Apr 10, 2023 Public Utilities Board on 2023-04-10 9:00 AM

Good morning and welcome to the Public Utility Board's meeting of Monday, April 10, 2023. We're in the council work session room. We do have a quorum and we will start, I guess we're not going to do, shouldn't we do the, members of the public request before we go into anything? It's up to you. Okay, that's what we're going to do. Are there any, there's probably not, but are there any presentations from members of the public? Got that over with. Okay. We are going to move to a closed meeting. The Public Utility Board, we're now at 9.01 a.m. convene in a closed meeting to deliberate the closed meeting items set forth in the agenda, which include the following. PUB 23-071, deliberations regarding certain public power utilities, competitive matters under Texas Government Code section 551.086, consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code section 551.071. Okay, so that's, I say that next. Okay, got it. All right, so anybody that doesn't have any interest in this, please leave the room. I guess they're all here. It is, the Public Utility Board, Public Utility Board has now at 9.20 a.m. reconvened from the closed session and no official action was taken. So we will move on to the consent agenda. Would any members of the board like to pull any of these items for discussion? Mr. Chairman, I'd like to pull items D and E. Dog and Everett. Yes. Having no others wish to be pulled, consider action on items A, B, C, and F. Oh, and G, excuse me. So moved. Do we have a motion? Second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Item D. Freeze and Nichols. Lake Ray Roberts. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Good morning. I was just curious, this mentioned that it was the third amendment expenditure amount for the professional services agreement. I was just curious, and this isn't like you're spending too much money or I'm concerned. I'm just curious if this is the natural progression of this project where they have moved from stage A to stage B to stage C. Is that why this is the third amendment? When they started out, this is a re-rate for the Ray Roberts. And then we wanted to add, we wanted to do a separate project and they decided to add in on that second amendment would be the backwash filter system, which is going basically it's putting in an elevation storage to do some backwash. So it was going to be separate. We decided we needed to put them together at one time for that second amendment. I mean for the first amendment. I'm sorry. Okay. So this is an add on to the work at the Ray Roberts facility for the upgrade modernization. Yes, sir. This amendment is for one of the things that is the actuator control system. And we decided that it's best to bring it on into the future and go with a field bus type actuator. So that's what this is for. While we're already there, let's go ahead and take care of that. So this is the design of that, not the actual installation. Yes, sir. It is completely designed as far as the re-rate ready to go. We actually, we're going to put it out to bid and it's ready to go to bid. It's just a matter of staff recommended we go to this style actuators, which is bringing it into the future, really going to help us as far as reliability. Right. So just a curiosity question. What is the proposed budget for this change out? It's an, it's an extra about a million dollars, I believe. Okay. Yeah. But as far as it will save us money in the long run, as far as maintenance reliability, as far as just operations, it'll save us money. Replaceability. Yeah. Replaceability as far as basically we're moving into fiber as far as it's not going to be a gang run of multiple conductors. It's going to go into the fiber. So bring it into the 21st century. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. Well, that was my only question on item D. Thank you. Thank you. I had a question, please. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. Mine's on D. All right. Yours is on E. Okay. Yeah. On E. This is B. Yeah. Okay. Different. Excuse me. That's okay. We're good. Thank you. So would you entertain a motion then, Lee? Oh, Mr. Chairman, I move we accept item D. Consent agenda. Motion. Second. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, sign the same. Thank you. D passes. Thank you. So now we have item E. I guess I should have said echo if I was doing it correctly, whatever just came to mind. Good morning, Board. Jeff Brown, Safety and Training Division Manager with DME. My question was I think this is a great idea, but I don't remember hearing about this before. Is this something we've just started? Well, this contract was initiated last year when we were trying to catch up on our training from COVID. And as we moved forward, I was also using historical data. And we have moved from approximately five apprentices a year, because this is required training for our alignment work on our power grid. We are now close to 30. So that has increased the overall contract cost exponentially, as well as when we did the initial contract, we added extra programs to see if their quality was good, because this was a one-year contract with extension. So we're actually asking for the full amount for the four years to accommodate all the training that is available to our employees. Did I answer your question? A great idea, because when you're dealing with electricity, you need to know best practices well. Yes. So no, you guys did not see this because the original contract was only for 50,000. But the quality of the product has proven out. It was one of those. We wanted to make sure the training was of the same standard that DME used to have. That's a good question. Are we retaining the employees that were training through these programs, or are they taking these skills and going elsewhere? Well, historical, I don't have all of that information. There is some turnover. But for the most part, DME's longevity is very high. I would like to point out we have an employee that has been with us for 44 years. So we do have quite a bit of tenure. Is that Rowdy? Pardon? Is that Rowdy? No, Rowdy's around 33 or 34. Rowdy's a rookie compared to Pete Shaw. Pete Shaw, yeah. So the Northwest Lineman College has been in Denton for now over a decade. What we're doing here is instead of sending our linemen and apprentices outside of the city to do training, they're going to be doing it here locally. It was just the right time for us to do that. And I think there's been some improvements at the lineman's college and we're ready to take advantage of it. But employee recruitment is certainly something that's always on our mind. It's how we work in our culture and make sure that our employees have a safe place to work. And matter of fact, safety is our number one priority when it comes to budgetary issues. I think I've said this before to you. My goal is to increase that budget to 1% of our total budget. So we're at about $290,000. We still have a little bit of $290 million. So we still have a