[0:00] Our meeting. So 330, we'll call our meeting to order the Regional Suits Program Policy Committee meeting for Thursday, March 6th, 2025. All right. We'll call please, Jennifer. Some of you member, captain. Here. So many member, do you pray? Here, here. Some of you member, dors, parada. And many member, Velta.

[0:29] Vice Chair president. Vice Chair President. Vice Chair.

[0:37] Chair-rotters. And committee member Elai.

[0:41] Elai, president. Playing the role of VALT other day.

[0:47] All right. Very good. Speaking of,

[0:49] let's ask Bill to leave this in the pledge of allegiance.

[0:52] All right. Please stand, basic flag. Place your hand over your heart, which is in the middle of your

[0:55] chest. Ready, begin.

[1:12] Okay,

[1:19] next up are public comments. Jennifer, do we have any public comments that have come to you?

[1:24] No, I did not receive any public comments. I do see a couple of colors on the line.

[1:29] So if you would like to provide public comment, please press star six.

[1:35] So online star six, if you wish to make a public comment.

[1:43] Looks like no one's on meeting themselves.

[1:45] Okay, then we'll move on from public comments.

[1:48] Let's move on to our technical committee report and Ron Greg.

[1:54] Happy to hear from you.

[1:58] Happy to be here and join all this free water.

[2:01] Right. We'll take it.

[2:02] We need it.

[2:03] we need it.

[2:08] So Chairman Rogers, members of the committee, we held our Technical Advisory Committee

[2:13] for February, last Thursday. All of the member agencies were represented in some fashion or

[2:20] another. The first item we had was an oral presentation by Ken and his team, and it represented

[2:28] a significant decrease in events that had to be addressed from the from the previous

[2:34] month. So that was good. And some explanation of a certain quality issue that took place

[2:43] at Prado Park. So we got some good information and feedback on that. So we appreciated that

[2:50] information from Ken. On the information items, Randy Lee provided us an update on the rates.

[2:56] We know that's a very current topic.

[3:00] The presentation we received was from a timing standpoint, was really just the schedule

[3:05] and outlining the process that we're going to be going through.

[3:10] Later on that day, the preliminary information on the rates was going to be circulated and

[3:19] available to all the staff, representatives and interested parties, Randy sent out an email,

[3:29] providing us all a link so we could see the draft presentation for the board workshop that

[3:34] was going to take place yesterday. And he indicated that the information will come back to

[3:41] to the Tech Committee next month, well it's the end of this month for a formal presentation

[3:51] to tax, so we anticipate that. We also received an update on the RP-5 expansion project from

[4:01] Brian and this was focused specifically on the cost of the project and the relationship

[4:09] in the progress of the schedule. So there was good information there. We are going to have some

[4:14] additional feedback based on a couple of questions that came out of TAC, and I expect to get that

[4:20] at this month's meeting. Beyond that was receiving file items, the draft agenda for this committee's

[4:30] meeting, and the Bar subcommittee report as well was included. That's all I have, unless there are any

[4:38] questions. Questions from anybody with Ron having to do with tech. The tech committee. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Ron.

[4:48] All right. Next. Next up is our next item having to do with our minutes from February. Anybody make corrections? Have any corrections? If not.

[4:56] not proved. We have a motion.

[5:00] Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Abstentions. Then, so it's unanimous. Next up, informational

[5:10] items, let's start with Brian. He looks like he's teeing up on the RP-5 expansion project

[5:18] in a PowerPoint presentation. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon. This is a follow-up

[5:24] from our last presentation and request for explanation of follow up on the project.

[5:30] First was schedule.

[5:33] The schedule update were about 83% through the full project completion.

[5:40] As we see here on the schedule, we show several of the main facilities in their anticipated completion

[5:47] dates.

[5:49] Right now, as we look at it, the contractor is running late with the project and those completion dates which are originally scheduled.

[5:58] Down below in the table, we have the contractor designer and construction management firms associated with the project and their percent payments with their contracts.

[6:07] So WM Liles, for their total contract of 341 million currently, is about 84% paid.

[6:15] The designer persons is about 92% paid.

[6:19] Construction management from Arcadeus is about 65% paid just to bring up.

[6:25] We did recently approve an amendment to Arcadeus's contract to continue construction management services to match the schedule provided by the contractor.

[6:34] So that's why that one dropped is to 65 percent.

[6:42] Overall, the project budget in schedule, just as a high level summary.

[6:49] Design services were about $25.9 million total.

[6:54] You have the services there, Parsons, as well as other design services, construction services.

[7:00] Those are the professional services persons during the construction, our construction management

[7:07] services by Arcadeus as well as some of the other construction related is about 51.9 million.

[7:15] Construction total is running about 64 million with our value for WMLIs for construction, the

[7:24] original bid price of 329 million. Our change orders to date is about 11 million. We have a remaining contingency of about 21.9 million. And then we also have the radio tower project, which is a separate sub project that's executed by a design build entity to build a radio tower on our site for 1.4 million.

[7:46] And so bringing in that total project cost up to about $442 million out of our $450 million budget.

[7:57] One of the other things that we bring and update our board on a fairly regular basis is our

[8:04] change orders. As we talked about them on the prior slide, but this is a little more diving down into

[8:11] to that. We have our original contract amount, our change orders that have been executed,

[8:17] our 11, about 11 million, and that has been 456 individual change orders. Our request

[8:24] for deviations, so that is the step before it becomes a change. That is where we negotiate

[8:29] and work with the contractor and the designer to make sure that if we're implementing a change

[8:35] that we have the right scope, the right price, and everything. That's where we work with

[8:39] to come up with it and we come to agreement before it is put into a change order and made

[8:45] a change to the contract. Right now we're tracking about $1.4 million worth of changes in

[8:50] there. That number can still go down. So that is why our change order total then adds up to a

[9:00] potential change order total of $12.5 million. That runs about 3.79% change orders on this project

[9:09] And it eats into that contingency of 37.9%.

[9:14] When we break down those types of changes, we track that as well.

[9:19] We have it into four main buckets, design errors and omissions,

[9:24] requests by the district, changes in site condition,

[9:27] and requested by contractor.

[9:29] Design errors and omissions, those are things that were either left out of the

[9:34] scope of the project and had it be added to make the system complete.

[9:38] or things that were constructed and then had to be changed to make it complete and make the system work.

[9:45] So we have about 6.7 million and you see the percentage of the total changes as well as the contract.

[9:53] Request by district, those are some changes that the district request as we go along we see that we need

[10:00] Something added to the project, either to make it more serviceable, or make it a longer life, or something that was unanticipated that we needed added. That is 4.2 million. A large majority of that ended up being an HTTP liners at the front of the project. One manufacturer that's pretty common in the industry went out of business during design. And we weren't finding a usual embedded

[10:31] And so we had to go with a different one during construction.

[10:34] So that was a large percentage of that.

[10:38] Changes in site conditions, those typically.

[10:41] A lot of those are when we are installing underground and we come across something that was unanticipated.

[10:48] That's where the utility is not in the location we expected to be either horizontally or vertically.

[10:54] So then we have to reroute other utilities or do something different in the construction and compensate the contractor for that.

[11:02] And then the request by the contractor, typically these are value engineering or cost saving ideas or changes that result in a credit to the agency.

[11:11] And it's about $800,000 on this project.

[11:16] And with that, that ends my follow-up. Any other questions?

[11:21] on the utilities. Are there actually utilities? Are we just referring to the agency's pipes and conduits?

[11:29] No, it's agency pipes and conduits. We just generically refer to them as utilities.

[11:34] Second, I notice as the archaedist, the change order, I heard that you're kind of behind scale.

[11:41] was that that change order based upon them being on site longer than they planned to be?

[11:47] Oh, the amendment to our fatuses? Yeah, and that is a result of supporting the agency

[11:53] because the contractors taking longer than anticipated. Is there, do you look at any penalties

[11:59] happening to or that to recover those costs or what caused the delay or have you spoken to those?

[12:07] Yeah, we are always analyzing and reviewing that with the contractor and make sure we have

[12:13] up, maintain all of our contractual obligations as well as rights to recoup, cost if need

[12:19] to be.

[12:20] So I'm at that point though, but I'm as in like any contract, such a large contract, you're

[12:25] going to hold so much back in reserves until there are things checked out.

[12:29] Maybe even a year after it's finished, just to make sure everything works or sometime.

[12:35] So, as a standard course of business, we have a retention with every payment of about 5%.

[12:40] Okay.

[12:41] So, that retention is held in an escrow account jointly with the contractor.

[12:45] That's an option they have under the contract.

[12:48] We have to sign off in a release of funds that has not been released.

[12:53] And then we do monthly estimates with the contractor.

[12:56] They're tracking their monthly progression based on their schedule as well as installed.

[13:02] So we're very tightly watching how much we're paying make sure we're only paying for what work is installed. Thank you

[13:09] And there is there are a whole backs in certain time periods of when they do get that retention and it all is predicated on things working

[13:17] Thanks Brian. Well, yeah, Brian. Thank you very thorough. Um is when you have a contract with this magnitude is there normally a

[13:27] This type of change their percentages you anticipate

[13:32] Is there, are we below that percentage?

[13:35] It's kind of like, I would say the industry standard.

[13:38] Obviously, it's something that's big.

[13:39] There's going to be some changes based on just timing, times,

[13:43] and like you said, vendors go out of business, digging.

[13:46] You find something new.

[13:48] We've not been able to call it a rock charge.

[13:52] So, is that pretty standard, or is there a standard that we consider?

[13:56] So, this course of business, the agency.

[13:59] we always have a contingency in typically it's about 10% of the construction costs.

[14:04] Okay, that's good. You're at 3.799, which is excellent.

[14:08] Thank you.

[14:11] Yeah, going back to the schedule again. So it looks like the construction ends January of 26th.

[14:19] And then there is a second phase construction, WML construction.

[14:23] And that ends November of 26th, the way it looks like it.

[14:27] and then the operations of the RP-5,

[14:30] the operations of the treating plants and all that.

[14:32] What does that start?

[14:33] Does that start in 26 in phases?

[14:37] Yeah, it really starts in phases.

[14:38] And those are the bars down below.

[14:40] So if you see, let me see if I can get a pointer up here.

[14:45] I know we had a presentation last minute about it, but.

[14:48] No, no, it's a good question.

[14:50] So we are working on an operating treatment plant

[14:55] on in the treatment plant has two sides to it basically there is the

[15:00] Operating side that is the liquid's portion of treatment. And then there will be the brand new side which is a solid side that replaces RP2. So on this graph, the blue bars are typically depicting the liquid side treatment in major parts of it. And then the brown bars are the solid side. So as we see their construction, they do modifications to the aeration basins and blowers. Those are a major milestone. They get that up and running. That allows us then to start up the MBR.

[15:30] And then once they get that MBR up and running, that takes all the flow of the plant and we can decommission some things and we can jump back in and modify our other aeration base and as well as then build the other phase of the MBR system.

[15:45] So it is a sequenced phasing.

[15:48] this is there's a lot of other steps involved in processes, but these are the main ones on that

[15:55] side of the project. Those are all systems that go in and phases to maintain operation of the

[16:01] plant. The solid side is all brand new, so it is not supporting a process right now, so

[16:07] that's why you see these all are kind of constructed concurrently with this. But of course,

[16:12] to put it on. All of it has to work, particularly being dewatering. You can't start bringing

[16:19] insolids in processing unless you have a way to get it out. So, that's why dewatering

[16:25] system comes online first. Thicketing in digesters kind of come on concurrently because that is

[16:31] our feed source for the digesters when we cut over. Okay, so sounds like then the major portions

[16:37] of operations could begin late 26 to amread in this time.

[16:42] We should be starting rolling up into a lot of start up

[16:44] during 2025 and then it'll fall in.

[16:47] Okay, so later we'll see.

[16:48] Okay, yeah.

[16:49] Good.

[16:50] Thank you.

[16:50] All right, cool.

[16:51] Anybody else?

[16:52] No, I just want to note, we'll note that you have stayed

[16:57] within that viewpoint for some of the kind of cost

[17:00] so we appreciate that.

[17:01] Thank you.

[17:02] Yeah, welcome.

[17:03] Anybody else?

[17:04] Good.

[17:05] All right, Brian.

[17:06] Thank you.

[17:06] a great report.

[17:10] Next up, item B, which is regional sewer connection fee examples with

[17:16] the PowerPoint. And we have Ken. Amanda, are you part of this also?

[17:24] Okay. And Nicole. All right. So kick it off with Ken.

[17:30] Ken, do you mind if I just make a comment before?

[17:32] Absolutely. Thank you. Chair Rogers and members of the policy

[17:40] I'm really pleased to introduce this item because it reflects the way we all work together within the wastewater collection and treatment operation of IUA.

[17:49] This is a joint presentation where Ken has been graciously supported by a couple of our sewering agencies to provide this.

[17:59] And this is a model that we'd love to continue as we talk about more about how we operate our wastewater system.

[18:06] So I just wanted to say thanks to Amanda and Nicole for participating with us.

[18:10] Thanks, Ken.

[18:11] Thanks for watching.

[18:12] You stole my preamble, there's your budget.

[18:14] I know I did.

[18:14] Yeah, thanks.

[18:15] Say again, thank you to Amanda Coker and Nicole Demoad for joining me on this presentation today.

[18:20] So you won't have to listen to me the entire time.

[18:25] So, before we start on the examples, this was jointly prepared by the three of us.

[18:32] We wanted to cover a couple of topics prior to the examples.

[18:36] So the first topic that we'll talk about a little bit is the Building Activity Report,

[18:40] Subcommittee, and you heard Ron mention that in the Tech Committee report.

[18:46] I'll also talk a little bit about the Exhibit J, which is the Regional Suer Connection

[18:50] fee document that governs how we calculate the sewer connection fees, then we'll jump

[18:54] into the examples for the sewer connection fee calculations, and then we'll end with monthly

[19:00] building activity reporting. So, before, like I mentioned, before jumping into the connection

[19:05] fee examples, I wanted to highlight a very important group that's near and dear to my heart.

[19:11] It's called the Building Activity Report Subcommittee, and so this subcommittee is made up of representatives

[19:17] from all of the sewer collection agencies as well as IEWA staff.

[19:21] And the purpose of this subcommittee really is to ensure that we have region-wide consistency and also collaboration

[19:26] in calculating the IEWA sewer connection fees and also the monthly sewer use fees as well.

