
right? And so I think there's an equity and fairness issue that we've got to deal with,
along with some other issues, structural rate issues that we have in that there's a fixed
component to our rates that has to be recovered that currently is not being recovered by the,
I would say, is a very generous program that we have that's beyond even the solar rebates.
This is how we credit people for the energy that they produce from the rooftop solar that
we're not even able to recover our fixed expenses. So those are things that we're going to be
coming back. Certainly, we understand this is sensitive information, and so we're going
to try to give different options, certainly give our perspective, and then we'll be looking
for policy recommendations from the various groups.
Okay, thanks.
My question on there, were you done?
Oh, go ahead, please.
It was actually a two-part question. Do we need to add money to it or perhaps remove
it altogether? Kind of along those lines. So I might amend my question to say, do we
need to reevaluate how that money is used to target specific groups of people, for example,
like low-income or something like that? So that's kind of more the flavor of question
I was kind of getting at there.
Okay. No, I just wanted to say, and I think in the presentation that we're contemplating,
those options will be there, and certainly we'll be looking for recommendations from
this body and from the sustainability group as well to then take to the council who will
ultimately set what that policy will be going forward.
I have a question.
Yes, sir.
Since we're going to be working to assist local individuals, residential customers to
get solar panels, like all pieces of equipment, they have a useful life. And it's one thing
for the large commercial operators that we procure power from to deal with disposal or
handling of those. Are we potentially creating a problem for our solid waste group with these
peripheral proliferation of solar panels in homes? It's a question, and I only came up
because we were talking about the panel issue.
Yeah. Certainly I don't think there's anybody here from solid waste, but certainly that's
a consideration. I don't know what kind of agreements these homeowners and businesses
have with their installers and whether or not they'll actually end up in the city's
landfill or some other landfill or some other recycling process. And so it's difficult.
I think from a community penetration standpoint, I think we're at less than 25% of our total
customers that actually have roofed out solar. So it's a very small fraction right now what's
there. And so I think from a quantity standpoint, I think it's probably at this point, probably
a minimal concern, I would estimate. But certainly I think that we can certainly try to address
that question. We can bring in our solid waste folks and see kind of what their thought process
is on that.
It seems like over time we'd be leaving ourselves open for future problems.
So Eugene McKinney is here, and maybe Eugene can respond to if they're seeing any of that
and how they're treating that.
Good morning. Eugene McKinney, I'm Deputy Director of Solid Waste and Recycling. Great
question. We do see minimal. We don't see anything. But if this becomes a concern, community
concern, this will fit perfectly into our comprehensive strategy. Keeping it away from
the landfill, finding markets for recycling this material, because definitely we don't
want it there. Again, we want that premium product in the landfill. So there will be
the question is, let's find markets for this after it's reached this life. So just like
so many other products, the conversation that we've been talking about here lately about
finding that second life, but keep it away from the landfill. So that would fit perfectly
in there if it becomes a community concern, something the landfill issue.
Well, I assume over time, the first solar systems may have been put in 10 or 15 years
ago. If they have a 20 or 25 year service life, in five or 10 years, you'll start seeing
the accumulation of these being taken out of service.
Right. And there's several factors there. The makeup of the material, right? And what
does it consist of, right? So typically anything that's from a landfill perspective and what
we're trying to get out of it that produce that secondary product, which is methane.
So you've heard it before, anything that doesn't fit into that, what should be going there,
we want to divert it away. So again, finding those markets that'll take those solar panels.
Looking now, right? Because we know it's going to come, right? So we look now. So when those
maturity, the maturity date has set, well, this is no longer, we'll already have the
button ready to go and say, okay, instead of coming here, here's an option for you.
I'm glad you're planning for it. Thank you.
I think the only other item that I'll add just very quickly is that as you know, if
you've kept up with, at the federal level, there's a current bill that's under consideration
that gets now moved out of the Senate into the House. It's likely going to pass. And
so within the components of that bill is this tax credits offer to rooftop installers that
I think it's like 23%. That is a very, I think, very lucrative, very generous tax credits
actually dwarfs the amount of the rebate that we offer. And that's planned to continue.
And so I think there's a huge benefit there already built into trying to incentivize people
to install rooftop solar that, you know, frankly, half a million dollars that we have dedicated
our budget is pretty insignificant, I think, at the end of the day. Although I understand
if you get that, it's still pretty nice to get, you know? But again, over half of our
installers right now are not getting those. And I feel a lot of those phone calls as to
why didn't I get it? Why don't you restructure this program? And so there's a lot of administrative
burden that goes into administering something like that. It'll be things that we'll be bringing
forward, hopefully addressing these questions.
Eugene, what's the current timeline for the comprehensive plan?
Well, right now we're in the planning this first fiscal season. And what we brought before
is from the planning, getting things together. We look at next fiscal season, you'll start
some of these some of these pieces moving forward. Some of these outside vendors being
set up, you know, there's been a large conversation on shingles and different C and D, different
things that we typically don't want. You know, you'll start seeing a lot of those things
set up maybe a year or two. And it's a progression, right? So as we move forward, you'll start
seeing a lot of these things. But right now we got the administrative things set up, setting
them up. We're looking at the employees, we're looking at programs. So it's a timeline thing
out from like, we got seven certain benchmarks from year one, year two, year three, year
four, year five on out.
