Jul 10, 2023 Public Utilities Board on 2023-07-10 9:00 AM

July 10, 2023 Public Utilities Board 264020

Meeting Details
Meeting Date: July 10, 2023
Board: Public Utilities Board
Video ID: 264020
Has Transcript: Yes
Has Agenda: Yes
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Meeting Summary: Public Utilities Board – July 10, 2023

Key Topics and Discussions - Consent Agenda: Joint funding agreement with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for continued support of the Hickory Creek streamflow station ($5,100). - Minutes: Review and approval of the June 26, 2023, meeting minutes. - Solid Waste Ordinance (PUB23-039): Proposed rewrite of Chapter 24 of the City Code, including a new Commercial Diversion Article. Staff addressed dumpster placement, contamination prevention, mixed-use property compliance, and the implementation of locks and chute lids. - Neighborhood 1B Contracts: - Design services agreement with Kimley-Horn & Associates, Inc. ($3,076,300 not-to-exceed). Discussion covered project scope, construction timeline (Q1 2025–Q4 2026), and estimated total construction cost (~$25 million). - Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) pre-construction services with Sundt Construction, Inc. ($267,000 not-to-exceed). Discussion covered the CMAR evaluation process, the 5.95% construction fee, community engagement strategies, and local vendor participation. - Denton Municipal Electric (DME) Contracts: - Professional engineering services agreement with POWER Engineers, Inc. ($2,700,000 not-to-exceed, three years). - Supply contract with Techline, Inc. for precast concrete pull boxes ($4,250,000 not-to-exceed, five years with options). - Management Reports: ERCOT credit policy changes requiring new collateral (cash, letter of credit, or surety bond); upcoming budget/rate approval schedule; pending Winter Storm URI financial update. - Work Session (Partial): - Proposed FY 2023-24 utility rates: Solid waste (no FY23-24 changes, $15 recycling cart fee for 3+ carts, increases anticipated 2025); Water (removal of two specialty rates, no other changes); Wastewater (11% increase FY23-24, 10–12% in subsequent years to fund CIP). Discussion covered CIP funding sources, regional rate comparisons, and average customer usage. - Wastewater FY 2023-24 Preliminary Budget: Discussed staffing (106.5 FTEs, request for 6 additional FTEs), strategic initiatives, major capital projects, supplemental funding requests ($1.5 million), and drainage infrastructure inspection metrics.

Motions, Votes, and Outcomes - Consent Agenda (PUB23-119): Motion by Devin, seconded by Billy. Approved unanimously. - June 26 Minutes (PUB23-125): Motion by Barbara, seconded by Devin. Approved unanimously. - Solid Waste Ordinance (PUB23-039): Motion by Billy, seconded by Devin. Approved (Barbara opposed). - Neighborhood 1B Design Contract (PUB23-122): Motion by Kim, seconded by Barbara. Approved unanimously. - Neighborhood 1B CMAR Contract (PUB23-123): Motion by Barbara, seconded by Devin. Approved (Billy opposed). - DME Engineering Services (PUB23-124): Motion by Devin, seconded by Barbara. Approved unanimously. - Precast Concrete Pull Boxes (PUB23-127): Motion by Barbara, seconded by Devin. Approved unanimously. - Work Session Items: No motions or votes taken; items were discussed for informational purposes and staff direction.

Decisions Made - Authorized the USGS joint funding agreement for $5,100. - Approved the June 26, 2023, meeting minutes. - Recommended adoption of the revised Chapter 24 Solid Waste ordinance to the City Council. - Authorized the Neighborhood 1B design contract with Kimley-Horn & Associates, Inc. ($3,076,300 NTE). - Authorized the Neighborhood 1B CMAR pre-construction contract with Sundt Construction, Inc. ($267,000 NTE). - Authorized the DME engineering services agreement with POWER Engineers, Inc. ($2,700,000 NTE). - Authorized the DME precast concrete pull box supply contract with Techline, Inc. ($4,250,000 NTE). - No final actions were taken on FY 2023-24 utility rates or the wastewater budget.

Action Items or Next Steps - Staff to present the revised Chapter 24 Solid Waste ordinance to the City Council for public hearing and final adoption on July 17, 2023. - Board to formally approve FY 2023-24 utility rate ordinances and budgets at the July 24, 2023, meeting. - Staff to provide a Winter Storm URI financial update prior to the July 24 meeting. - Staff to continue CIP prioritization and rate study processes, with cost-of-service study results expected late fall/early winter. - Meeting adjourned at 9:43 AM due to loss of quorum.