[19:34] Because those fees are actually by the regional contract and ordinance are collected by the sewer collection agencies on behalf of IEWA.

[19:42] So another important thing to note, all of the recommendations and work that we do at

[19:48] the Bar subcommittee is routed up to the regional technical committee for their review and approval.

[19:57] So just a little bit more background about

[20:00] The subcommittee, this is actually the second rendition of the Barr subcommittee. The Regional Tech Committee in 2012 did establish this committee to look at Exhibit J to streamline that back in 2012. That version of the group still made up of sewer collection agency representatives, as well as IUA staff. We did work to streamline that document Exhibit J and then in 2013 we did disband that group. During the Regional Contract Negotiations, several years ago it was agreed by all negotiations.

[20:29] parties that it was important for us and beneficial to the region to reestablish this group.

[20:36] And so that's why we have the forum again today.

[20:40] On the screen, I wanted to highlight a couple of other items that the subcommittee is actually

[20:46] working on that are very important.

[20:49] The first one is the uniform reporting forms.

[20:51] So actually just this past technical committee, or might have been the previous technical committee,

[20:58] The Tech Committee did approve the work for the subcommittee to come up with these uniform

[21:04] calculation forms that are going to be used throughout the region for calculating the connection fees

[21:09] for commercial and industrial facilities. So the subcommittee is also working on looking at the

[21:16] monthly sewer billing procedures as well. And a couple other key topics I wanted to highlight for

[21:21] the policy committee relates to the flow and loading studies as well as the re-evaluation of

[21:28] that EDU equation.

[21:30] The, we have two studies that IUA has embarked on.

[21:35] We had a regional return to sewer study,

[21:37] which was focused on wastewater monitoring

[21:40] and flow for our regional area,

[21:43] which was completed late last year.

[21:46] And then the other one is the state-wide study

[21:48] that IUA has been participating in.

[21:51] The purposes of these flow and loading studies

[21:54] is really to gather that real institute data

[21:57] to be able to update our equation.

[22:01] The IUA team did notify the Bars of Committee

[22:04] just this past Tuesday, that statewide study,

[22:06] which we often call the CASA study.

[22:10] The draft final report has been released

[22:12] to the participating agencies.

[22:15] So there's 12 other agencies, including IUA,

[22:18] that's participating in this study since 2018.

[22:21] So because the reports under attorney-client privilege

[22:24] for the time being IUA will be reviewing

[22:26] those that report. The once the report is finalized, hopefully by the end of this month,

[22:33] we will then distribute that information to the bars of the committee and then at that

[22:37] point in time we can work to evaluate the EDU equation. So with that,

[22:47] so I've been talking a little bit about Exhibit J, so I wanted to cover that a little bit more

[22:50] before handing it over to my compatriots here to describe some of those examples.

[22:58] So Exhibit J is actually part of the regional contract and ordinance.

[23:02] It was adopted in 1984 and then again, like I mentioned before, most recently amended

[23:07] in 2013.

[23:08] So it is a key document because it does describe how we calculate these sewer connection fees

[23:14] for the regional sewer system.

[23:16] So, Exhibit J defines the IUA billing unit measure, which is called the EDU equation.

[23:24] So, the denominators there and the directory, you're right, it's a math problem really

[23:28] on the screen there.

[23:29] The denominators there are what's to be the assumed flow and loading into the sewer system

[23:35] for a single family residence.

[23:37] So, in this case, 200s, yeah.

[23:42] I think we've learned about this in UHTR, yeah, it's up haven't turned right.

[23:50] Thank you, anybody else?

[23:55] Checking.

[23:58] Anyone else fancy calculators to do it out?

[24:02] Why don't you look like Calvin White for the BOD and the FST Department?

[24:07] Obviously, Randall understands it.

[24:09] Well, it's from operator tests, so that was fine.

[24:12] That's all it's, yeah, thank you, direct read, I'll explain the denominators there.

[24:19] So the BOD and the TSS are considered the loading that's going into the treatment plan.

[24:25] And then these numbers here on the board right here, 270, that's assumed to be what flows

[24:30] from a single family resident into the sewer system.

[24:33] And then 230, 220 BOD and TSS, that's the loading parameters.

[24:37] And it's important to note there's also some decimals and there's some fractional decimal numbers and so that that number represents in the equation the proportional costs for the wastewater treatment for each of those components.

[24:52] So, yeah, so it's biochemical oxygen demand and then four.

[25:00] Suspend, it's all right.

[25:08] And so one of the things that I mentioned earlier about that flow and loading study is these numbers are from the 1980s and when we talk with the other 13 or 12 agencies that we work with, their numbers are about the same are very, very similar. And so this is why it's important that those flow and loading numbers come in and then we work together to re-evaluate the equation because that will shift how these costs are

[25:29] distributed. In addition to identifying the EDU equation, we also define how and when we

[25:38] collect the fees for the sewer connection fees. So in this case, it would be for any new connections

[25:44] or change in use. And it also defines specifically how we collect those fees for these three categories

[25:51] residential, commercial, and industrial. And the last thing I'd want to, you

[26:12] know, if you're going to do this to me, you might as well help me.

[26:18] Let me start council member Doris Prada. This is an equation to come up with how we we establish our operations and the rate.

[26:33] So, it's not necessarily if one city or one searing agency adjusts it that it would go down.

[26:40] We would need the entire region over a period of time to have reductions in this area.

[26:47] But what we are seeing globally or regionally, not just in our service area, but throughout

[26:53] the southwest, is a reduction of water going down the sewer and an increase of these constituents

[26:59] there.

[26:59] There was an increased concentration.

[27:01] Exactly, and that changes the way we operate.

[27:04] So ultimately, what Ken's trying to do through this working group that will ultimately,

[27:09] once we get it out of the statewide legal discussion, and then we'll work with the Bar subcommittee,

[27:15] is to reestablish what those broad assumptions would be to establish those flow and concentration

[27:25] numbers to make planning decisions, including rate recommendations.

[27:30] So it's not something we can just do on a local level.

[27:33] Ultimately, we're getting hit as you know very well with conservation guidelines that are reducing that amount of water.

[27:40] So this is our effort to come up to more current standards when it comes to calculating what the impacts would be to us.

[27:48] Can anything you want to add to that?

[27:50] No, I think so.

[27:52] So real quick.

[27:52] Shavaj, you said reduced the amount of water going into the sewer.

[27:55] Correct.

[27:56] How?

[27:56] What would do?

[27:58] How could you reduce the water going into the sewer?

[28:01] Shorter showers.

[28:02] Less fleshing.

[28:03] Don't serious.

[28:04] But you're still using the same amount of shampoo.

[28:06] Not not.

[28:07] Not overflow.

[28:08] Rain.

[28:08] None of that.

[28:08] Other water gets involved.

[28:10] No.

[28:10] We in our area don't have combined sores.

[28:13] Our job working with the collection agencies is to ensure that only sewage goes down those pipes.

[28:19] pipes. We still have a significant amount of infiltration. So in heavy or more intense

[28:25] precipitation events, our staff gets mobilized. We've got to make sure that we don't violate

[28:32] any permits, essentially, that we don't spill out of our plants or our sewer pipes. But

[28:38] that's really a collective effort by not only the seven agencies to shore up their collection

[28:43] system. So none of the agencies are opening manholes and letting flood flows go down because

[28:48] that could impact our ability to treat and handle those flows downstream. So moving forward,

[28:55] as population increases, how then are you going to continue? You can't reduce it when it's

[29:01] going to be increasing just by people.

[29:06] The amount of sewage will increase with more development,

[29:10] but we're focused on the concentration in this calculation. So we will have more flow,

[29:17] but overall we'll have less water compared to the constituents that are also going down the

[29:23] sewers and drains. How does that happen?

[29:26] If you have more, how do you end up with less?

[29:30] Well, let me say it's kind of like instead of a three-gallon flush, not to 1.2-gallon flush.

[29:36] So, in other words, the ammonia concentration is higher because there's less water

[29:41] that are traveling with the products going down.

[29:45] I want to, I can give an example of Mary Melto.

[29:48] Let me just cut to Randy's comment there.

[29:52] That's not accurate because even if you reduce the one to 1.2,

[29:56] it's a double flush.

[29:58] People will flush more.

[30:00] The last one. It's just to mine several lot of people. So how, I mean, what are you going to eventually end up having to do? What is a long-term plan then? Let's say we get a million more people here with potential.

[30:14] I've got to unpack that question a bit mayor, but let me start with the first, which is 20 years ago. One person would flush the toilet once five gallons would go down and it would be one person's waste going out today. We have 1.6 gallon toilet.

[30:30] Let's even even with your correct assumption that sometimes it takes two flushes that's still less than the five gallons, but it's still one person doing that. So overall, you can increase the amount of people you have in the area, but the amount of water per person is getting less per person.

[30:47] But those solids and the other constituents that are going down is not changing.

[30:51] So, we're reducing the solvent basically, we're reducing the amount of liquids that are going down and increasing the amount of solids.

[30:59] That's the challenge that we're facing.

[31:02] So, with these updated calculations, not only from a planning standpoint, but ultimately, we need to know how much treatment capacity to have.

[31:09] So, if we have a million people today in 25 compared to a million people 25 years ago, the makeup of that wastewater is very different.

[31:20] There will be more flow, but it will be more complex to the solids than what would move the solids.

[31:25] What would move the solids with less liquid?

[31:29] There's still enough liquids to move that through the sewer systems.

[31:32] All right.

[31:33] I understand.

[31:33] I got better understanding how the flow is.

[31:36] You're right.

[31:37] But if you're just talking about moving it down, that your rupture will be right.

[31:42] It becomes a challenge for those people who clean the lines because you're right.

[31:47] there's less flow. So now you're starting to find areas where now clogs are happening and things

[31:53] like that. So that's that's a different challenge. Okay. Okay. Just trying to get the whole thing.

[31:59] That's all basically understanding. Okay. Thank you.

[32:03] I'm a much better person now than understand how the ship blows.

[32:09] Yeah. The only the only other thing I have on this I just mentioned to and I think I mentioned

[32:14] in the last presentation a couple of months ago is that the connection fee here that we're going to

[32:18] to talk about the Nicole and Amanda are going to walk through some examples.

[32:21] That's for the IEWA connection fee.

[32:24] So the rest of your agencies also have a fee that's separate to that.

[32:28] So with that, I think I'm going to hand it over to Nicole now and

[32:33] share, um, walk you through the first examples here for residential.

[32:39] So Nicole.

[32:44] Good afternoon, Paul.

[32:45] Good afternoon, policy committee members.

[32:46] My name is Nicole Demoet and I'm with the City of Upland.

[32:51] We're going to start with a, oh, what are they?

[32:54] Are we moving?

[32:55] Sorry, I'm putting things down.

[32:58] The three categories that we had mentioned that we would discuss with you today are residential commercial and industrial.

[33:06] We'll go ahead and start with the benchmark of sewer connection fees. That's our residential, our residential sewer connection fee.

[33:15] The benchmark of the residential fee is that the structure is designed for the purpose

[33:20] of providing permanent housing for one family or tenant.

[33:25] That's considered to be an EDU or an equivalent dwelling unit.

[33:28] So that's where sewer connection fees are ultimately based on.

[33:32] That is the lowest-strength waste water, has the lowest loading, the wastewater associated

[33:40] with single-family residences and also included in residential sewer connection fees are multi-family

[33:49] residences. Those are apartments, townhomes, condominiums. We're seeing a lot more of the

[33:58] increased and intensified development in fill development in the multi-family residences.

[34:05] We also have under this category the accessory dwelling units are aid use that's kind of been an interesting topic I've heard brought up a few times here at the policy committee and as well at the technical committee.

[34:20] These accessory dwelling units, there's actually two types of aid use.

[34:24] there is the accessory dwelling unit which is a detached residential structure that's typically added

[34:31] to an existing single family home or there's the attached JADU that's the junior accessory

[34:41] dwelling unit that is typically an add-on for example a garage conversion of smaller it's typically

[34:50] 800 or so square feet that's added on to the single family home structure.

[35:00] Again, ADU's are not considered new development. The fees are due if fees are due, however, if an ADU is built concurrently with a single-family home. So there are residential developments that they're constructing a single-family home but detached accessory dwelling unit on the parcel as well. So in that case, that would be too, you'd use for that parcel. Fees can only be

[35:29] charged, however, based on the burden of an accessory dwelling unit.

[35:35] So if you'll recall, the fee structure, as Ken had mentioned, is based on flow and

[35:40] loading, and that burden to the POTW, the publicly-owned treatment plant.

[35:48] Our governing document, as Ken mentioned, is Exhibit J. That document has the legal authority

[35:55] in the regional sewer contract, that breaks down the burden of sewer user categories for appropriate connection fees.

[36:08] The Building Activity Report Subcommittee, the Bar Subcommittee, reviews the collection, and that's something that Ken had discussed.

[36:19] The next type of sewer connection fee that we're presenting today for discussion is commercial fees, those are based on drainage fixture units.

[36:29] The structure of this fee basis is that it's designed for the purpose of providing permanent housing for enterprises engaged in the exchange of goods and services.

[36:39] This can include private businesses, real estate offices, small retail stores, restaurants.

[36:45] This is inclusive of full service and fast-food establishments, warehouses, so smaller office structure with extremely large storage areas, and public facilities, your government buildings, your churches, your offices, your churches.

[37:06] Connection fees here are calculated with the sewer loading factors based on the EDU equation

[37:13] similar to what Ken had showed on the basis is sewer factors, examples of which are for the

[37:23] sewer factors of the different categories within because they would J. Examples of some of those

[37:27] categories are noted above. The private businesses, the restaurants, there's a full service restaurant

[37:32] category. There's also a different category for fast food. There is a difference in a lot of the fast

[37:42] food restaurant coming fixtures that are inclusive of fast food restaurant versus a full service

[37:48] restaurant and warehouses. Again, what you're going to see with a warehouse is you're going to see

[37:53] very small office or very small office component, but large storage components.

[38:02] So you'll see very few restrooms, very few drainage fixtures inside a warehouse.

[38:09] However, you'll see large square footage.

[38:12] And then let's see, sorry, I can't read this.

[38:15] the sewer contracting agencies, typically what occurs is we are individual plan check staff at our regional contracting agencies will review plumbing plans that are submitted to us.