So it's like a five, it's a five, it's gonna take five years to write this.
You know, and typically I say that we'd like to see some things happen a little sooner.
But some things are when you got startup, some things are out of out of out of control.
And as you write something next year, something else will change, you know, possibly, and
then this act will go into effect and we'll have to figure out how that works.
Yes. And then, you know, Tony mentioned about some things going on at the federal level,
you know, I've worked in several large municipalities. And as this becomes more prevalent in those
cities, you know, things are they're requiring these solar installers to kind of go through
the city for permits and different things like that before they install. And those permits
and ordinances are written to where disposal is your responsibility. It can't be, it can't
go to a landfill and it can't go to a waste to energy facility.
Thank you. So language up front is very important. Yes, sir. Yes. Yes. And that's the goal. A
lot of reusable materials in solar panels. Absolutely. And that's the that's the purpose
of finding that second life. Yeah, because all of it's not say, let's say trash at this
point, women, there's some good product here that has another life. We want to find those
markets for that versus just bury it and let it sit forever. All right. Okay. Great. Thanks.
Thank you. No further questions. Yes, we can move into concluding items. Our work session,
which is receive a report, hold a discussion to give staff direction regarding the city
of Denton ordinance and guidelines and issuing utility bill payment agreements. Is this connected
with the last discussion or soon? No, it is separate. Chair, board members, Krista Foster,
customer service manager. And this is actually to talk to you about our pay agreement guidelines
and processes. Um, so as you know, we've had a couple of wild years and lifted a lot of
fees, did a lot of things differently during the height of the pandemic. And as we've gone
through this spring, returning all of our business processes to normal, as we went back
into charging late fees and interruption fees and things such as that, I really wanted to
look at how were our existing guidelines going to be affected because everything has changed
with our economic climate and the way that it's impacted our customers. So what we did
is we set to look out to look at the process that hadn't changed since November of 2010.
We wanted to make things a little simpler where we could, um, increase the access that
customers have to our program, make sure that if we're increasing access that we're keeping
that sustainable with our workloads, right? And then improve our ability to meet our customer's
needs as we see the need for change. So we're going to present some opportunities and recommendations
and get some feedback. So our current ordinance and it is in ordinance, that's one of the
things that we discovered, um, requires council approved guidelines on file with the city
secretary and they currently allow for a five day arrangement, meaning that if you contact
us, we can allow you up to five days past your interruption date to make payment for
that bill. You can do that once every six months. If you have say a leak or just an
extremely high bill for some reason, then you can do a multi-month arrangement. It does require
50% of the balance upfront and then we break up the rest over three consecutive months
in equal payments and you may do that once every six months. So, and I forgot my paper.
Give me one moment. So the first thing that we recognized is a five day extension creates
kind of an arbitrary D date, right? It's not printed on anything that customer would see.
It relies solely on that customer writing down that date and remembering that they made
that arrangement and please understand a pay agreement is a mutual accountability, right?
There is accountability that we have in providing a program to the customer, but the customer
also has some accountability in meeting the commitments that are made. However, if we
can simplify that and provide them a due date, which is easy to remember or they can see
on their bill reference materials, then we're just making things better for that customer.
So the first thing we'd recommend is changing the due date of the extension to match the
due date of the current bill because that's printed on their bill. They can see they have
past due charges. They can see when their new bill is due. This would only change the
amount of time that's being allowed by up to two calendar days more than what they received
today. So it's not going to significantly impact, you know, timely collection of revenues,
but it will give customers a little bit more of an advantage on remembering and meeting
the agreements that they set. The next recommendation is, you know, we want our pay arrangements
to offer our customers flexibility and we want to try to prevent them from accumulating
large amounts of debt that they becomes an insurmountable amount. So one of the things
that we noticed was by restricting the number of requests just as the number of requests,
we're actually restricting our customers based on their need for an arrangement, not their
actions in following through with arrangements. One of the things that I found in looking
at some of our numbers is in the previous year, sorry, 46 percent of our customers that
had assistance referrals to interfaith ministries, the denials, 46 percent of those because customers
didn't complete their documentation, and about 29 percent either they didn't qualify by income
or they had too many assistances because we allow up to two. Over this year, what we have
found is only 7 percent of customers are not completing their documentation and 70 percent
of the denials are from people who either don't qualify or have already exceeded the
number of needed assistances. So we want to be able to give them an extra avenue to try
to get that additional time. Don't restrict the number of times that they can make those
payments or make those arrangements. We want to restrict based on are they following through
with those arrangements or do they need to look at some of our other programs. Currently,
for this year, we're looking at 36 percent of our arrangements have been defaulted. And
completing an arrangement that a customer completes really creates very little additional
workload for staff. But an arrangement that's defaulted now results in having to have longer
phone call conversations and upset customer. It requires field crews to go out. Yes, sir?