Agenda Chapters
1. 2. CONSENT AGENDA
0:40 - 1:00
2. A. Consider approval of the June 26, 2023, minutes.
1:00 - 1:14
3. B. Consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton replacing Chapter 24 - Solid Waste of the Code of Ordinances in its entirety and the addition of a Commercial Diversion Article and providing an effective date.
1:14 - 6:33
4. C. Consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, a Texas home-rule municipal corporation, authorizing the City Manager to execute a Professional Service Agreement with Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc., for the design of Neighborhood 1B for the Capital Projects Department; providing for the expenditure of funds therefor; and providing an effective date (RFQ 7599-012 - Professional Services Agreement for design services awarded to Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc., in the not-to-exceed amount of $3,076,300.00).
6:33 - 8:55
5. D. Consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, a Texas home-rule municipal corporation, authorizing the City Manager to execute a Construction Manager at Risk contract with Sundt Construction, Inc., for pre-construction services of Neighborhood 1B Improvements for the Capital Projects Department; providing for the expenditure of funds therefor; and providing an effective date (RFP 8225 - awarded to Sundt Construction, Inc., in the not-to-exceed amount of $267,000.00).
8:55 - 17:44
6. E. Consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, a Texas home-rule municipal corporation, authorizing the City Manager to execute a Professional Services Agreement with POWER Engineers, Inc., for engineering services associated with capital improvement projects for Denton Municipal Electric; providing for the expenditure of funds therefor; and providing an effective date (RFQ 8031-003 - Professional Services Agreement for engineering services awarded to POWER Engineers, Inc., in the not-to-exceed amount of $2,700,000.00).
17:44 - 19:14
7. F. Consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, a Texas home-rule municipal corporation, authorizing the City Manager to execute a contract with Techline, Inc., for the supply of precast concrete pull boxes for Denton Municipal Electric to be stocked in the Warehouse; providing for the expenditure of funds therefor; and providing an effective date (IFB 8251 - awarded to Techline, Inc., in the three (3) year, with the option for two (2) additional one (1) year extensions, in the total five (5) year not-to-exceed amount of $4,250,000.00).
19:14 - 21:33
8. G. Management Reports 1. ERCOT Credit Policy Changes 2. Future Agenda Items 3. New Business Action Items
21:33 - 24:05
9. 4. CONCLUDING ITEMS
24:05 - 24:15
10. B. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction on the proposed Solid Waste, Water, and Wastewater (Drainage) rates for FY 2023-2024.
24:15 - 36:49
11. C. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding the Wastewater (Drainage) FY 2023-24 Preliminary Budget.
36:49 - 43:45
Transcript
6554 words
Hello. It is nine o'clock and we do have a quorum, so I've called to order the City of Denton Public Utilities Board meeting for Monday July 10th. We're going to be short of a quorum at about 945, is that right Barbara? So we're going to try to get through a lot of this quickly. We're actually going to change up the work session and have item B go first to see if we can get through that item and hopefully we can do that by 945. First item is presentations for members of the public. Does anyone from the public wish to speak? Seeing none, we'll move on to consent agenda. Does any board member wish to pull the one consent item on the agenda? Okay, seeing none, do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Okay, Devin moved, Billy seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, approval of the minutes, PUB 23125. Were there any changes or corrections to the minutes? Move approval. Barbara moved approval. Devin seconds. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, item B, PUB 209, solid waste ordinance, Chapter 24. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board, Brian Burner, Solid Waste Director with the City of Denton. What is before you today is basically the culmination of approximately a year's worth of work, major rewrite of our Chapter 24 code of ordinance to most importantly include a commercial diversion article. Again, with your approval today in two weeks it will go to council under public hearing for final approval and incorporation into the code of ordinance. You've seen this before. Again, we've had significant community outreach on social media and public meetings since February. Even in those past six months, we've only had about 40 comments come in. A third of those were enthusiastic support. The remainder of them had just simple questions about locations and cost and things like that. We were able to answer those questions. So what we bring before you today, I think, is a culmination of a very thoughtful ordinance. It's driven mostly by the community's ability to do the work. Other than the fact that we're requiring you to do something, it's upon you to actually define what you can do and make it work. So with that, we would respectfully request that you approve the article to the council for final approval. I do know Barbara has some questions. Go ahead. Yeah. In places where there is no place to put a recycle or something of that nature, what's your plan? Well, it depends on what your material is. If it's just the programmatic material that the city of Denton can take care of, it will be fully acceptable as long as you report the material to take that material to your house and put it in your curbside container to take it to North Lakes Park or to the landfill by recycling facilities and recycle that material there. We understand that in some areas, space is a concern and we will be working with you