[38:29] And we will count the drainage fixture units in the plumbing plan to determine the number of fixture units based on the building on the plumbing code.

[38:43] and we will use that drainage fixture unit calculation.

[38:51] I'll show you on the next slide here.

[38:54] We have the next slide here is a typical example

[39:00] of a commercial connection fee process that we do.

[39:05] Here you have a copy on the left of a typical waste

[39:09] and vent plumbing plan, so a plumbing plan that's submitted for review to a plan check staff.

[39:17] On the right-hand side, you see the capital capacity fee worksheet.

[39:23] This is the worksheet that was developed collaboratively by all of the contracting agencies in the Bar subcommittee.

[39:32] This is an excellent review tool that we're able to utilize when we go through

[39:37] and plan check, a submitted plumbing plan to determine our capital capacity so we're

[39:52] connection fee that we are charging our users.

[39:55] All agencies, as is developed at this, can I-

[40:00] The motion fee worksheet was developed collaboratively. All agencies did have a chance to provide input on the form. The goal here was standardizing the information that we're required to provide to Inland Empire Utilities Agency for our monthly report. It's positive for everybody if the expectations that we have are the same across the board for submittal. We're requested to submit all of the same information.

[40:30] Amanda, we have you up next.

[40:33] You're going to provide an explanation of our industrial.

[40:36] Can actually thank you, Nicole.

[40:41] All right, so we're on to industrial.

[40:44] So, Nicole just described to you how commercial projects are the EDU calculation works for those are more generalized.

[40:54] According to the type of business, you can't really do that with industrial customers.

[40:58] They're all so different.

[41:01] So we have to do the calculation individually for each individual industrial customer and can

[41:08] do a great job going over the equation. So I will not do that again. So thank you very much.

[41:16] Appreciate it. You're welcome. So we have an example here for you and the interesting thing about

[41:25] the industrial customer calculation is that we have two pieces of it. We have the industrial

[41:30] discharge piece and then we have the domestic wastewater piece and that piece is calculated

[41:36] very similar to how a commercial is calculated. So first we'll go over how you calculate the industrial

[41:42] discharge part and that's very simple. As long as you have your data points, your flow, your BOD

[41:48] and your TSS, you take those numbers and you just plug them into the formula and you calculate that

[41:54] And in this specific example, we come out with EDU 14.88, then you move on to your domestic

[42:01] wastewater calculation, which is looking at you're doing your drainage fixture unit counts

[42:06] again, looking at your restrooms, kitchen and break room, counting those all up. In this example,

[42:13] we have 14.5. And then that adds on to your total site EDU, which in this example is 15.95.

[42:21] So that does it for a discussion on how each of the methodologies for the calculations.

[42:33] So now I'm going to go into how the contracting agency is actually report the connection fees to IUA.

[42:40] So the reason why Nicole and I are up here helping Ken out with this presentation

[42:46] because the vast majority of this work is done at the contracting agency.

[42:53] level by our staff. So we are the ones actually doing these calculations, not IUA. So our agency staff are responsible for placing the customer in the proper category, conducting the fixture accounts, preparing the EDU calculations, which we just discussed.

[43:11] And that information is what we provide to IUA in a high level summary table, which we call them a bar report.

[43:20] work. And the bar lists the customer name and location along with the type of connection,

[43:26] number of fix for units and total connection fees. And all of that backup documentation,

[43:31] all those calculations that we just went over, those are all kept with the contracting

[43:36] agencies and are generally not provided to IUA. We just provide that summary table on a

[43:42] monthly basis. IUA then summarizes all that information each agency submits into the monthly

[43:51] building activity report and that's included in our attack and policy agenda packets as

[43:56] informational. The contracting agencies individually collect the connection fees directly from the

[44:04] customer and we each maintain what's called the capital capacity reimbursement account or

[44:10] the CCRA area referred to that. These funds are held by each contracting agency until

[44:16] IUA makes what's called a capital call. And that's when IUA will request a certain

[44:23] amount of funds from the contracting agencies, a transfer of those funds to support capital

[44:30] projects for growth. So that about completes our presentation. We hope you found it helpful.

[44:38] and we're available for any questions.

[44:41] Okay. Thank you, Amanda.

[44:43] Thank you, Paul. Questions, Debbie.

[44:46] Can we go back to the commercial connection fee example?

[44:50] Sure.

[44:53] Okay. Since I'm not privy to, or I just don't know,

[44:57] this seems like a very, very...

[45:00] Small, example of a restaurant padded. Very small. I mean, when you have a single laboratory,

[45:06] you know, two urinals, one water closet, a drinking fountain. And then I go down here and look at

[45:13] sewer rate. So that's going to be a one time fee that $8,000? Yes. So these fees are one time for

[45:21] connection. It's in that $5,000 is also one time fee. The capital capacity fee. Yes, yes, that's

[45:29] the what you're paying for your EDU. So you're really looking at almost $14,000 for a very,

[45:36] very, very small restaurant pad, and that doesn't include the grease trap, right?

[45:42] The grease trap would be installed by and we don't require a grease trap, but that would really

[45:47] restaurant has ever reached. Well, that would be on the actual development. I mean, I get it,

[45:52] but so I was just looking at this and I'm going, how would anybody ever stand up a small restaurant

[45:58] and I look at these fees and it's just that's a lot. I mean, so how much is a chili's or an olive

[46:06] garden? I mean, these those restaurants are probably 20 times the size of this. Yeah, it all depends on

[46:12] the the fixture accounts. So it's almost you know Ontario's finding itself leaning towards maybe

[46:18] offering these smaller rest new smaller new restaurants some kind of help in paying

[46:23] these kinds of fees so that they will come and hopefully be successful and do that. But I mean

[46:29] there's just the cost here's a lot. Yeah I think the actual fee due is $5,549. It's not you don't

[46:38] to 8,620. That's the rate times that by the point 64, which is ED to be built. Am I correct?

[46:44] Based on formula? Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't. I didn't really understand that. You're correct.

[46:48] 100 is not include. That's part of the that's the rate and there's this percentage formula.

[46:54] Okay. Right. In this example, the number of ED uses point 64 and that's multiplied by the ED

[47:01] rate, which is the 8,620 to come out with that that 5,500 number.

[47:10] I just say you hear all the time people having such a hard time starting a business because

[47:16] of all the the fees and so just whatever we can do to decrease those would surely be

[47:23] appreciated.

[47:27] Okay.

[47:29] Anybody else?

[47:31] Good.

[47:31] No, it's just a personal quick.

[47:34] You show the industrial and sometimes we hear that we have an industrial line can just

[47:40] just say real difference between this EDU for industrial and then you hear of the industrial

[47:48] waste line that LA takes care of. The difference just real quick.

[47:52] Yes, sure. Yeah, so for the, yeah, the industrial waste line yet that you're talking about,

[47:59] IUA, we do have what we call the non-reclaimable waste system. So that is the, what we call the brine line.

[48:04] We have one line down here in the south and then also one in the north.

[48:09] of the discharges there are high and brine.

[48:14] So most of these industries are discharging TDS

[48:17] of 1,000 and above for the most part.

[48:21] And those industries acquired a different set of capacity

[48:25] to discharge to LA County Sanitation Districts

[48:28] where they treat the wastewater over there.

[48:30] And then the line down here in the south

[48:32] are for the industries that connect to SOPA's line

[48:37] and then else really goes to.

[48:38] And my understanding, too, is once the building's connected, even though the owners change,

[48:44] they can transfer what they've already paid, so the new owner doesn't pay this.

[48:49] It's the initial cost, so they actually transfer in this.

[48:52] Correct. Yeah, and that's why I came back up here to talk a little bit more about the fast food

[48:56] restaurant, for example. So example, this was, say, it was a Wendy's and it went out of business

[49:03] this and became a McDonald's.

[49:05] What happens at the sewer collection agency level

[49:08] is they take a look at the capacity

[49:10] that was purchased before.

[49:11] So EDU's, they'll do a fixture count.

[49:13] Any time a restaurant will calculate

[49:16] or will add additional fixtures,

[49:19] they'll take a look at the inventory

[49:20] of what was purchased before.

[49:22] So if you're doing any tenant improvements at the site,

[49:24] what's gonna happen is that you're not gonna pay

[49:27] for any additional fixtures in there,

[49:29] you'll pay for any additional.

[49:30] additional. So if you're not changing anything there, then you're not actually paying for additional capacity into the regional system.

[49:37] Yeah. And so this happens at the bars of committee. We've been talking about it. This happens all the time with any tenant improvement that happens in the service area.

[49:48] And this connection fee essentially is new places buying in to the system that everybody else that has paid into to build.

[49:57] And that's a capital now. That's it.

[50:00] It's in the member agency's bank accounts after it's collected until it's called on pursuant

[50:06] to the agreement or the ordinance, right? Yes. And I'm going to embarrass you a little

[50:11] bit, because I want to give a concrete example of how our staff goes above and beyond in specifically

[50:17] this gentleman. We had a restaurant in Chino Hills that didn't have the same reaction

[50:24] as Councilmember Faradah just had, oh my God, that's way too expensive.

[50:30] And Ken took his own time, went to a, it happens to be a chain, went to another one of them,

[50:35] in his home city in Orange County, looked at it and realized that it was a little bit misclassified

[50:41] because staff didn't completely understand the operations and was able to get it reclassified

[50:47] and save them something on the order of $50,000.

[50:49] dollars. Yeah, that's because it's a fast food and not a sit down because sit down is cost more because there's more involved right. So anyway, Ken and his staff and and the people we work with they all go above and beyond to help our mutual constituents if they can.

[51:06] Very good. Thank you, Steve.

[51:08] So Debbie call Ken when the restaurant's coming in he could probably all of our downtown is so old and we're trying to keep people on board.

[51:16] and I mean when you're looking at something it was built in the 30s and 40s, I mean everything's

[51:22] got to be redone and so it just has to be very expensive.

[51:27] Anybody else? Just to be real interesting,

[51:29] I'll get with Sabaji. If we just looked at flow, have we ever seen how far off our EDU's are to the

[51:38] flow? If we just made the denominator one and didn't care about BODs or TSS, we just said it's just

[51:44] just look at the floor. I was just wondering as a

[51:48] over face in it.

[51:50] Yeah,

[51:55] it's an interesting request. I don't know the answer off the top of my head.

[51:59] But I, but we will provide an answer at a later time.

[52:04] Yeah, exactly.

[52:06] Happy to do that.

[52:09] Oh, good. Thank you all. All right.

[52:12] Good.

[52:12] Thank you.

[52:13] Moving on to our item C, by your way, cost of service update and proposed rates for fiscal

[52:20] year 2526 and 2627 and Randy or savagery first and Randy.

[52:30] Thank you, Chair.

[52:31] I'm going to introduce this.

[52:32] Randy makes the long way up to the podium here.

[52:35] I just want to say good afternoon again, Chair and members of the policy committee.

[52:39] This afternoon, we're going to be providing a rates presentation for the agency's wastewater rates.

[52:44] In an effort to present how it fits in with the overall mission and the operations of IUA,

[52:49] we're including information on also the non-wastewater rates, including recycled water,

[52:55] groundwater recharge, and our water resources.

[52:58] The purpose of this workshop is to provide the policy committee a brief overview of the rates,

[53:03] key assumptions, considerations, and drivers for rate adjustments,

[53:07] including how we recommend to allocate property tax revenue and also related to that related to our rates is the staffing recommendations that are embedded in that recommendation.

[53:21] We'll also provide a comparison of other EDU rates, which is specific to our wastewater operation.

[53:27] The most recent rate adjustments by the board were in April of 2023 after a two-year rate

[53:35] that was established for the EDU, and that also included the time when we went into

[53:41] a lockdown for the coronavirus.

[53:44] While these are preliminary numbers, this work is a result of a significant effort by IUA staff

[53:50] to look forward in the next couple of years and determine how we can carry out our mission.

[53:55] And I want to make sure the policy committee knows that we are very sensitive to ensuring

[54:01] affordability when it comes to our rates.

[54:04] And what we have to balance is public health protection as well as environmental protection.

[54:09] I want to talk a little bit of while Randy waits up there patiently.

[54:14] I want to talk a little bit about the significant amount of work that our team put in.

[54:19] We basically have two divisions here at IUA.

[54:22] way. We have a finance and administration side and we have a technical services side.

[54:26] So our approach was to collaborate between our major divisions and with Randy and his

[54:32] team being in charge of this, it doesn't hurt that Randy as our director of finance has

[54:36] an operations background. What we did first was to identify all the requests when it came

[54:43] to our capital improvement program. And after that, we have to do a risk analysis. That

[54:48] That risk analysis shows where our vulnerabilities are, and that helps us prioritize these projects,

[54:54] which eventually feed into the budget, letting us know what we need to work on.

[54:58] we took a look at

[55:00] At the staffing required to handle the new paradigm that we're dealing with with less water, more constituents, growth in our area, as well as evolving regulations and enforcement actions from our permit. In addition to that, we went through this iterative process over about three months to reach this preliminary recommendation. So we look forward to presenting that today.

[55:27] This afternoon we have a joint presentation by Randy, as well as our rates consultant,

[55:33] Black and Veatch.

[55:34] We're joined by a principal and we who has worked closely with staff to develop these

[55:38] proposed rates.

[55:39] At the end of the presentation, which essentially kicks off our stakeholder outreach over the next

[55:44] two months, we look forward to your immediate feedback as well as further more detailed discussion.

[55:50] I will close with saying I really appreciate the amount of interest within our customer

[55:55] agencies already we've been requested to provide the rate study. We do not have that yet.

[56:02] We have assumptions, we have the work that we have put into it, we have our spreadsheets,

[56:06] and we have the document today. As that document is developed, we will continue to share

[56:11] whatever information we have at that time, ultimately resulting in presenting a draft

[56:16] rate study to the policy committee and then ultimately to the IUA board.

[56:22] With that, I'm going to hand it over to Randy, and I'd say this is approximately about

[56:27] a 30-minute presentation, and so with that, I'll pass it off to you.

[56:31] Thanks, Randy.

[56:32] All right.

[56:33] Thank you, Savaji.

[56:34] I so want to jump into the EDU equation discussion, as Randy Director, he knows I have an

[56:42] operator, operations background with the agency.

[56:46] Well, good afternoon, members of the Switch Policy Committee.

[56:52] My name is Randy Lee.