>> You've been talking in terms of percentages. What kind of numbers are we talking about?
How many of these arrangements a year? Or put this a different way, how many customers
a year request arrangements? >> Correct. So I have it by number of arrangements,
but that's okay. So from February to July of this year, that is almost 2,200 customers
have had arrangements. So, you know, we're seeing a lot of customers requesting them.
It is a daily activity in our business. And so what we'd like to do is change that program
to restrict the number of defaulted arrangements and rather than the fact that you need an
arrangement. >> What was the percentage you said of those
people requesting arrangements that defaulted? >> Currently, it has been 36 percent. But
we don't penalize the default behavior. We just restrict based on the request. So I'm
hoping that by creating that additional accountability that we can be more flexible for our customers
as well as reduce those numbers of defaults. >> So how many total customers are there in
that system? >> We have just over 65,000 customers currently.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> Mm-hmm. And then our final recommendation
is we discovered that in order to make changes to benefit our customers, it has to go through
that full council process. So for certain programs like this, what we are recommending
is placing an ordinance that we are required to have a program that it must be approved
by the city manager, it must be on file with the city secretary, it must be on our website,
and it must require council notification prior to being implemented. So that way, it doesn't
remove that important council oversight. And the same would be for the Public Utilities
Board. It would go out in a Friday report prior to implementation so that if there are
questions or concerns, it could always be pulled in for a full council process, but
it wouldn't require it so that we could get these changes in place for our customers and
impact them more in a more timely manner. So what we are recommending is that at any
time a customer may have one active arrangement of either a short-term agreement that will
allow them to get an extension to the due date of their current bill or a long-term
arrangement. The long-term arrangement would still be the same requirements, 50 percent
of the current balance, then three months of equal payments to be able to take care
of that balance. And then if a customer defaults to arrangement requests in a 12-month period
of time, they would be temporarily ineligible to receive a balance arrangement for 12 months
from the second default. So that there is a little bit of a repercussion for that failure
to hopefully change the behavior.
I don't think it was in here, but shouldn't education to the customer what other available
resources there are?
We do that as we go through the process of setting up arrangements. Sometimes as we're
setting up those arrangements, we'll have that conversation of do we need to do a referral
to an assistance agency, do we need to provide them that list of resources, things like that.
Educating them about our prepaid program, because a lot of customers are a little bit
afraid of that. But as we see customers move to prepaid, it changes their lives because
they get daily information about those balances, they never receive late fees. If they get
an interruption, it's off for usually 10, 15 minutes because they can make a minimal
payment to get it back on. So we do have those conversations with customers as well.
And so really what we're looking for is, again, trying to meet the goals of simplification
of the process for staff and for customers, increase accessibility of the program while
maintaining being sustainable, and be able to push changes that impact our public in
a timely manner. So I'm here for questions.
>> Just one concern there, and I understand the need to -- for a process to encourage
people to pay in a timely manner. But if you run into a situation where they've gone through
the process and still haven't been able to accommodate payment, would you cut the service
off on certain days when it's extremely hot or extremely cold, or would you allow some
time to get past that kind of weather? >> Sure. City ordinance actually provides
clause for that, and we do not do any interruptions if it is over 100 degrees, or there's a Denton
County heat advisory in effect, and we also do not interrupt services if it is below freezing.
So, yeah, we do make accommodation for that. >> Okay. Good. Thanks.
>> Regarding the recommended change to the ordinance about approving -- so could you
return to that slide? Right now City Council has to approve the ordinance change, so it's
like a full ordinance amendment, I guess, to -- >> Correct.
>> And this would just make it where we post it publicly and notify City Council, and then
it takes effect? >> Correct. The ordinance would be updated
to reflect that we still have the requirement of having one, that it be -- is on file, and
the ordinance would still require that notification to ensure that City Council is not eliminated
from the process, because they're a very important part of that process. But it would allow us
to be able to move through things that everyone would agree upon without having to prolong
that by, again, sometimes 8 to 12 weeks. >> Okay. And so right now the process takes
-- you said 8 to 12 weeks? >> Yeah. By the time we've gone through the
getting things ready, started to write the ordinances, then having to go through the
legal and the PUB and the council, and with a change like this, we're not going to just
write an ordinance and plop it in front of you. We're going to draft recommendations.
We're going to go through the entire process, get recommendation, then go back and go through
all of that legal process with the drafting of ordinances, so it could potentially take
even longer. >> Okay. And the new process, is it -- about
how much time does that save? >> Well, in this particular case, we identify
the changes that are necessary. We pull the current guidelines. We make the changes that
are there, get some time on the city manager's schedule, make sure that we can get approval
in that she says these are great changes, let's go for it. Then we're going to provide
information in a Friday report and potentially give maybe two weeks to allow for any questions
or changes. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Good. Okay. Thank you very much, Krista. >> Of course.
>> I think there's any more questions. So I guess we'll entertain a motion for adjournment.
So moved. Thank you very much. We're adjourned.