to make that happen. Sometimes you don't know what's in there because it gets filled by the public very frequently so you don't know what's in there. Who's responsible for that? We can't seem to get that handled. Well, again, if we're talking about programmatic material that the city of Denton is collecting, currently we're undergoing in any future distribution of dumpsters out in, recycled dumpsters out in the community will include locks and chute lids which we have shown to significantly reduce contamination because, again, the openings are extremely small which allows only the specified materials to be able to put in there so we're not seeing the garbage and the illegally dumped material put into the recycle bins. So, again, to fully answer your question, the dumpsters are always the responsibility of the renter or the owner. However, we were going to work with you to help ensure that that gets cleaned and to maintain compliance with the ordinance. Okay. Sometimes when the dumpster is emptied, they set it back so far you can't close the lid on it and that's a problem. Also, what about mixed use like when you see apartments above businesses, so you're going to have two different types of waste there? Well, to talk about if we're pushing them back so far that you can't close it, let us know about that. That's an education issue with our drivers. We have very few complaints about that but once we know about it, we can take care of it. So please let us know, call our customer service line. With the mixed use though, again, we've got shoot lids and locks to keep that area clean. If the businesses below have additional materials that are outside of the city's programmatic material but are going to be a divertable material through a third party vendor, then we're going to work with them for space and location and things of that nature. Okay. Do you supply keys to the tenants in the building so that they can get into the ... If they're tenants, they shouldn't need keys because again, they're very small locks, they are very small openings, they can still put the material in there. But we will work with the owners of the facility to make sure that their maintenance has keys to the locks so that they can get into it, flip the lids and put the locks back should they need to put something larger in there or pull something out prior to collection. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions? And you said there will be a public hearing yet before adoption? Correct. On the 17th, I believe is the date. Okay. I do appreciate, I have attended those meetings. Not all of them but most of them. You're welcome. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve item PUB23039? Okay. Billy moves. Devin seconds. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed. Carries. Okay. Thank you very much. Barbara opposed. Kim. Yes. PUB item 23122. Morning board members. Scott Fetig, project manager with Capital Projects. Got a couple presentations this morning. So the first one will be for the neighborhood 1B design contract and this is part of the 2019 bond program. So a little bit about the project overview. With this there will be about 25,000 linear feet of roadway reconstruction, which is about 45 segments. Water main replacement will be about 10,000 feet. Wastewater main replacement, we're looking at just almost 17,000 linear feet. There will be some sidewalk connectivity assessments with this project as well as street lighting and photometric study. So design summary, the actual design services came in at just over $2 million. And then the hourly additional services, which is coordinating meetings, public involvement, project management and such, just over a million for a total of just over $3 million. So project schedule with consideration approval today and moving forward to council on the 18th, approval there. We're expecting our first construction project packages to come out in quarter one of 2025. Projects will be phased during construction. This is a rather large project with an estimated construction completion quarter four of 2026. And with that we ask for the approval for a design contract between city of Denton and Kimley Horn Associates for a not to exceed amount of just over $3 million. - Questions? - What's your estimated construction cost? - For our overall project, we're looking at right about 25 million for this project overall. - This was one of the larger projects in the 2019, is it not? - It is, yes, yes ma'am. - Other questions? All right, do we have a motion to approve? - I'll move approval. - Okay, Kimley moves approval. Barbara seconds. All in favor say aye. - Aye. - I'm curious. Okay, next item is PUB 23, one, hang on, 23. - Yes ma'am, 123. - My eyes went the wrong way. - Same repetitive. - Again, Scott Fettig with Capital Projects project manager. This is also for neighborhood 1B. This is for our construction manager at risk or CMAR that will be participating in the design phase services contract. That's also, of course, part of 2019 bond program. This project will be the same overview at 25,000 feet of roadway reconstruction, about 45 segments, 10,000 linear feet of water main, almost 17,000 feet of wastewater replacement. And then we'll also be doing a sidewalk connectivity assessment and a photometric study for street lighting. So design phase services on this one, for the CMAR pre-construction services, this is our third CMAR that we're putting out. We selected CMAR with this project due to the size and complexity of the project. We're seeing good success with the first two CMARs in the areas of we're seeing more accurate pricing, better pricing with the cost modeling. We're seeing more efficiency in the scheduling with having the CMAR on board during the design phases. So they came in at for the design phase services for the CMAR came at a 267,000. Same with the approval today and the council on the 18th, we expect to have