[56:53] I'm the Director of Finance.

[56:56] I'm here today to present to you the cost of service update and proposed rates for

[57:03] fiscal year 2526 and 2627.

[57:07] As you mentioned, I'll be joined with our consultant, Ambui, who's sitting back here later

[57:15] on. We have been collaborating in the last few months to develop this great. We're going

[57:22] to be present to you today.

[57:26] Also, this presentation was presented to our board yesterday as a workshop

[57:33] item was an informational item to them yesterday. This is the same presentation that I'm going to

[57:40] present to you today. But today's focus is going to be mainly on wastewater since this is a

[57:45] sewage policy committee. But I will go through the entire presentation with you.

[57:53] With that, let's start it. Here's the agenda for our presentation today. First, I will go over a

[58:00] high level of agency's revenue and rates and fees. This will cover the first two main topics,

[58:07] and then I will pass it on to and and will be presenting the cost of service and proposed rates.

[58:14] Once the rates are discussed, I will wrap up the presentation and provide you with additional information and

[58:20] background on rates and some comparison of our rates to other comparable peers in the industry.

[58:28] First, a revenue overview.

[58:32] Here is our revenue generally divided up into three categories, first is rates and fees

[58:40] and property tax and debt proceeds loans and others.

[58:44] In today's presentation, I'm going to be talking mostly on rates and fees.

[58:49] I will touch a little bit on the property tax and how much we receive and how we allocate

[58:54] to different funds within the agency.

[58:58] Here's a very useful slide that demonstrates

[59:03] how the different seven different rates and charges

[59:07] support the agency functions.

[59:10] Those rates and charges are shown in orange,

[59:12] boxes in the middle of this slide,

[59:15] and the function of the agency is shown on the bottom

[59:19] as different colors of the water drop on the bottom.

[59:23] For example, start off on the left hand side, we have wastewater capacity and connection

[59:30] fees, which was just discussed just now, so I'm not going to go too much into that.

[59:37] And then we have our monthly wastewater equivalent dwelling units, also known as EDU rates.

[59:46] Both of those supports the wastewater operation, regional composting, and renewable energy

[59:52] function within our agency. Moving over is our recycle water.

[1:00:00] Our recycle water is supported by recycle water direct use rates, recycle water, fix recovery rate, and one-water connection fee. And moving on over on the recycle water, groundwater recharge, that's supported by one-water connection fees and recycle water, groundwater recharge rates. And lastly, we have the MEU rate that supports water resources.

[1:00:29] Here's is a wastewater capacity and connection fee, as I mentioned previously.

[1:00:35] This fee is collected on new or expanded connection to the regional system, including

[1:00:41] collection, wastewater treatment and discharge system.

[1:00:45] This allows the developer to purchase capacity within the existing regional system and fund

[1:00:51] the regional project to me, forecast the growth and changing demands.

[1:00:55] The fee does not cover the day-to-day operation of the regional system and this fee is calculated

[1:01:04] by adding the recovery of capital costs related to IUS existing wastewater capacity and recovery

[1:01:10] of capital costs for building new capacity for forecasted growth.

[1:01:15] Another rate related to wastewater is the monthly wastewater equivalent dwelling unit rate.

[1:01:22] As I mentioned before, this is a rate that is paid by our residents in our local area.

[1:01:30] It's paid generally on the monthly basis.

[1:01:34] This rate is applicable to all connection to the regional system.

[1:01:39] This rate is also charged in addition to the local sewage rate that's charged by the retail

[1:01:46] agencies.

[1:01:46] IUA has a regulatory obligation to maintain wastewater system in compliance with our permits

[1:01:54] and to protect the public health.

[1:01:57] This rate does cover the operations and maintenance of the regional collection treatment

[1:02:04] and discharge system.

[1:02:07] I'm not going to go over the EDU race since that was already discussed earlier.

[1:02:11] And then we move on to recycle water.

[1:02:15] We have recycled water direct use rate.

[1:02:18] This is a water metric dollar per square foot rate

[1:02:21] for the purchase of recycled water through our purple pipe.

[1:02:26] The demand for recycled water is seasonal, is weather dependent,

[1:02:31] and also depends on the level of water conservation

[1:02:34] and reuse and supply and basin availability.

[1:02:37] This rate is calculated based on the sum of costs of operations and maintenance and rehab and replacement costs

[1:02:45] divided by the estimated annual demand for direct recycled water use.

[1:02:52] This rate starts at our recycled water pump station.

[1:02:55] Through our conveying system, our recycled water distribution system and ends at a customer's fence or a customer's meter.

[1:03:05] Another recycled water-related rate is our recycled water fix cost recovery rate.

[1:03:11] This rate was developed and put into our rate in back in fiscal year 2022-2023.

[1:03:19] This rate is charged to the recycled water contracting agency based on the three-year rolling

[1:03:26] average of direct and recharge recycled water use.

[1:03:30] This rate offsets the volumetric revenue that is paid for, this rate is actually paid for debt service.

[1:03:38] That's on the recycle water system.

[1:03:41] This is a common way to pay for assistance fixed costs such as debt service

[1:03:46] and it's not unique to IUA and is common practice in the water industry.

[1:03:53] Finally, another rate that supports recycle water is one water connection fee.

[1:03:59] This fee is on new or expanded connection to region's water system.

[1:04:05] This fee is established to support capital improvement and expansion of agency's regional

[1:04:10] water system, water use efficiency program, comprised of potable water, recycle water and

[1:04:16] groundwater recharge facilities.

[1:04:20] Then we have recycle water, groundwater recharge rate.

[1:04:24] This rate is related to a groundwater recharge, and this is added on top of the direct recycle

[1:04:31] water use rate.

[1:04:33] While our recharge basin can accept imported water, storm water, and recycle water,

[1:04:39] this rate supports only the groundwater recharge operations and maintenance and special projects

[1:04:44] associated with recycle water.

[1:04:47] This rate is calculated based on expenses associated with recycle water recharge divided by projected

[1:04:53] to recycle water, sail.

[1:04:56] Finally, we have meter equivalent rate.

[1:04:59] This is.

[1:05:00] Monthly fixed costs of potable water assessed using a meter equivalent unit or commonly known as MEU. MEU is defined as the average water use of a single family residence. This is for water resources program, which includes imported water supply. This rate provides stable source of funding to support comprehensive planning, studies and analysis related to enhancing long-term regional water supply reliability.

[1:05:29] It supports water conservation, recycling, groundwater recharge, storm water management programs.

[1:05:36] Oops, sorry.

[1:05:42] This also backs IUA's collaboration with regional and local water manager

[1:05:48] in managing both imported and local water supplies. And lastly, this rate covers the administrative

[1:05:54] costs related to procuring imported water, found metropolitan water district for IUA's customers.

[1:06:01] agencies.

[1:06:06] So next area is rates and feeds overview. Here is what we're proposing for the next two

[1:06:15] fiscal years. So on this slide, there are two tables. One on top is on wastewater and one on the

[1:06:23] bottom is on psycho water and water resources. So our main focus today is on the top table, which

[1:06:31] which is consists of wastewater operation monthly EDU and wastewater connection fees.

[1:06:37] First one is monthly EDU rate.

[1:06:40] The agency is proposing an increase to $27.02 from the current rate of $24.90, $70.09.

[1:06:49] The following year, the agency is proposing $29.49.

[1:06:54] cents on the wastewater connection fees we are not proposing any changes to that fee.

[1:07:01] So that will remain at $8,620.

[1:07:05] Moving down below on the wastewater on the recycle water, fixed cost recovery were proposing

[1:07:12] increased of 3% next couple of years to 5.11 million in first fiscal year and then 5.26

[1:07:21] in the second year. On the recycle water direct use, we're proposing an increase to $56.85

[1:07:31] from $465. And the following year, we're proposing an increase to $552.40,

[1:07:40] representing a 9% increase consistent in both years. Moving on to recycle water recharge,

[1:07:48] We are proposing a 4% increase on each of those fiscal year, going from $200 per acre

[1:07:56] foot to $208 first year and $216.32 in the following year.

[1:08:05] Next, we have one water connection.

[1:08:07] We are not proposing any changes to that fee, so it will remain $1,953.

[1:08:15] Moving on to water resources for water equivalent unit or MEU, we're proposing a 2.6 percent

[1:08:25] increase from $1.14 to $1.17 and the following year we're proposing $1.20.

[1:08:37] As I mentioned earlier, this presentation will mainly focus on race and charges, but I also

[1:08:44] mentioned that I'm going to be discussing our property tax and how the agency used property

[1:08:51] tax and how it's allocated to fund different programs within the agency. So that's on the next

[1:08:59] slide. So on this table, as you can see, this is for property tax allocation for the agency.

[1:09:07] The property tax we receive at the agency supports five different programs. One is wastewater

[1:09:12] water capitol, wastewater operation, recycle water, administrative services, and water resources.

[1:09:20] The column in the middle indicates the current allocation for property tax.

[1:09:27] And then the column right next to it is what we're proposing for the next two years.

[1:09:32] The two columns after that indicates the funding in terms of millions of dollars per year

[1:09:38] into those programs in the following two fiscal year.

[1:09:42] I want to bring to your attention

[1:09:43] that what we're proposing to change in the next two years

[1:09:47] is a shift of water resources of 3.5 percent to 1 percent

[1:09:52] and that change will go to the Recycle Water Fund

[1:09:56] going from 4 percent to 6.5 percent.

[1:10:00] And the reason why we're shifting that funding is to support the region's top priority program, which is the Chino Basin program, which I will get into in just a couple of slides. The next slide I will show you is the trend for the agency's property tax revenue. This goes back to fiscal year 1314. We were receiving just under $40 million of property tax.

[1:10:29] other way to the next couple of fiscal years. At the end of fiscal year 2627, we are projecting to

[1:10:39] receive about 95.6 million dollars of property tax. Property tax at the agency is at our

[1:10:49] board's discretion on how we allocate it and where we spend the money at different programs.

[1:10:54] So, as I mentioned before, our region's top priority program is the Chino Basin Program.

[1:11:02] Just a refresher, Chino Basin Program really has three major components.

[1:11:08] One is the Advanced Water Purification Facility.

[1:11:12] What this facility will do is take the ETHLIN found regional plan number four,

[1:11:17] as well as the import of recycled water found reallto,

[1:11:20] which will increase recycled water supply in the region and put that water through this

[1:11:27] advanced water purification facility, produce advanced treated water and then we will put

[1:11:34] that into a distribution system which is the next major component of the CBP which is the

[1:11:40] regional recycle groundwater replenishment. In that part of the program we will have pump

[1:11:47] stations, distribution pipelines and injection wells to inject this additional water into

[1:11:54] Chino Basin to increase the amount of water that's available in this region.

[1:12:00] And the third component of this project is the production and conveying facility associated

[1:12:05] with Prop 1, water storage, investment program or whistle. This is the program. Some of you may remember

[1:12:13] we receive a conditional funding of $215 million if we decide to move forward with it.

[1:12:20] It also comes with a certain amount of early funding which is whether or not this program

[1:12:25] is a goal or no goal, we still get to keep that funding for planning purposes.

[1:12:31] So moving down to the funding source for CBP, what we're not proposing in the next two years is to

[1:12:40] funded through rates and charges.

[1:12:42] What we're, how we're funding this program during this next two years is one-time property

[1:12:48] tax transfer from water resources fund to recycle water fund, and also reallocating

[1:12:56] like the two slides before, instead of 3.5% going to water resources fund, we're shifting

[1:13:03] that to recycle water fund to fund the next two years.

[1:13:07] and the long-term funding and cost allocation for CBP will be determined during the next

[1:13:14] race cycle. So that's on CBP. At this point, I will turn it over to Anne for her part of the

[1:13:26] presentation was she will go over each one of the funds and how that was determined through their

[1:13:33] process.

[1:13:34] And?

[1:13:38] Very much.

[1:13:40] Good afternoon, Chairman.

[1:13:42] And members of the Policy Committee.

[1:13:44] Thank you very much for having me today.

[1:13:47] So my name is Ann Booley.

[1:13:49] I am with from the Engineering Company of Black and Veatch.

[1:13:52] And I actually come for the Management Consulting side of our company where I serve as the Senior

[1:13:58] Managing Director and Lead for our Rates and Regulatory Practice.

[1:14:03] So it's very nice to see you all today.

[1:14:05] With me today is the project manager for this engagement that we have with the agency.

[1:14:11] Mr. Gregg, they're great there.

[1:14:13] So what I'd like to do for you today is sort of outline what we want to talk about here.

[1:14:19] We're going to go through and there's a number of slides here,

[1:14:23] but essentially we're going to start off with what the financial plan looks like each of the funds.

[1:14:28] And then thereafter we're going to go and take a look a little bit more closely

[1:14:33] at some of the cost drivers that are creating some of our needs here.

[1:14:38] Okay, great.

[1:14:40] So, let's begin.

[1:14:43] Right off the bat, we are going to talk about our wastewater operations financial plan.

[1:14:48] What the analysis is proposing are two years of 9% increases.

[1:14:55] So fiscal year is 25, 26, 9%, and fiscal year 27.

[1:15:00] 6, 27, 9%, okay? So, if you look at the financial plan here, they're all set up in the same way. In the first portion of this table, you're going to take a look at all the revenue streams that come in. And then we go into all the revenue requirements, basically all the expenses and needs that we need to pay out in order to provide the services that we need to, to all of our customers, and then the fund balances. So, the existing level of rates

[1:15:29] that we have right now at $24.79 per EDU is going to generate approximately $89.6 million

[1:15:40] under the current year, and it's proposed to only increase slightly to $90.5 million.

[1:15:49] Right? After the implementation of the suggested revenue increases of 9% in each year,

[1:15:56] you can see those additional revenues are under the additional user charge revenue line there.

[1:16:03] You see that? We have some other operating revenue, which represents things like cost-free

[1:16:09] investments and interest income. As Randy mentioned, 23% of the total property taxes collected by the

[1:16:17] agency are being allocated to this particular fund, and that's represented on the following line

[1:16:24] that's called property taxes going through there, we do have an anticipated revenue bond

[1:16:31] that is right now being projected for 2627 and then just some other financing revenues.