little bit of ways to go. But as you see the budgets coming back to you this year, you're going to see some more focus on safety. Do you have -- have you guys considered reimbursement agreements where, hey, you get a loan for $10,000 lineman and we will pay it as long as you stay here for five years? Well, we provide this training without those types of requirements. And, you know, these numbers that Jeff threw out, you know, what we're seeing a lot of turnover has been really in our senior lineman. So these are the people that already have their journeyman's card. And so, you know, trying to recruit those individuals from other utilities is where some of the competitiveness comes into play. But we've been working on that over the last couple of years on compensation. But that's why we've seen such a big growth in apprenticeships because we've had some senior people leave and trying to recruit their replacements at that level is challenging. But it's a challenge that all utilities have across the state. But you don't -- and they fall under the same 20-year TRS, whatever -- TRS is not right, that's the teachers, but -- Yes, they're all in TMRS. TMRS, yeah. Okay. Mr. Ryback. My question was more about that training budget. So you had a small agreement, now you've grown it to this larger agreement, and I'm thrilled to see you spending the money locally. I'm all for that. I was just curious, obviously, you're growing it because you found the product is good, the quality of the training is good. And my other question was about the budget. So I was like, was this the whole budget? Is there more budget than we've seen on the, you know, your projections on costs and expenses and looking at, you know, the rate increase and all that? Or -- so is this the whole budget for four years then, the 1.2 mil? Yes, sir. Okay, that's only three. And that's to not exceed. Not to exceed. My goal is not to spend all of that. That's still roughly $300,000 a year for four years. Yeah, so it's not all the safety budget. Certainly, there's additional dollars that are there that are beyond what's covered in this particular contract. But, you know, but Jeff will probably tell you that he's requested quite a bit more money going into next year's budget, and this part of the process that we're going to still to evaluate that and then come back to you in here in the next couple of months to make a recommendation on what we're going to recommend to add to Dean's budget. Well, I think I used the wrong term, safety budget. I meant the training budget for your personnel. Yeah, I think there's other dollars beyond just this particular contract that are dedicated towards training. Okay. Well, thank you. Those are my questions. In the marketplace, is it feasible that you ask after they've been trained that they stay a certain amount of time? Is that a negotiable item? That's kind of what I was getting at. Yeah, we'd have to get with HR to see if that's something that's possible. I will tell you, personally, I'm not very concerned about spending these dollars on these employees because the majority of them do stay. You know, I think where we get into challenges sometimes, it's once they reach the journeyman level, getting them to the next level, there's very few positions, and that's where we have some challenges. But I think as we continue to grow, we're likely going to continue to add additional FTEs, additional senior level positions, crew foremen, even superintendents. I think those opportunities will come up. But I will tell you, it's no different than what the rest of the cities is dealing with when it comes to recruitment and retaining employees. And to add to what Tony said, our last four people that we needed apprentices for, they were retirees. They'd done more than 20 with the city. So, I mean, we do have the tenure. Well, I just, as we were discussing the Trans Am situation this morning, it's a different generation, and the loyalty's just not there anymore. Yeah, the other thing, too, that I'll just kind of volunteer out there, so Jeff and his team have been working on certifying our program, which it's been certified through the Veterans Administration. And so if we hire you and you are a veteran and you're going through our apprenticeship program, you can actually utilize that to access your GI bill benefits. So if you decide not to go through a vocational program or two-year college or four-year university, our program is now certified to that. It's recognized by the VA for you to draw down your GI benefits. And so we're seeing more and more veterans come to our program, and we'll probably continue to see that because of that added benefit, because it's additional income to them at the end of the day, and it gives them opportunity to draw down that benefit because some of these folks may never want to go to university, and that's fine. We certainly want them and need them here. Okay, looks like there's nothing further. We entertain a motion to approve item E. So moved. Second. Motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, sign the same. It's unanimous. Okay, items for individual considerate. Thank you very much, by the way. Adams for individual consideration, consider approval of the minutes from March 27th. Motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Move on to management report, Tony. So members of the board, so we have a few items for you. The first one is the January 23 financials for the DEC. Certainly if there's any questions from the board, happy to answer those. And then the next item is the purchase of property related to the Hickory Creek Wishwater Attention Facility. I think we provided information to you on that. That item already went to the council because the timing has already been approved by council, but certainly there's staff here if you have questions about either one of those two items. You have briefed us on that several times, so. Correct. There's no questions on those two items. Future items, I think I've said this every time we've met, certainly budget, budget, budget, right? So make sure you're aware of these dates. We certainly need you here, need your participation, and those will be coming to you here relatively quick. And then for new business action items, we did have one question at the last meeting regarding debt load trends. I think Mr. Devon, you asked for that information. Finance is working on it. They anticipate having it for you at the next meeting through a memo and it'll be part of the management update as well. So that concludes my item. Happy to answer any questions that you may have. No, I would remind the board though that if you've got questions or concerns that staff is always there to, you know, set up a meeting and discuss them if you want to do it separately from the board meetings. Of course, those can't be quorums, but they've always been very helpful. Concluding items, there does not appear to be any, so I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. If you're opposed, don't say a word. [BLANK_AUDIO]