our first construction packages out quarter 1, 2025, and then expected a construction completion in quarter 4, 2026. And with that, we asked for an approval with the CMAR design phase services between the City of Denton and Sunt Construction for not to exceed the amount of 267,000. Questions? Questions. I know Mr. Cheek. Oh, Domingo, you go first. So this is the CMAR package just for design? Yes, this is just for the design phase services. And will the construction phase be put out to bid again or is there just going to be a follow-on contract with Sunt? Yes. No, they will have to, for the actual, we'll have several different packages. For each construction package, they will have to go out for bid for all the construction services and we'll bring those back again to the board and council as well for those individual contracts. I guess is Sunt, is the 267,000 for the entire construction phase as well or just design? No, just for the design phase services. So there'll be a follow-up contract with Sunt? Yes, exactly. I mean, Devin kind of went on the same line as I'm about to go on. Sunt's got the $267,000, which obviously for design does not seem like that much money, obviously. Right. In comparison, we just approved a $3 million one, right? Right, right. So once you lock Sunt into the CMAR, they're going to go out and talk to contractors and try to give you the best price and best construction you can get. Correct. Do they have a set percentage that they'd mark up those dollar amounts? I may have to defer to Seth here on this one. Good morning, board members. Seth Garcia, program manager with Capital Projects. Yeah, so part of their RFQ, they have to submit what is their construction fee. So that will carry through the construction phase process. I believe for this one, they submitted 5.95%. So once they publicly advertise the entire project, if they win 0% of the work as they're not self-performing anything, they will still collect a 5.95% construction fee on the total construction cost. Is that in this contract, that 5.95%? It's not in this contract. You'll see it in the second contract. That will go with their general conditions costs and that construction fee once they actually give us their guaranteed maximum price. The only piece that comes forward out of the RFQ with this one is that pre-construction fee, which is that 267. Okay, yeah, 5.95 doesn't seem too much of a markup for managing a pretty healthy project like this. But some of my questions are going to be on the way that these have been ranked, for lack of a better word, project-specific delivery approach, which is probably their highest where they beat everybody else, along with community engagement. What was the community engagement? Yeah, so during their technical proposal, they really focused in on how they were going to engage each individual resident and street following the requirements of our technical specifications. So in our specifications, we have a 48 hours of notice that you're supposed to go out and knock on doors to let them know you're going to be crossing driveways. They kind of put that plan in place in their schedule and then talked about it very thoroughly, how they were going to adhere to each of the requirements that the city didn't has in our contracts. So they made sure to draw specific attention to that. They also talked about different ways, setting up QR codes that they're going to be able to put on different materials to get people plugged straight into our Discuss Denton and other pages, which was a neat idea that we had not seen before from some of our other contractors. So those were the two things that really stuck out to me in their technical proposal for those community engagement scores. Okay, and what about the project-specific delivery approach, which is highly ranked as well? Yeah, once again, they did a very thorough job explaining the phasing of construction, how many crews they were going to use for each piece. Of course, CMAR, one of the beautiful things about it is you work as an entire project team to phase out the entire construction portion to really wring out all the efficiencies that you can. One of the great things we loved about Sunt and some of the other submittals was they had a great pre-plan coming in, which they weren't necessarily tied to. But hey, we think as a contractor who does billions of dollars of work in the United States every year, this is a good way to start. And so that gave us a good baseline drawing board. So being able to come in through that RFQ process to say this is how many crews we anticipate, this is how we would like to phase it, gives us a really good starting place. Okay. Did they participate in any of the bond committee original passing of the bonds that we had in 2019? I don't believe they did. They didn't bid on our first CMAR project. They kind of heard through the contractor world that we were doing some CMAR stuff. And so we saw them on our second CMAR, which was neighborhood two and six, which they actually won. You probably have small businesses working more to get your bond passed, didn't you? We did. But one of the beautiful things is so they advertise it publicly to our local community. So similar to neighborhood Southeast in package B, we have a lot of our local vendors that are participating under McCarthy for that project that are doing a lot of that work. So even though they're the GC, we still have a lot of local vendors that are participating in these larger CMAR projects. Obviously, I've been asked questions because I have concerns about the CMAR approach. I think that this, and I know you're not supposed to consider the political ramifications of what this might do, but I think we're eventually going to be answering some questions we don't want to be asked. And I say we, you. But I'll just leave it as speculation. I'll leave it at that. But I worry a little bit about CMAR. And when you're doing the evaluation, it's cross-functional. It's purchasing, it's engineering. You score separately and then you bring them all together. That's correct. So we have generally five people on the team, a handful from capital projects. And then typically we have a roadway or street stakeholder and a utility stakeholder. And then, of course, purchasing is watching over the entire process. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Just mention again, I am unemployed, by the way. Other questions. You guys did a great job on this. I'm sorry to ask those questions, but I think it's important that we. Oh, not a problem. We appreciate it. Get into the details here. I appreciate it. Thank you. Other questions. All right. Do we have a motion to approve PUB 23123? Barber moves approval. Second? Devin seconds. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Billy opposes. Okay. Next item is 23124 with power engineers. Turn that off. I say something stupid again. Good morning. Cody Tenorio, DME Engineering, here to discuss a contract for professional engineering services. Contract will cover services for DME CIP projects as well as compliance support. Our engineers scored the highest for the requested services. Here's a table that shows the estimated cost per project. We recommend a contract with power engineers for three years. Two point seven million dollars. Majority of the costs will be recoverable through PUC and TCOS programs. Any questions? Questions? We see none, wow. Everything you guys buy now costs too much. But I think you can get it. Pretty good gig if you can get it, right? Do we have a motion to approve item PUB 23124? Devin moves. Second? Barber seconds. All in favor say aye. Aye. I guess you did the best job. Well thank you. Okay, next item PUB 23127 with Denton and the warehousing. Good morning members of the PUB. I'm Randy Key, Municipal Electric, Electric Engineering Supervisor. Okay, all right. This is for a contract for concrete pull boxes. These precast concrete pull boxes are subsurface enclosures that provide space for cable pulling, routing, splicing and place for us to terminate our primary underground electric cables. Our DME standards state that any primary run of cable that exceeds four elbows or 1,000 feet must install a concrete pull box. These assets will be managed at the DME pull yard. Here is a table of estimated five-year spend and staff recommends this contract be approved. It's going to be with Techline with the NTE of $4.2 million. Any questions? Go ahead Barber. Describe to me this pull box. It's either a three by five or a four by six pull box and we will pull our cable into it and then we will splice into it. Is it seal off? Yes ma'am. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes ma'am. Do you have a question? No. I always go back and look at your bid tabulation. Yes. And there's a big difference between the other two and this one. Do you have any concerns? No ma'am. Okay. So it's not like they bid really low? No ma'am. Okay. All right. Do we have a motion to approve PUB item 23127 with Techline? Moved? Second. Devin seconds. All in favor say aye. Aye. Carries. Management reports. So Madam Chair, members of PUB on the management report we did include a memo from finance to the board just advising you of an item that's going to be coming to you regarding some new requirements from ERCOT. Basically what we've done is we've issued an RFP to secure a letter of credit to replace what used to be basically an unsecured collateral. Now we're required to have actual collateral whether it's cash or letter of credit. We are looking at a possibility of a surety bond. We're still kind of looking through that. So things might change between now and the time this item comes to you but at present we just wanted to advise you that that's something that we are doing. We're required to do it. It's not just us. It's the entire, all the participants in the ERCOT market and so it is something new that really came out of, as a result of Winter Storm URI and some of the defaults that happened. Terry's here. I think Randy may be here so if you have any other questions they're happy to jump up here and respond to those. Questions? Okay. So just future agenda items. The next thing that we have for you is on the 24th we are going to be asking the board at that time to approve, to make a recommendation, actually formally approve budgets, rate ordinances to go to the council. The council has a budget workshop scheduled for August 5th. That's a Saturday which they'll review all the city's budgets and then that process kind of begins. But July 24th is kind of the end for the PEB as far as this year's budgets. So certainly if you have any questions please let us know. And then finally the last item is just new transaction items. I do have one item on there which was just an update on Winter Storm URI. I didn't move that to July 10th. I may be able to get that to the board in advance of that meeting that you have it. But just took me a little longer to get that wrapped up. But happy to answer any questions you may have. If there's anything else you want to add. Now I will not be here on the 24th but Lee will be here to chair and I know Lee will be here so. And you won't? Oh that's right. So okay. So do we have no appointment for Larry Beck? Not yet. So. Okay. So Devin will be out as well? Yes. Okay. Okay. Right now we have a quorum. Just, yeah. Mr. Plotkin is the other one? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Asking items. Does any board member wish to say something to the public or add a future agenda item? None. Okay. We'll go into work session and like I said we'll pull item B first and that is the water, solid waste water and waste water rates for 23-24. Good morning PUB. Tanyel Stanford, budget manager. And this morning we're here to talk about utility rates. So the first part of these you've already seen beginning with the solid waste rates. We are proposing no residential or commercial customer rate changes in FY 23-24. However we are anticipating rate increases to be needed beginning as early as 2025. That is pending the final cost of service study that NUGEN is currently in progress. We do intend to bring those back, that cost of service study results to you late fall, early winter. Like we talked about in the budget presentation for solid waste we are proposing an additional recycling cart fee of $15. That's what apply to customers receiving three or more carts and then some additional rate ordinance language clarifications. If you have any questions on those we can go through those but you have already seen them in a previous presentation. Again you've already seen these rate increases or rate changes an increase of $5 for these four rate categories. And the removal of the contaminated grass, brush and leaf rate and the whole trees and stumps rate. Water rates we're proposing to remove two rates the dino dirt overs and the dino deco colored mulch removing both of those rates. No additional rate changes for water. Wastewater is where it gets fun today. So we I know you have not seen the wastewater budget presentation so this is a snippet of the pro forma. As you can see we are anticipated to end our current fiscal year with about $15.3 million of a surplus that will go into our I'm sorry our fund balance will be $15.3 million. And we anticipate using 2 million of that in FY 2024 to offset some costs. However you'll notice that in FY 2024 we do have an 11 percent increase. That is largely contributed to the CIP that we'll see in the next few slides. In FY 25 through 28 we also have 11 12 and to 10 percent rate increases again to support that CIP that's necessary. These rate increases do keep us within our target minimum balance or reserves. It does not keep us above the debt service coverage ratio for this specific fund in years 27 and 28. We dip just below but as a reminder that's looked at across the utility system versus just the individual fund. So this slide shows you a rate increase comparison. So currently Denton is the light blue in the middle there at 41 40. This is the average rate increase or the rate the bill for the average customer. This is based on a W.W.A. standard of a three quarter inch base and eight thousand gallons usage. I would like to note that the average usage usage for a city of Denton customer is below eight thousand. The average usage usage for Denton customer is five thousand forty gallons which equates to about a thirty three dollar and thirty cent average bill. So these numbers in the table are slightly elevated just because of the usage difference. He said why is that? Why is what? That's the average on what we've seen used so that that's based on. So you got no opinion on that you're just saying that's what it is. I'm not being smart. I probably have more low flow kind of things that were implemented early on that causes ours to be lower. Haven't you, haven't you been doing something to I don't know how to describe it. Close the leakage in the pipes. Stephen Gay director of water utilities. The the the water wastewater rate is determined by the the winter use. So we're looking at indoor consumption and so we do is we look at the three months during the year when I think it's December January January February those three months and that we calculate that. The average out the average use for Denton resident is that five thousand forty gallons per month is what they use and that's just driven by either low flow fixtures or their their use profile and that's we really can't explain why why ours is lower but that eight thousand gallons that's an industry standard. So that's what the American Water Works Association suggests that we use to kind of level the playing field. So without looking at each individual jurisdiction and their actual use profile we use that same number. That's pretty consistent across the country. Does that answer your question. So really the answer is we really don't know why we're we don't. It's really it's really it's customer preference is the way that our customers actually use the water and we you know all we can do is look at the data. You almost think that a hotter area like we live in would be more than the average. Well take it into consideration. It's during the winter use. Yeah it's during the winter months is when we measure that. So it's not what they do but you know they do that as well. Yes sir. And the same standard. Yeah. All right. But it's the entire country and it's just our country average. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I don't want to jump ahead to the next report but is the primary driver of this property or population growth and expansion of new infrastructure or is it driven by. When when you look at the CIP what you'll see is you'll see a large project of the concrete and that is based off of our flows. So they have the seventy five ninety rule with TCEQ. We've exceeded seventy five percent of our average flows at the concrete for the last two years. And so we're in that design phase required design. So this is fully being driven by the demand on the plant. So it's a significant improvement. We're adding five M.G.D. of M.B.R. of additional treatment technology. And we're also we have a headworks project and a solids handling project that complement that additional flow. And so this is primarily just the concrete. Yes. Yeah. And there we are programming in initiating the design and construction up in our Clear Creek Basin where we're seeing a significant amount of growth. But that's not until the out years. That's coming on. And I think it's a 25 26 is when we got that coming in. OK. And just so this is this shows this that 30 dollar average bill at current rate will go to 33 30. That's for the first year. That's for next year. Yes. And so if it continues at