[1:16:38] So overall from our fiscal year 2425, which we are in right now, we're anticipating total revenues

[1:16:45] of approximate weigh 114.8 million, and that will grow to 226.4 million by the end of

[1:16:55] 25, 26, 27, excuse me, of which a large blip of that, that 89.3 represents a proceeds

[1:17:03] from bonding, okay? When we go into our revenue requirements section right here, we see we have

[1:17:11] O&M costs, capital projects, debt service and transfers.

[1:17:15] And just a word here, the fund is called the Operations Fund.

[1:17:19] So the capital projects here are really capital outlates,

[1:17:23] and these are basically our R&R projects,

[1:17:27] the repair rehab, repair and replacement type projects,

[1:17:30] like that, annual incurrences that you would have

[1:17:32] to maintain the system.

[1:17:35] Okay.

[1:17:36] On the next page, we'll go through what some of the breakdowns are

[1:17:39] here so that you could see what that looks like. So as you can see at the very end,

[1:17:44] just a summary of what that EDU rate is looking going from that 24.79,

[1:17:48] increasing up to the 27.02 in fiscal year 25.26 and upwards to 29.45

[1:17:55] in fiscal year 26.27. Okay, I know that's a lot of numbers.

[1:18:00] We're going to go to the next page where we have fewer numbers.

[1:18:04] What we have now are pie charts to help us understand where the cost allocations are.

[1:18:09] So, what the pie chart reflects is, over the two-year period, exactly where are the costs coming

[1:18:15] from? Okay? And here we see that approximately 47% of the costs are associated with employment

[1:18:22] expenses, which reflects the addition of not just additional staffing or full-time equivalence.

[1:18:30] That's the FTEs for our treatment operation support, but also some of the labor cost

[1:18:35] escalations that were approved in the MOUs, and that's reflected in there as well.

[1:18:41] We have utilities and chemicals, both from the new membrane bioreactor process that's coming

[1:18:50] online, electric utility costs, as well as just some other various chemicals and things that we're

[1:19:00] Now, overall, the usage of both the electricity and the chemicals has gone up, and that's

[1:19:09] what we were seeing here in terms of approximately a 4.4 to a 16.5 percent increase in the amount

[1:19:18] that's being used for utilities, and about 14 percent in 25, 26 for chemicals, and then

[1:19:26] and sort of backing back down to around a 6.3% level increase.

[1:19:31] Okay.

[1:19:32] Now, people always ask, yes.

[1:19:34] Do you mind if I ask questions along the way?

[1:19:37] I wouldn't ask if you think the answer is contained further into your presentation.

[1:19:43] I will defer.

[1:19:44] Yeah.

[1:19:45] I see the utilities expense 4% change, and then the following year 16%.

[1:19:51] How are you forecasting a 16% change in the second year?

[1:19:55] It's total volume, it's based upon the process he's coming on board.

[1:20:00] The new process for the membrane briover reactor is actually coming on board.

[1:20:08] The electricity cost

[1:20:09] will go up once we start using more air in the membrane bioreactor, and so that takes place

[1:20:14] in that second year, not in the first. Thank you. And director Reed, we'll also add

[1:20:20] on to that. We're to our best ability. We're tracking what SE rates will be in incorporating

[1:20:26] that as well.

[1:20:31] Very good.

[1:20:32] Thank you.

[1:20:33] Directory, did you have anything else?

[1:20:35] Or are we good?

[1:20:36] Okay.

[1:20:36] Very good.

[1:20:37] So I just wanted to go through all other a little bit, because that tends to be a catch-all

[1:20:41] and everybody kind of looks at it and goes, that's a lot.

[1:20:45] This includes things like our operating fees, professional fees and services, materials

[1:20:50] and supplies, and also this fund's proportionate share of administrative costs or our general

[1:20:57] mineral and administrative expenses, right?

[1:21:00] Also known as overhead.

[1:21:03] Very good.

[1:21:04] So, let's move on to the capital side of wastewater.

[1:21:10] Here, as we mentioned before, the proposed wastewater connection fee

[1:21:15] is not changing from its current rate.

[1:21:19] When we conducted the initial cost of service analysis,

[1:21:23] we found that there were sufficient funds there for it,

[1:21:26] And so it did not warrant a change or an increase in the fee, okay?

[1:21:32] What we see here, again, the revenues coming in from that, we have property taxes which,

[1:21:39] this particular fund receives 65% of the total property taxes that the agency collects.

[1:21:46] It's allocated to this particular fund.

[1:21:50] The next line here where it's got this little footnote here, it's called connection fees.

[1:21:55] that's the anticipated amount of connection fees

[1:21:57] that would be generated over the next few years.

[1:22:01] It is included here, but we do recognize that

[1:22:03] you all collect those fees and hold them for us,

[1:22:08] and it's not available until it's called, right?

[1:22:11] So it is included in this table,

[1:22:14] but it's not in the total of the total revenues there,

[1:22:18] because that just reflects what's the actual cash on hand

[1:22:21] that we have available.

[1:22:23] Okay. We have some revenue bonds that are proceeds that are coming in, which will then be used for the various capital projects that are occurring on this fund.

[1:22:37] And so we have total revenues growing from 123.2 million dollars in fiscal year 2425 to 350.

[1:22:47] 50, just under that in the next fiscal year, and that's primarily because of the revenue

[1:22:52] bond financing coming in, and then dropping down to 95.9 million in fiscal year 2627.

[1:23:01] Total revenue requirements here, going through once again in the similar fashion.

[1:23:05] We have our O&M costs, then we have our capital projects.

[1:23:10] You can see where the majority of those are.

[1:23:12] We have debt service happening, and you can see we have a large blip in debt service happening

[1:23:16] and 25-26 and then we have some transfers and those transfers reflect this fund's proportionate

[1:23:24] share of paying for shared capital costs and that is reflected there. And you can see at the

[1:23:30] very end again there's no increase in the connection fee that's being proposed here.

[1:23:36] Okay, so let's move to our pie chart and what we have here is you can see that over the two years

[1:23:44] capital projects being handled out of this fund is just a shade under 88% of the cost

[1:23:51] that we see in the fund. We again have at 6.9% the largest, next largest slice of the

[1:23:58] pie is driven by employment expenses. Once again we see here this is reflective of additional

[1:24:04] staff as well as the labor cost escalations associated with the approved MOU.

[1:24:13] The next

[1:24:14] general and administrative expenses, which again is this fund's proportionate share

[1:24:19] of G&A costs that are allocated.

[1:24:22] And then finally, all other, there's some contract work and special projects in this particular

[1:24:27] category, as well as the operating fees and professional services.

[1:24:32] Okay.

[1:24:33] So before I move on to water, anything?

[1:24:37] Question?

[1:24:41] Yeah.

[1:24:43] That's that.

[1:24:43] Water capitol.

[1:24:45] Roll fast.

[1:24:46] Wastewater capitol.

[1:24:48] Fun.

[1:24:48] I was wondering on the transfers of 22.7 for next fiscal year and then 10.6, what is that

[1:24:57] transferring to?

[1:24:58] What is that for?

[1:24:59] Work.

[1:25:02] 2.7 for fiscal year 2526. Yes, those represent a transfer to another fund to pay for shared capital projects. What type of capital projects? I have to take a look for the further details if you would like that we can. That's always the case. Do you need that going to the Chino-based program design? No. Yes. Well, all right. No. That was all being taken care of through the property tax usage. But we'll get to that one too.

[1:25:32] any other strategy? I had a few. I had a question.

[1:25:39] The question is I see for your wastewater

[1:25:43] capital fund project as far as employment expense going up 17% change. So what's that

[1:25:52] increase there? That's some additional FTEs full-time equivalent staff as well as the labor

[1:26:00] cost escalations.

[1:26:03] Okay.

[1:26:06] So when you say labor costs escalations, can you break that down for me?

[1:26:11] Well, there was an agreement that was ratified for the MOU's, but should I ask you if you'd like to?

[1:26:17] Yeah, thank you.

[1:26:18] And you touched on it last year, the board entered into five MOU's with our bargaining units, as well as two personnel manuals with the unrepresented staff.

[1:26:26] and these employment expenses reflect the additional labor required to conduct our capital

[1:26:34] improvement program as well as the new terms included in those MOUs.

[1:26:46] Thank you, Chris.

[1:26:47] All righty, we're going to go through the waste water utility in the same manner on the water

[1:26:54] utility type of things here.

[1:26:56] We're proposing a three cent per month per MEU increase in both of the fiscal years.

[1:27:04] So from 2425 to 2526, it increases three cents, so $1.14 to $1.17, which represents approximately 2.6%.

[1:27:15] And then on the ensuing year, it will be another three cents.

[1:27:19] I like this one because I can get three cents in my head really quickly.

[1:27:22] doing that math which represents another 2.6%. Again, the additional revenues that are associated

[1:27:28] with that incremental change is represented on the additional user charge line right there.

[1:27:35] So it would be 146.7 thousand dollars in fiscal year 2526,

[1:27:41] increasing to an additional just a shade under 300,000 dollars in fiscal year 2627.

[1:27:48] Again, we have other operating revenues here, which includes the pass-through for the

[1:27:58] metropolitan water district rates and charges going through here, too.

[1:28:02] This is where we see this particular imported water costs and the pass-throughs, okay?

[1:28:10] May, Peter, you know, on your, on revenue requirements on O&M, I see this 70, 74, and 79 knowing

[1:28:21] that department, it says O&M, could I just say that's just all salaries because there's

[1:28:26] really no maintenance going on. So am I correct in that?

[1:28:30] Let's take a look.

[1:28:46] And I'll jump in here, Director Read, you can see the bulk of this fund is a pass through

[1:28:54] when it comes to purchasing imported water and selling that to our three major customers.

[1:29:00] So that top line shows the bulk of the cost there.

[1:29:03] So it's just almost under, like, 85 percent of it.

[1:29:07] So then, so thank you.

[1:29:09] So I see the employment expense of, that's where it's at 4.2, 4.8, and then 5.3 million.

[1:29:18] The expense of, of, of, of, of illustrating the water that comes through.

[1:29:23] Yes, sir.

[1:29:25] We have some special works and projects that are occurring here as well, and then, again,

[1:29:30] and some miscellaneous charges that comes through the O&M,

[1:29:34] that would be like the G&A costs and utilities,

[1:29:37] some cherries and supplies, and some small cost items

[1:29:41] right there.

[1:29:43] Okay.

[1:29:50] Direct use, recycled water financial plan.

[1:29:53] Here, the suggestions are here,

[1:29:57] the proposed increases would be on the fixed cost.

[1:30:00] Last side recovery would be approximately 3% in each of the fiscal years that we're looking at. And then on the direct use side, which is on a dollar per acre foot basis, it would be 9% in each of these years going through. Okay. So again, here we have a proposed increase, as Randy mentioned before, that the property tax revenue here would go from the allocation of 4% as it is right now. The proposal is to increase it to 6.5%.

[1:30:29] percent, okay, to help balance things out here, okay?

[1:30:34] And this is where we have served to your question, the $24 million transfer coming from

[1:30:42] the property tax reserves to pay for those early stage, you know, basic program aspects.

[1:30:50] So it doesn't come from the rate revenue that's coming from property taxes here, it deserves.

[1:30:56] Just real quick.

[1:30:58] So, Fodgy, you know, on my last question, if I may, on the expense, is any of that taken

[1:31:03] out of the MEU or is it all through what's been charged for per acre foot?

[1:31:11] On the water resources fund, you're talking about the different revenues that support that

[1:31:16] program.

[1:31:17] They include MEU revenue and property tax as well, but when you say, are they talking specifically about employment expenses?

[1:31:28] Yes, a portion of those are supported by MEU.

[1:31:32] Yes, sir.

[1:31:39] Yeah, it keeps going on for some reason.

[1:31:41] And anyway, property taxes, so we've been pretty stagnant for the last couple of years

[1:31:47] you might say because not many of sales.

[1:31:50] What happens in the future is just out of curiosity if we were to have a market shift

[1:31:56] in real estate and the reassessment of properties could be significant because the amount of homes

[1:32:03] right now that have gone up in value that are not being assessed at the current market value

[1:32:08] but being, you know, I've been in my home now for almost 30 years and there's not

[1:32:13] sound nowhere to go. Plus, I got to be mayor for three more years. But there's going to be a

[1:32:19] significant amount of people that are potentially going to move when it's just very strong. So then

[1:32:24] that increases the amount of property tax, which I think is going to be significant. It's going to be

[1:32:29] huge when this market ship. What happens then? Mayor, I'd ask for just a little more time.

[1:32:36] Randy's got two slides that will really address that question in terms of showing a historical

[1:32:42] property tax revenue that we've received at IUA and how we allocate it.

[1:32:47] And then we can have the discussion there about how those numbers go up in the decisions

[1:32:51] we have.

[1:32:51] But we have a couple slides that really support that response.

[1:32:54] Thank you.

[1:32:57] So here we have the breakdown similar to what we have shown in the prior funds.

[1:33:03] Again, what's the two-year cost distribution of the cost drivers that we see within this

[1:33:08] fun. Capital projects and employment expenses have the largest portion of the pie chart here,

[1:33:16] and then we are followed by our debt service and our utilities going through again,

[1:33:22] same sort of drivers in terms of the cost there, additional FTEs and projects that are going on,

[1:33:29] as well as just the increased usage in our utilities.

[1:33:35] Okay. You see overall from an O&M perspective, it goes from 6.5% increase in the proposed

[1:33:41] numbers, and then an additional 7.8%.

[1:33:47] You know, I think I'm becoming very frustrated with these little titles, let's say capital

[1:33:52] projects. When you guys say that, I like you to list out what the capital projects are.

[1:33:58] When you say depth service, tell me, what are we paying off? I'd like to know what that is.

[1:34:03] When you say employment expenses, what do you mean by that?

[1:34:06] Is it all the recent hires that we've done in the last three years?

[1:34:10] And there's always you guys are known here for paying rather well, you know,

[1:34:15] more so that you're you still employees from our cities all the time

[1:34:19] because you pay rather well, you know.

[1:34:21] So I would appreciate it if you list all those things out because for me

[1:34:26] that then leads to some transparency interested into what's going on.

[1:34:30] So can you tell me what those capital projects are?

[1:34:33] We do have a listing and if you don't mind, I would rather prefer to provide that to you in a document later.

[1:34:41] That's fine, but then from now on in all future presentations.

[1:34:45] Is it for inviting me a document later on?

[1:34:48] Can you provide it now so that everybody who's here, everybody that's listening can see that.

[1:34:54] I mean, that's what I would hope for.

[1:34:56] So because otherwise later on, half of these people aren't going to come out of it.

[1:35:00] I'm back. They're not going to know. They're not going to be listening anymore. And then the information's lost. So please do. Please help me, you know, you know, I appreciate it. I understand. And we will take that under. I mean, and here's my contract work special project. What's the difference between that and capital project? So this, this that one out too. I don't know. Understood. And we will provide you that information in the future. Well, actually, the next meeting, if you want to provide that.

[1:35:29] so that everybody can hear and see you in touch at that being great.

[1:35:32] Understood.

[1:35:33] Just a note, Steve.

[1:35:35] It's this committee wants to get into the weeds of every single line item of this agency's budget

[1:35:42] because they want to review the rates that my board that I'm on that's five of us and one on the back there.

[1:35:50] That's fine, but we're not going to have a three-hour presentation to the policy committee

[1:35:55] with line-item detail on every part of a pie job for seven separate

[1:36:02] budget of fees and costs, et cetera. It's just not it's not physically possible.

[1:36:07] What you're just providing that list, I'm not asking to add more time.

[1:36:10] You know what you said was bring it to the next meeting and do this and do that.

[1:36:14] You don't do a certain staff.

[1:36:15] You're raising rates an awful lot here and we really like the justification as well.

[1:36:20] So first of all, we're not raising rates yet. Our board is just presented this yesterday.

[1:36:24] were evaluating staff's suggestion as we were elected by the people of this region to do.

[1:36:31] They don't even know that you guys meet at 10 o'clock in the morning on whatever day of the week it is.

[1:36:36] Well, we're not going to solve it here, but all I'm saying is that you're demanding stuff of our staff

[1:36:42] and a consultants that costs money that is not realistic because you will get a four-inch thick budget.

[1:36:49] with respect, if I can say something,

[1:36:52] I'm the Neophyte on the Board here,

[1:36:55] and I don't understand very, very little

[1:36:59] about what I'm reading, what I'm hearing.

[1:37:03] I actually would appreciate some additional information,

[1:37:07] maybe in an exhibit.

[1:37:09] I'm not saying that you would have to go over it

[1:37:11] in the presentation, but like Debian mentioned,

[1:37:14] it'd be nice to be able to see that

[1:37:16] and some exhibit placed in the presentation itself.

[1:37:22] That would help me greatly as well.

[1:37:27] And we do have by the way of plans

[1:37:28] that your staff all know about

[1:37:30] that's called a 10-year capital improvement plan.

[1:37:32] That's vetted and changed every single year

[1:37:36] and the major projects are actually listed there.

[1:37:38] So I would encourage everybody to talk to their staff

[1:37:42] and our staff will be available

[1:37:43] to provide additional information

[1:37:46] but an overview presentation like this

[1:37:48] like our board got yesterday and Director Reed was here you can't get into that level of detail of

[1:37:54] what projects are under the recycle water cost drivers in a presentation like this at a high level.

[1:38:00] It's just not we'd be here until nine o'clock tonight. If I if I may because I know how the budget's

[1:38:06] done here would you would you like to see those like anything over a million or anything five or

[1:38:12] How would you like a catalog, Debbie? So you could they won't be fine. Just say one through 10 just a little stuff

[1:38:18] The project you don't even say it out loud. They're just you just even a little pre thing on the bottom say capital projects

[1:38:24] One through 10 whatever

[1:38:29] Probably I mean it's not there and that's all done like so many wants to see if they're meeting you can click themselves

[1:38:34] I'm not as concerned. Why should you're gonna respond chair? Yes

[1:38:38] One of the responses directory liability addressed which is our tenure capital improvement

[1:38:43] plan in addition to that on a monthly basis in our General Manager's report we provide

[1:38:49] a summary of our capital improvement program. So between those two documents we have the information

[1:38:54] there that outlines what we're working on for the next 10 years. The board recently approved that,

[1:38:58] the policy and tech committee reviewed the TYSEF which is specific to the wastewater but both are

[1:39:05] available online. In addition to that we can provide that backup but all of that information exists

[1:39:12] already, and if there's something specific and said it well, we can provide that as an

[1:39:17] appendix.

[1:39:19] So, suppose you're saying that that capital improvement program is embedded here in the

[1:39:23] capital projects?

[1:39:25] So, yeah, just provide a little more detail to Director Eli's comment every year, the board,

[1:39:32] and specifically to the wastewater part of the CIP is reviewed by the Tech and Policy Committee.

[1:39:38] and so then that's a 10-year plan that evolves based on the risk of projects and

[1:39:44] That's not then what that means though

[1:39:46] So then we take those two years and we look at at least for the expenses in a two-year budget or a two-year rate process

[1:39:53] We look two years out of that 10 and we put that in here so that's the document that guides what that number is

[1:40:00] And that's an existing approved document already. Yes, it does change. And that's how we are. But this is the best information we have today for the next two years. At the next time when we do a rate study, we're going to take the information from our current 10-year capital improvement plan and incorporate that as well. Just for clarification, I'm sorry. We've seen the 10-year capital plan every year, and this policy can be so. Is that coming back to us next month, for example?

[1:40:27] Well, we will review it again, or we don't review those anymore.

[1:40:31] You review the 10-year sewer capital plan on an annual basis, and whatever you have approved

[1:40:39] that information is in this.

[1:40:41] So is that coming to us?

[1:40:43] Is the update coming to us?

[1:40:45] Usually it comes up to us in the springtime every year that the 10-year sewer capital plan.

[1:40:50] I can't remember the month.

[1:40:51] We do that, but as we go on in the presentation, I'll confirm when we bring that on an annual

[1:40:56] basis for consideration.

[1:40:58] Okay.

[1:41:00] Okay.

[1:41:01] Damn.

[1:41:02] Very good.

[1:41:03] Thanks, sir.

[1:41:04] I'm trying to make it like that.

[1:41:06] Round water recharge, search charge, financial plan.

[1:41:08] Here, we are looking at approximately a 4% increase for years, you know, $8 in per acre

[1:41:18] foot, in $25, $26 in an additional $8 and $32 in fiscal year, $26, 27 going through.

[1:41:26] Again, we have the revenues from the existing surcharge are being based upon the member agencies

[1:41:34] three year rolling average that were provided to us.

[1:41:40] Okay, and so we have some transfers out including here for capital and operation support for

[1:41:46] the admin services fund as well as the recharge water fund, right, and also transfers out

[1:41:53] for debt service support from the wastewater capital fund in here.

[1:42:02] As you can see here, really, the greatest portion of activities that are going on in this particular fund

[1:42:07] are associated with the groundwater recharge operations and then just the employment expenses going through here.

[1:42:15] And that's just simply because of the dollar volume that's associated with those particular line items going through.

[1:42:22] Yes?

[1:42:26] We can say employee expenses in ground research operation.

[1:42:30] Could I say the contracts that come under to maintain them, like hiring people, would

[1:42:36] that be under the ground water reach in our job operation, that would be under the professional

[1:42:40] fees and services?

[1:42:48] And we get to our one water connection fee here, where as we mentioned earlier on, there is

[1:42:54] There's no change being proposed for this connection fee in fiscal year 2526, nor 2627.

[1:43:02] This shows the buildup of how that cost of service came to that conclusion going through.

[1:43:10] The final calculation was approximately $1,955, given that the current fee is $9,953.

[1:43:19] we felt that maintaining it at the current level was sufficient and going through.

[1:43:25] Okay, and that's that recommendation.

[1:43:28] So, with that said, we recap again with the table that you saw earlier just to refresh everyone's memory.

[1:43:35] At the top, we have our wastewater funds that we're looking at on the bottom.

[1:43:39] We have our recycled water and water resources funds.

[1:43:43] And again, we have approximately 9% being recommended here.

[1:43:48] here initially for fiscal year 2526 and 2627 additional 9% for the monthly sewer charge

[1:43:56] on a per EDU per month basis and then no change on the wastewater connection fee remaining

[1:44:04] at $8,620 on recycled water.

[1:44:07] We're seeing 3% increases for each of the fiscal years on the fixed recovery side, an additional

[1:44:14] 9% on a direct use, basis of a dollar per acre foot, 4% increases for the recharge,

[1:44:24] so charge again on a dollar per acre foot basis, no change in the one-water connection fee,

[1:44:30] which is charged on a meter equivalent unit basis, and a small 2.6% increase in each of the years

[1:44:39] that we are looking at for the Water Resource MEU fee.

[1:44:44] With that, I'm going to now turn it back over to Randy.

[1:44:50] Thank you, Ann.

[1:44:50] And while we're transitioning speakers, I just want to address Mayor Dutre's question.

[1:44:55] The process starts at the end of April with an action in June.

[1:45:00] And by the policy committee for the 10-year capital improvement program forecast, as well as the sewer

[1:45:06] capital forecast. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Ann. Thank you, Savaji.

[1:45:14] I will wrap up the presentation. But before I do, there are a couple of key points to share

[1:45:20] with you. One of them is agency's quitter rating, one staffing level, and how we compare as far

[1:45:27] EDU to other peers in our industry. So, first is the agency's credit rating. One of the things we

[1:45:36] look at regularly is our credit rating. Currently, our credit rating stands at AA2 by Moody's. This

[1:45:44] was done just last year in 2024. When we're looking at cost of service and proposed rates and

[1:45:51] charges would look at some of these key metrics that impact our credit rating.

[1:45:57] These metrics includes dates of cash on hand and debt coverage ratio.

[1:46:04] Debt coverage ratio is a calculation based on our annual revenue minus our operating fees,

[1:46:09] and that leftover is divided by our annual debt service payment requirement, resulting

[1:46:15] number as a debt coverage ratio.

[1:46:18] Just as a background based on our last credit rating by Moody's, they mentioned that for us to maintain our current rating, we need at least have a debt coverage ratio of two and maintain our cash on hand at least 365 days.

[1:46:36] And that's the minimum once we move below that our credit rating could be at risk of being downgraded.

[1:46:43] And so it's very important for us to keep a high quality

[1:46:50] quitter rating for the agency because as Savaji mentioned earlier,

[1:46:55] we have a very large 10-year capital improvement plan and it's very likely

[1:47:00] that we may need to go out for debt and when we go out for debt,

[1:47:04] our quitter rating is very important and when we have a high quitter rating,

[1:47:11] our borrowing cost becomes less and when we have good

[1:47:15] credit rating our access to the market opens up more because more

[1:47:20] institution will want to buy high credit rated bonds. So to sum it up the

[1:47:25] higher credit rating we have the lower our borrowing cost is and the lower

[1:47:29] our capital cost is and in turn eventually in the long run benefits all of our

[1:47:33] customers in the long run.

[1:47:38] Next is staffing level. Here is a summary of the staffing

[1:47:45] request for this next two years. This table is basically divided up into three sections.

[1:47:52] First is the technical resources division, then administrative division, and then agency

[1:47:57] management division. There are departments underneath each of the divisions. There are

[1:48:03] departments as shown here. And the road below that is the fiscal year. For fiscal year

[1:48:10] 2526, the agency is requesting additional 15 staff. And the following year, the agency

[1:48:17] is requesting a 13 additional staff, bringing the total to a total of 28 additional staff.

[1:48:24] Can I ask real quick, what is our current staffing level?

[1:48:26] It's 158, I mean, it's a three, three 58. Sorry. All right. So before I move,

[1:48:38] how much? Three 58. Three 58.

[1:48:45] Before, so the bullets listed below the table are the main drivers for the, for the increases. So

[1:48:55] I will go over each one of them and explain what they are.

[1:48:59] So first one is wastewater treatment facility expansion.

[1:49:03] As you heard from Brian Wilson, we are at a cusp of starting up the expansion project.

[1:49:09] So there's additional A staff requested for operations and maintenance.

[1:49:14] That's required for the startup long term and sustainable operation of RP-5 expansion.

[1:49:20] As Brian mentioned, this is our largest capital project at $450 million.

[1:49:26] This project will accommodate the additional flow that's projected to be coming from our

[1:49:32] customer agency in the next few years due to the growth in our service area.

[1:49:38] This project will allow the agency to continue to receive wastewater and treat it to a very

[1:49:44] high-quality standard using file member reactor technology. Further, the agency is required

[1:49:53] to relocate from regional plan number two, RP-2, because we actually don't want-

[1:50:00] That facility. We're actually on Army Corps engineers' property. And as some of you may know, Army Corps is raising the Prado Dam at this point. And once that Prado Dam is raised, RP2 will be in the inundation zone. So we have to move out of there. And so another part of the RP5 expansion is to construct the solid process facility. So that includes digesters and other dewatering

[1:50:29] facility, and that's also part of the expansion project.

[1:50:34] Question. So you just said that the Army Corps of Engineers is going to increase that the

[1:50:38] amount of water in it, which is going to cause an increase in some expenses here, right?

[1:50:45] Costs, is that what I've heard?

[1:50:47] They're going to move plants.

[1:50:48] Because basically in blood playing, one they raised the down.

[1:50:52] It's a 50 plus right in it.

[1:50:54] Was it a plantation, what do they call it, the Indonesian area when they built it?

[1:50:58] No, it wasn't.

[1:51:01] So the government goes in and changes, the federal government goes in and changes what they're

[1:51:06] doing.

[1:51:07] And now are they giving us any, they're providing any funding for that?

[1:51:14] I'll start, Mayor Veltza.

[1:51:16] Randy has a lot of background on this as well, but the answer is no.

[1:51:20] It's been known for a long time through the main stem project, which is actually a flood

[1:51:26] control project from County of Orange, partnering with the Army Corps of Engineers.

[1:51:30] So we have been aware of this for a number of years, but not when that RP-2 plant was

[1:51:36] built.

[1:51:37] That's the difference.

[1:51:38] So we've known for a few decades that we were going to eventually have to move this facility.

[1:51:43] They've given us a significant amount of time to plan for it.

[1:51:46] Lucky for us, we, and there's a lot of credit that goes to the IUA team over the last ten years

[1:51:53] of they've really maintained that plant enough to keep it online until we can move that solid

[1:51:59] treatment over to RP5. So we've been really strategic about that.

[1:52:03] No, I appreciate it. I know as anybody, we've got the federal government said, hey, have

[1:52:07] we done that at a curiosity or not? We have had discussions with them a long time ago in terms

[1:52:14] of what the terms are of these us moving, but ultimately we've known about this for a long time.