the 10 10 11 11 12 whatever that rate was we're going to end up in 20 28 somewhere around 45 to 50 average bill right. We're going to compound about four times. Yes. So ours is getting better. And please keep in mind that that's consistent with what we're seeing in the region as well. So our average use or our average our customers average bill will be competitive with those in the surrounding communities as well. Right. I understand. Also just looking at this chart older slower growth areas are you know over here on the on the left and the areas that have had the highest growth are over on the right had to pay for that infrastructure somehow. I'm just trying to understand like like you know what all it comes. So whenever. OK. Well also my other questions for the capital improvement project. And like you touched on Mr. Taylor these Lewisville Irving are also proposing a rate increase for FY 2024. We've got all of the rate increases the proposed rate increases in orange so you can see that Denton is raising their rates and you know in parallel to comparison cities. So this is the rate history. I thought we thought that this was important to tell the story that rates have actually been decreased over the last fiscal years. So we're somewhat making up for that now with this 11 percent increase. And then also that kind of goes back to solid waste needing that rate increase in future years. We've decreased their rates 29 percent in the last three fiscal years. So this is a summary of this funded CIP. So we have a large portion of the CIP that's actually unfunded this year. Stephen did work with his team to determine what is priority and what can be pushed off. So we tried to keep that rate increase as minimal as possible. We are looking at a CIP of 62 million for 2024 74 million in 2025 75 million in 2026 and 2027 and then your 2028 jumps to about 99 million for a total five year CIP of three hundred and eighty five million. So this is the project list of funded CIP projects. The blue is related to capacity. Those highlighted in orange are related to regulatory projects. Again these are the numbers we just went over for the total of the five five year CIP of three hundred and eighty five million. This slide shows the projects that are unfunded. So these projects are not included in the CIP in the current pro forma. It's about three hundred and twenty five million. So you can see that Stephen's team did a really great job of trying to prioritize and keep that rate increase at a minimum. And then with that we'll take any additional questions. You have a question. No I don't have a question. I'm going to save mine for the CIP because I think it's going to be covered there. OK. Well then mine is too. It's about that sheet right there. But that's what we're going to discuss next. Right. We're going to do the budget presentation if we have time. If you want to ask your questions now. The same information is in the budget. I don't understand the reasoning of kicking the can down the road. We're trying to minimize the rate increase. How is CIP funded. It's funded in a variety of ways. So here we have revenue our debt funding impact fees and the vehicle replacement fund. So you can see we're trying to break it up as best we can to keep that rate increase at a minimum. And the impact fees are coming is for the wastewater part. Correct. Or is it both water and waste water. This is specifically for wastewater. Thank you. And we also that's important. I mean that's why we're needing to do this. Yes. These are specifically for wastewater. Water does have their own impact fees but that's not included here. One other thing that we did was expand some of the debt from 20 year to 30 year try to make that more palatable. Get that debt service. Yes. I'm gonna go back to the unfunded. Good. Okay. The questions. And what do you need from us. No nothing at this time. So I'll be back on the 24th to ask for actual approval. All right. Thank you. And now we'll go to the capital improvement program. Is that is that the most important. Only the CIP first. Or do you think item C for I think Danielle do you want to cover. Let's do the wastewater budget. This information you've actually seen. All right. In the budget presentation. I just looked down. Oh wait. Maybe we want to do something else. It would be MC. Okay. Item C. Thank you. So this is the wastewater budget presentation. This is their metric for Actually Steven. This is your portion but I can Run with it if you want. So this shows that zero main chokes per hundred miles per hundred miles of main. So we are under the standard Wastewater has 173 employees. This is this org chart is combined with water and wastewater. Oh I'm sorry. Wastewater specifically has 106 and a half employees. The decrease from 23 to 24 is there are four and a half positions moving to the Environmental Services and Sustainability Fund which you saw previously. Wastewater is requesting six FTEs a plant operator project manager and an inspector for plant operators and we'll get into those more in detail in the supplemental slides. Strategic initiatives. These were also the strategic initiatives discussed during the water presentation. So initiative one is to develop and update their master plans. Initiative two is the contracts and operating agreements. And then finally as the regional partnerships that they have with Chrome, Sanger, Lake Cities and Corinth. Now we'll get into the financials like the other utilities two and a half percent residential growth. The expense projections include an increase in personnel services costs related to the comp and class study. Merit increases in annual inflation and then the 2 percent increase in operations and maintenance growth and also the pro forma includes the 11 percent rate increase that we just discussed. So again here's a snippet of that same pro forma. The wastewater capital plan which we previously discussed. This is all the same information. The wastewater major projects and included are the Pecan Creek Plant expansion of 185 million. Those are that these totals are across the five year. The concrete plant 75 MGD headworks for 46 million oversized participation for 44 million. And finally the supplement to the bond program the 2019 broad program of 22 million. So their wastewater supplemental requests of course the merit increase for personnel services they're requesting for plant operators to for Lake Ray Robertson to for concrete. It's all concrete. OK. I'm sorry. It's all concrete had your excavation truck a project manager and an inspector their supplemental request total one point five million that being six FTEs and two new vehicles. And then the rate changes have we've already discussed in the previous item that takes us into the drainage piece of wastewater drainage metrics. The inlet injunction box inspections. They projected 25 92 for this for the current fiscal year. That is their goal as well. They're expected to meet their goal and all of their metrics this year. As you can see on this slide. That's OK. To turn it over to Ethan here. Long time no see. Good morning everybody. Ethan Cox director of streets. So on Blackberry Way we had a lot of groundwater that was seeping across the sidewalk and into the road. We've had some slips and trips and falls out there. And so that was a French drain that we installed to run that and connect it into Got some weird. There is an empty lot pretty close to it. I don't know if we're talking about the same one on Matthew behind it. I don't know that question. I don't know the answer to that. We've got groundwater all over the place. And so it was one of those to where that was about the only way we were going to get the groundwater off of the right away. So That's what we're trying to do right now and I'm just curious not to if it's a quick. Why did we only do 46 inlet junction box inspections in 2022 now. So one of the big things you'll see in a slide coming up is we do have a stormwater master plan that we're undergoing. And so You know, for ever since I've been with the city drainage has been really focused on maintenance and construction and really what we're trying to shift to is we have an aging network of infrastructure here. And then we also have a lot of new growth. Transitions that we're going to be making is more toward inspections and condition assessments for our assets. And so you're starting to see us start to work that in This fiscal year. I think next fiscal year, we're going to have a lot of inspections for our supplemental packages. We're going to be proposing a CCTV truck to start inspecting the lines underneath the roadways. That way, when we look at roadway reconstructs things like that. We have an idea of we have drainage lines that also need to be repaired when we push them on program for So I think you'll start seeing that in the years ahead is we're really going to start focusing in on more and more inspections. Okay. Related to that and I I ran into a crew that was doing a bunch of GIS locates of I believe drainage lines is are those considered inspections as part of this that Location of all the assets in the ground. I think it certainly can be, you know, I think there's a probably still some elements of our System that we're uncovering there. The plans aren't always exactly what they need to be. And so when we go out to do some inspections. It's not unusual for us to discover assets or to try to geo locate those and upload those into our asset management system. Asset inventory is certainly a part of the inspection. All right, Susan, we lost her form. Do we need to shut down. There's no decisions. Okay. All right, I killed the meeting. Put that in the minutes, Kim. All right, it's 943 we lost her quorum. So we are adjourned.
Agenda
5 pages
City of Denton City Hall 215 E. McKinney St. Denton, Texas 76201 www.cityofdenton.com Meeting Agenda Public Utilities Board Monday, July 10, 2023 9:00 AM Council Work Session Room REGISTRATION GUIDELINES FOR ADDRESSING THE PUBLIC UTILITIES BOARD Citizens will be able to participate in the following way: • eComment – The agenda was posted online at https://tx-denton.civicplus.com/242/ Public-Meetings-Agendas. Once the agenda is posted, a link to make virtual comments using the eComment module will be made available next to the meeting listing on the Upcoming Events Calendar. Using eComment, Individuals may indicate support or opposition and submit a brief comment about a specific agenda item. eComments may be submitted up until the start of the meeting at which time the ability to make an eComment will be closed. eComments will be sent directly to members of the Public Utilities Board immediately upon submission and recorded by the Secretary into the Minutes of the Meeting. After determining that a quorum is present, the Public Utilities Board of the City of Denton, Texas will convene in a Regular Meeting on Monday, July 10, 2023, at 9:00 a.m. in the Council Work Session Room at City Hall, 215 E. McKinney Street, Denton, Texas at which the following items will be considered: REGULAR MEETING 1. PRESENTATIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC This section of the agenda permits a person to make comments regarding public business on items as listed on the agenda. Each speaker will be allowed a maximum of four (4) minutes. Such person(s) shall have registered under the REGISTRATION GUIDELINES FOR ADDRESSING THE PUBLIC UTILITIES BOARD detailed at the beginning of this agenda. Registration is required prior to the time this agenda item is read into the record. 2. CONSENT AGENDA Each of the items on the Consent Agenda is recommended by the Staff and approval thereof will be strictly on the basis of the Staff recommendations. Approval of the Consent Agenda authorizes the City Manag…

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