[1:52:20] But we have not gone back recently and said you you have a responsibility to do this.

[1:52:25] It's not in our we never are there at least the China-based municipal water district originally built this plan never owned to that land.

[1:52:33] It's always been owned by the federal government.

[1:52:37] I think the actually that plan was acquired when we were formed.

[1:52:41] So we actually purchased it from the city of Chino.

[1:52:43] No.

[1:52:45] First the plan.

[1:52:46] The plan went off the land.

[1:52:47] You're right.

[1:52:47] Yes.

[1:52:48] They own the land.

[1:52:49] Who's the team?

[1:52:50] That was 19.

[1:52:52] I know.

[1:52:53] I'm just thinking.

[1:52:54] 70.

[1:52:54] I was around.

[1:52:56] I also just in this break.

[1:52:57] I just want to give a clarification.

[1:52:59] Randy gave the right number in terms of what our total head count would be if we were, um,

[1:53:06] had filled all our positions.

[1:53:08] But the question I heard, Randy, was what is our current staffing level, and that's 322 full-time equivalents.

[1:53:16] Just to put that in perspective, 20 years ago our head count at that time was 308.

[1:53:23] That was a 2005 head count number for this agency.

[1:53:28] I have another question in regards to the employment question.

[1:53:32] So are any of these 20 and employees going to be working on the Chino Basin project?

[1:53:40] No, this is all specific to RP-5 expansion as well as other capital improvements.

[1:53:54] So obviously it's going to open up later zero operations.

[1:53:59] So you're looking at hiring eight operators in maintenance over two years.

[1:54:03] Are you going to hire, are you projecting to hire more people after that operators after that?

[1:54:06] Or this is what the eight is going to be the, what's needed to operate?

[1:54:13] fully 100% of that the RP5 facility. This is it. This is it. So for this here, for next year,

[1:54:20] you had full staffing to operate it. And then any of the staff in coming from RP2, does RP2

[1:54:29] have any staffing operators there or no? Well, the after this two years, I don't know if you're

[1:54:35] where RP-1 also has a major solace expansion project.

[1:54:41] Okay, so that staff who's currently stationed at RP-2

[1:54:45] will move to RP-1, once that's,

[1:54:48] we're actually right in middle construction right now.

[1:54:50] So by that time, that project will be done,

[1:54:52] and those staff will be shifted over there.

[1:54:55] Okay, and as far as the engineers, the six engineers,

[1:55:17] We've identified over $1.5 billion worth of work. Want to go back to the discussion we had about analysis, our technical resources group did in terms of evaluating risk, ultimately, with a priority of public health.

[1:55:30] public health protection, closely followed by environmental protection.

[1:55:33] We've got to make sure we build the projects that we have the resources to do.

[1:55:38] Our initial estimate on what we needed to spend the next two years was just under a half billion dollars.

[1:55:46] With the resources we have today, we cannot complete those projects.

[1:55:50] Even with these six additional engineers, the best we can do is about $150 million of those projects in each year.

[1:55:58] So that's where we really balanced what do we need and what do we actually have the resources to do we continue to utilize a significant amount of external help to do this but ultimately we don't want to just push those projects through without a proper way to manage and implement them.

[1:56:17] And so ultimately what we decided is to get what we need to done these are the amount of staff that we need to be able to support our mission for the next two years.

[1:56:27] It's all again related to wastewater. The six engineers needed all wastewater capital projects.

[1:56:34] Yes.

[1:56:39] Okay.

[1:56:42] Okay. Brandy. That took care of my second point right there. The third

[1:56:47] point is long-term water and wastewater resources planning. This effort is to ensure long-term

[1:56:53] planning and management of water and wastewater resources to meet future demands and regulatory

[1:56:58] regulatory requirements. Another aspect of this is keep track of emerging environmental

[1:57:05] regulations and participating, anticipating the formation of new regulation to ensure

[1:57:11] agencies' perspective are heard and considered regulation and compliance are getting tougher

[1:57:17] not easier. Testing to meet the latest requirements are becoming more expensive. Not too long ago,

[1:57:23] So we were testing constituents in terms of parts per million.

[1:57:27] Nowadays we're required to test in terms of parts per trillion, such as PFAS.

[1:57:34] And the regulation we're referring to include PFAS regulation, microplastic, or an other

[1:57:41] chemical of emerging concerns, and also other air-related emission regulations.

[1:57:49] On cyber security and emergency preparedness and safety, staff is proposing additional staff

[1:57:58] to ensure our cyber security is secured.

[1:58:03] As you aware, agency provides essential public service, utilizing a lot of informational

[1:58:08] and operational technology to cost effectively operate our treatment plants, including wastewater

[1:58:14] treatment plants, pump stations, reservoirs.

[1:58:17] And all these infrastructure has to be working at all at the same time.

[1:58:21] And these are all, most majority of the time are non-man.

[1:58:28] So a lot of times, most of the time, we rely on technology to operate these facilities.

[1:58:34] So as you can see, this makes agency a prime target for cybersecurity threats.

[1:58:39] The cybersecurity threats to public agency, such as IUA is well known, nation-wide, and

[1:58:47] so agencies committed to protecting these investment by maturing our cybersecurity and emergency

[1:58:55] management program and proactively assessing our vulnerability and devalue comprehensive

[1:59:00] preparedness and minimize service interruptions.

[1:59:05] Further, we want to ensure our employee safety as our top priority, making sure that we

[1:59:11] have a top safety program, and we're protecting our employees and make a safety part of

[1:59:16] our culture, and we want to make this investment in key safety personnel in order to do that.

[1:59:25] Finally, workforce development and business continuity, we're investing in workforce development

[1:59:31] by creating opportunities for advancement, fostering a culture that promotes excellence,

[1:59:38] collaborations, and innovation to attract and retain competencies needed to meet agency objectives

[1:59:45] and retain top talent. With existing staffing level, agency just can achieve that. Additionally,

[1:59:53] ensuring financial resources are managed efficiently, effectively, maintain a balanced budget.

[2:00:00] Timely produce a complex financial report to me funding agency requirements and bond covenants,

[2:00:07] and ensuring long-term financial health of the agency. That's on staffing.

[2:00:15] And here is a chart of.

[2:00:18] That's not a curiosity, Savagio, and you told us that you have like 30 vacant positions.

[2:00:24] Why aren't you hiring on those instead of creating 28 new ones?

[2:00:30] When we have vacancies, it's not the same group of positions.

[2:00:33] It's just the regular attrition, retirements, resignations that most organizations have.

[2:00:39] So currently we have about an 8% vacancy rate, but that's not attributed to one department

[2:00:45] or one set of positions.

[2:00:47] If an engineer retires has a new opportunity, they go, that's part of the vacancy, and then we feel bad.

[2:00:55] So it's not, I guess my main point is, it's not just specific to one group.

[2:01:01] It's just the normal way of operating the organization.

[2:01:08] I don't like to catch you off guard.

[2:01:10] So I think the story would be better for me if I could get how many people are in each of these

[2:01:18] departments if I could get that information. Also, I see technical information and it's hard

[2:01:23] for me to believe that we're going to hire three cybersecurity people. Usually that's outsourced

[2:01:29] or you get one but to say we need three. So I know that these are just examples but it would be great

[2:01:35] to have a greater understanding, so I understand the challenges you guys or these departments are facing.

[2:01:42] Director Reid, two responses to that. We had the summary before that identifies the current departments,

[2:01:49] so I just want to understand what you're asking for. And the second point is these positions,

[2:01:55] the themes that Randy had presented are really what guide us in recommending this staff increase.

[2:02:01] And for example, creating, if we have that many more capital improvement projects, we need

[2:02:07] engineers, we need operators who feed their input into the capital improvement.

[2:02:11] We need administrative support from IT, from finance to carry this out.

[2:02:17] So I wouldn't look at those numbers and say, is that position directly to cybersecurity?

[2:02:22] It's a collection of staff that are needed to address those areas.

[2:02:26] I understand, and we won't get in here, but, you know, you know, so the force is how many more drops and how many more computers are you applying?

[2:02:36] You know, you're hiring 30 people. We need three more IT for those 30 people.

[2:02:40] Or it's just another computer on another Ethernet line getting information. So you already have the support.

[2:02:45] So I just want to have a greater understanding of the three. And imagine it's not here, like you said, you're doing themes.

[2:02:51] So I just understand it because three IT people and when I see the increase, you know, I'm

[2:02:58] trying to understand what's driving that.

[2:03:01] And I want to also add, we have an IT group that includes operational technology as well

[2:03:08] as business technology.

[2:03:10] It's a conversation, actually, you and I have had, it's a very unique, but very efficient

[2:03:15] way of handling how we manage.

[2:03:18] So we will contend we have less staff for the size of the organization and the size of our operation

[2:03:29] because we're able to overlap and backfill on each one of those areas.

[2:03:34] So I just want to point that out this is not an IT group in the conventional sense of

[2:03:39] providing business support. It also includes process control.

[2:03:43] Right. And that's what I will look at in the next slide. I'll ask for some

[2:03:48] When we start looking at this is, you know, when we're looking at changes and that's what I would wish we would add in the next slide, like this one right here.

[2:03:58] You know, also there's a steep increase and it'd be great if we could overlie CPI ETI and then EDU is on top of this.

[2:04:10] to tell a story of is the increase in dollars amount driven by CPI or EDI or is it driven in the

[2:04:16] amount that we have more EDU's coming in. So the steep climb in 22 through 26 reflects an

[2:04:26] increase in what we're processing. Therefore, because we're processing more, we need more

[2:04:31] financial people. I want to see what has changed in the last years to create the need for increase

[2:04:39] in these departments. I can understand operation and maintenance and I can understand an engineering

[2:04:45] because I learned an engineering when someone says you asked an engineering department

[2:04:50] how well they're doing. They'll tell you how much they spent and it's not bad. It's because

[2:04:58] spent is the work you've done.

[2:05:00] In other words, a good engineer department, if they're closing out jobs, they're spending money. So they're doing a great job, as Savaji says, if I don't have an engineer, we can't, or you can say close out, close out that. So I understand that the first half is just the second half I'm trying to understand the story. And I think those functions of CPI, EPI, and EDU's, are layered on top of this would try to explain.

[2:05:28] And 21, 22 through 26, you know, often it's flat and then it climbs, so I'm trying to understand that story.

[2:05:36] I understand the request for a story directoried, and I would suggest that a few other factors really play into this.

[2:05:45] Growth is one of those that you mentioned.

[2:05:48] The significant one is deferred investment in the infrastructure.

[2:05:52] And if we showed the capital improvement program over the last 20 years, what it reflects was

[2:06:00] a very big significant change over the past few years in recognizing things are failing.

[2:06:06] They're reaching the end of their useful life.

[2:06:09] And the rate models that we've been using are to essentially pay as you go.

[2:06:13] And so we're at a point now where without that infrastructure we're going to be seeing more

[2:06:18] more breaks, more spills, and costing more because we don't plan out these construction

[2:06:25] projects, but we do them in an emergency fashion.

[2:06:28] So in terms of the story, it's really a combination of growth, additional regulations, and a deferred

[2:06:36] investment in the IEWA facilities.

[2:06:42] Thank you.

[2:06:43] So when I look at this chart, just out of curiosity, I plugged in 350 times, I was thinking average

[2:06:50] salary of, say, 120 a year and that plus benefits or whatever, my calculation came out to

[2:06:57] like $44 million and here you guys got $90 million. I mean, what is our base salary here?

[2:07:05] I mean, it's got to be huge. This is way beyond the scope of this review. If you want to run for

[2:07:11] our board, you should run against Paul over next time. But to, no, I'm serious because it's

[2:07:17] We're trying to micromanage our salaries are published.

[2:07:21] If you want to know what people make at this agency,

[2:07:24] go to Transparent California, seriously.

[2:07:27] This is, it is what it is.

[2:07:29] I mean, that, you know, we have a $400 million budget.

[2:07:33] We have a hundred and, I see 500 million capital projects

[2:07:37] this year, including, by the way, the regional plan five

[2:07:40] that we spent a bazillion years talking about,

[2:07:42] which is for growth in your city and Kurt City, mostly, right?

[2:07:46] So that all these other people voted for so this is micromanaging our board will ask the questions about

[2:07:53] The 28 new employees. This is being provided as information for the policy committee members. It's not

[2:08:00] Fair in my you're you're being insulting to elected officials at this agency. Yes, Steve people the same people elected Steve

[2:08:09] I want to speak now

[2:08:11] You're not the only elected official at this table. There's Randall

[2:08:15] There's Kurt, there's our chair, Bill, Bill, and Deborah.

[2:08:23] And we're all lucky by people too.

[2:08:26] And we have the responsibility to collect the sewer money.

[2:08:30] We have the responsibility to put the bills out there.

[2:08:33] And when the voters or the rate fairs see this,

[2:08:36] who they come first?

[2:08:37] Do they come to you, Steve, or to your board of colleagues?

[2:08:40] Or do they come to see us?

[2:08:42] They'll come to see us.

[2:08:43] Here's the issue here. The issue here is there's high cost going up. Not to rush

[2:08:50] note it is, I heard the presentation. Same time there is a 9% increase, 18% in the

[2:08:57] next two years being asked for which is very high. After you just had 7% and 6%

[2:09:03] the last two years. So the issue here is there is no fee study we've seen. Now

[2:09:11] I had an email to Shabazi and he gave me his rationale and he explained it just now, but

[2:09:16] we don't have a feast day, which I assume the feast day may have a lot of information

[2:09:20] that we're asking for right now, but we don't have a cockpit.

[2:09:23] So we're being asked, I realize as a recommendation to your board, we're being asked to look at

[2:09:30] this and make a recommendation that the impacts are repairs in our communities.

[2:09:37] So, the past has been easy to do because the rate increase has been a lot smaller.

[2:09:43] Obviously, the last two was because inflation was a big problem.

[2:09:48] But now, we're going to have to take on a big cost.

[2:09:53] And so, we need to understand.

[2:09:55] We have responsibilities here to our citizens, to understand what's been presented here.

[2:10:00] So we can give you guys a recommendation, and then when our citizens come talk to us, we can explain to them what our position was, how we vote it, what our recommendation was, and why. That's what we're trying to do here. So the other big issue here is the Latino Basin program. And, you know, there's a lot of questions about the Latino Basin program. And is it in the waste capital? There's a question about planning and, you know, but there's a grant.

[2:10:29] and then there's a question but you know waste water capital fund and I realize we're in a time

[2:10:35] here we don't have a time. So my question to you right now is the schedule. The schedule I

[2:10:40] understand is this will go to the LUA board next month at your April 10 meeting. We meet on April

[2:10:46] 3rd so is that a hard date or could we do we have more time get the fee study but I see the fee study

[2:10:56] is there more time? Does it have to go to the IE board in April 10 or could that be delayed

[2:11:02] a month to May? I guess my question. Mayor Dutray, a couple of responses. One, we work backwards

[2:11:09] working with your staff in terms of a prop to 18 schedule. And so the, based on that, a board

[2:11:17] action by IEWA in mid-April works for all our seven customer agencies. So yes, we want to

[2:11:24] shoot for that date for the approval. The point of today, introducing all of this, we don't have

[2:11:32] a rate study yet. We're going to prepare a draft rate study, but it's to get the input from the

[2:11:38] entire policy committee. We're here to listen today and provide the feedback. I'm just going to

[2:11:47] for the EDU's. I'm uncomfortable based on the information I have here, based on these cost,

[2:11:52] based on the CBP, I'm uncomfortable with information, so I can't support it right now.

[2:11:56] Let's see what happens next month, but that's my position. Thank you.

[2:12:02] You want to finish up? Sure. Okay. All right. I'm my last slide.

[2:12:09] But before I end, I want to give you a perspective of how our monthly EDU compared to our peers

[2:12:15] in the industry. So I have selected a similar wastewater, wastewater and

[2:12:21] recycled water agency for this comparison. And they are Eastern Municipal Water

[2:12:26] District, Las Virgines, and Western, which are shown on the last three columns

[2:12:32] here. Just a little bit of background of these three agency and why I think they're

[2:12:38] fair comparison. Eastern Municipal Water District is located in the inland and

[2:12:44] part area. They're located in the western portion of Riverside County and also part of San

[2:12:50] Diego County, Northern San Diego County, covering about 682 square miles. They provide services

[2:12:57] to just under a million residents. We provide services to 935,000 so very close. They are

[2:13:05] Their service area includes Merino Valley, Paris,

[2:13:09] Mendeffy, Sun City, Hemant, Parts of America,

[2:13:12] and Tamacula.

[2:13:14] And they currently treat about 49 million gallons

[2:13:17] per day of wastewater.

[2:13:19] And we treat right around 52.

[2:13:21] So it's also a very similar amount of wastewater day tree.

[2:13:24] Next one is Western.

[2:13:26] Western is also located in the Empire area.

[2:13:29] They're located in Western portion of Riverside County.

[2:13:34] and they're actually right next to each other. Eastern and Western are right next to each other.

[2:13:39] They also provide about just under a million residents of their service. And their service area

[2:13:46] includes Rupa Valley, Norco, Corona, Tamasco Valley, Lake Alcinoir, Waldemar, and parts of Canyon Lake,

[2:13:55] and Marietta and Tamancola. Last one is Las Virgines. They are located in Western portion of

[2:14:01] County and they're a bit smaller than IUA Western and now there's three of us.

[2:14:07] They provide services to 75,000 residents in Western portion of LA County, including

[2:14:14] Aguera Hills, Calabases, Hidden Hills, West Lake Village, and on corporate areas of LA County.

[2:14:22] Just like IUA, they are members of the Metropolitan Municipal Water District. Just like IUA,

[2:14:29] they provide water, waste water, and recycle water services to their residents.

[2:14:34] Where we differ is that we provide only wholesale services, where they provide both retail

[2:14:40] and wholesale.

[2:14:42] So for fair comparison, the monthly sewer rate services fee, we added IUAs and the retail

[2:14:52] customers fee to demonstrate what a resident will see on their monthly bills.

[2:14:58] So that would be a fair-

[2:15:00] Comparison to Eastern, Las Virgines and Western. So here in the chart for Western, their monthly

[2:15:08] EDU rate is at $41.83. For Las Virgines, they are at $73.37. Western is at $79.96.

[2:15:20] IUA's wholesale is at what we're proposing for next year is $27.02. So if we add the

[2:15:28] the local retail agencies service fee, the IRA residents will see anywhere between $33.71

[2:15:38] to $45.60. As you can see, IRA's residents overall sewer service fee is very much in line with industry peers and in line with other agency within the Inland Empire area.

[2:15:55] There's another example in the Inland Empire area, which is Rialto.

[2:15:59] Their monthly service fee is $67.14.

[2:16:04] Another example for wholesale is Orange County Water District.

[2:16:08] They're very much like IUA, they're wholesale level.

[2:16:11] Their monthly edU rate is $30.92.

[2:16:14] Oh, sorry.

[2:16:17] Yes, sorry.

[2:16:20] Orange County sanitation district.

[2:16:22] $32.92. We are at $27.02 per month. And that concludes my presentation.

[2:16:32] All right. Thank you.

[2:16:35] Thank you. There may be a few more comments.

[2:16:38] I'll hold on. I'm ready.

[2:16:39] Thank you.

[2:16:41] Yes.

[2:16:42] Thank you.

[2:16:42] I wanted to say something.

[2:16:44] I would, again, I'm the new guy here.

[2:16:48] and I sat down with our staff member, our director of public works, to try to decipher

[2:16:56] this huge packet and really understand what these rates were because I had a lot of

[2:17:02] additional questions myself that many of you have already asked, but there's still a lot

[2:17:09] of questions that I have regarding this.

[2:17:12] With respect to the board, I just a couple of questions, would you mind if my public work

[2:17:17] Director came up and just asked a couple questions. I promise it will be quick. But would

[2:17:23] you mind, Agent, would you come up please? Because there are some specific questions that

[2:17:28] I have in my mind that could impact our community. Can you grab the mic? Thank you very much.

[2:17:35] I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity. It's just, I just

[2:17:42] I just made some notes as I was listening to the presentation.

[2:17:46] Here's some questions that I wanted to pose on the slide 19.

[2:17:55] There's $89.2 million bond in 2627.

[2:18:02] Do you know what that will be used for?

[2:18:09] So what's the bond being used for? She's asking.

[2:18:12] We've got to look at this, sorry.

[2:18:18] 819.

[2:18:19] Go ahead, Alex.

[2:18:19] Thank you.

[2:18:20] They'll say it a lot better.

[2:18:21] Yeah.

[2:18:22] The revenue one, the 89 million.

[2:18:23] Right.

[2:18:24] That's just an estimated, estimated financing that we'll be using because if you look at the capital projects for a, we're spending 26 million or 25 million, 2526 and 30 million in 2627.

[2:18:39] That's not being supported by the EDU rate.

[2:18:44] Thanks, Alex.

[2:18:44] Alex, a couple of clarifications, this is our treasure, Alex Lopez, and what he's pointing out would be this would be the borrowing amount that year to start supporting the capital improvement projects that would need to be funded beyond this point.

[2:18:58] It does not mean we are spending that $89 million.

[2:19:02] Thank you.

[2:19:03] I appreciate that.

[2:19:05] We asked how much money we have collected so far for the connection fees and Chino have

[2:19:12] so far collected about $22 million in sewer connection.

[2:19:16] And so far, apparently, we have not been called to pay yet.

[2:19:20] So I was wondering how often are you a call for that?

[2:19:25] By the way, the total we learned yesterday is $152 million for all the agencies.

[2:19:29] We asked that question as well.

[2:19:30] Yes. And then what can that money be used for? If can that be money be used for supplementing some of the increases that we're proposing?

[2:19:41] Those funds are identified in our regional contract as well as our ordinance and they're very specific to both related.

[2:19:52] Sorry.

[2:20:06] So, yeah, those are specific to wastewater related growth projects. Thank you.

[2:20:13] So, expansion of capacity, primarily because it's a connection fees.

[2:20:22] To my regional contract expert, Ken, can you help clarify? Because I want to make sure I get this one correct.

[2:20:27] Yeah,

[2:20:33] that's correct for expansion of the system.

[2:20:37] Thank you.

[2:20:38] Correct.

[2:20:38] Okay.

[2:20:38] So it could be used for IP 5 beyond it too.

[2:20:41] Yeah.

[2:20:41] Okay.

[2:20:44] Another one is the proposed property tax transfer in and out from recycled water and water resources.

[2:20:54] Is the property tax a right source of funding for Chino Basin plant early design?

[2:21:02] I don't know what will be an allowable use of the property taxes, and I'm just inquiring

[2:21:10] to see whether, again, can that be utilized to help reduce the increase?

[2:21:18] The answer is yes, and as you can see as an example in recycled water, we had shifted

[2:21:23] adjusted our recommended property tax allocation to help reduce the overall rate increase.

[2:21:32] So in concept agent, the answer is yes, but just, yeah, I guess that's it.

[2:21:39] Okay.

[2:21:40] For all of those, your staff and our staff work great together.

[2:21:46] You guys always have a lot of answers for all the questions we have, so I think we appreciate

[2:21:51] the collaboration and I think we continue to want to work collaboratively to find solutions.

[2:21:58] Thank you. Same. Appreciate the comment. And I do have one more question. What percent of

[2:22:02] property taxes are you a receive from the county?

[2:22:09] We don't receive a set percentage but it's an

[2:22:14] adjustment that takes place every year based on total assessed valuation. But I'm going to look at

[2:22:20] and Alex for this, there's not a percentage we rely on, right?

[2:22:24] Or is there a rough estimate that you can provide?

[2:22:29] Okay.

[2:22:30] One percent of the deal, okay.

[2:22:32] One percent of the total then, correct?

[2:22:35] I thought he just said 2.8, what did you say?

[2:22:38] That was a property tax allocation once we get the money and how we allocate it between

[2:22:43] our different operations.

[2:22:44] What Alex is answering is, of the property tax the county collects, how much comes to

[2:22:49] you weigh. Currently it's about $90 million. It's $90 million. I told us about E-D-E-D last.

[2:22:56] Thank you. $1 per hundred.

[2:23:00] Thank you. Shavajee, thank you. Thank you, Borg, for allowing me to do this. It really helps

[2:23:06] me out to understand it. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[2:23:09] Just real quick, if I think what helped me to, if I could get 10 years of E-D-Us,

[2:23:19] And if you could put down a graph along with the, like I said, 10 years of the cost of

[2:23:26] EDUs and then the amount of EDUs, so when I went, when I say the amount, the number

[2:23:34] of EDUs total, that would give me an idea of how this is being divided up.

[2:23:38] And then, and if I could get a 10 year salaries of, and if you could cross-reference that to

[2:23:45] CPI and EPI. That would be great.

[2:23:51] On that, another thing that comes up is, you know,

[2:23:56] I see MEEUs, and those are very important because we buy, we purchase a lot of water.

[2:24:03] And of course, this is sewage, but I see it brought it up. And I know some people, other

[2:24:09] other people on this board, except for one, you know, is because of Montclair and Montclar

[2:24:16] City and Montavista, you know, when the sewer windows the water.

[2:24:21] I'd be interested in further talks of busing out services, you know, services such as most

[2:24:30] some of us have our own type of schools and training in those type of things, as far as

[2:24:37] water awareness or education, you know, if we could start looking at, you know, what

[2:24:44] part of that MEU goes toward those type of programs that would help.

[2:24:50] And then, of course, I'm always worrying about when I brought up the numbers, the number

[2:24:55] of people working on planning and then just accounting for the water.

[2:25:00] You know, I want to have a greater understanding, because when I left here, there was only two people doing planning. And they took care of it all. And so I know since we've gone to an interview with that, there's a lot more going on, and I just want to have a greater understanding of the increase in manpower for that. So thank you. Director Rita, I want to address those four points. The ten years of EDU is something that we will provide.

[2:25:28] the policy committee. The second request seems a bit more challenging in terms of—I would

[2:25:37] need some clarity on what that means in terms of payroll expenses. I prefer to follow up with

[2:25:45] step. I imagine it's a line out of your burden rate for what you're paying, you know, as far as

[2:25:53] operational costs, you know, for salaries, just, you know, what are the salaries and what

[2:25:59] have those been over the 10 years as far as increases in that, you know, as far as increases

[2:26:04] in it because I think there's, like you said, you had a couple of years where there was

[2:26:09] an increase, because you honored some COVID, so I just want to have an idea of, you know,

[2:26:15] those the increases you've gone with, with your different bargaining units, what those have,

[2:26:20] those type of increases in salary.

[2:26:25] I was still struggling with that recommendation.

[2:26:28] We have a total payroll expense that we shared.

[2:26:31] I think that reflects it, but what I'm hearing is the MOU salary increases based on cost

[2:26:39] of living.

[2:26:39] Your salary matrix, what have over the years, over the last ten years, what have you given

[2:26:45] and to compete with CPI as far as that would give me a better understanding of that.

[2:26:54] Let us give some thought to that to find a way to present.

[2:26:58] When it comes, and I'm going to separate the conversation from MU,

[2:27:01] but I heard you clearly in terms of workforce development and training.

[2:27:05] And if it's related to wastewater, we can bring back not related to this rate study,

[2:27:12] just our efforts in trying to continue improving that, especially from a regional standpoint.

[2:27:17] So we're happy to do that.

[2:27:21] And I got lost because I'm used to a balance sheet where I have revenue and expenses, and

[2:27:26] this is the net.

[2:27:27] So in other words, our revenues meeting our expenses, and if someone could maybe in the next slide

[2:27:32] say, here's what our expenses are going to be, and this is the revenue, and we're going

[2:27:39] to barely make it or we actually have a knit, that type of thing, that would be a better

[2:27:45] understanding.

[2:27:46] And right now we just use a different term for that expenses and that's revenue requirements

[2:27:50] but essentially this is the balance sheet approach.

[2:27:53] Thank you.

[2:27:53] Yeah.

[2:27:54] Thank you.

[2:27:55] Okay.

[2:27:55] I just make a recommendation that maybe IUA send out an email to the agencies asking if

[2:28:03] any specific questions they may have. I get a lot of, I get my, everything I need to

[2:28:09] learn and understand comes from my staff. So I'm hearing a lot of stuff here that,

[2:28:15] and questions for this, questions for that. And, I mean, you get the information back

[2:28:18] and what is that going to change? You know, the, the facts of the facts, and I think staff,

[2:28:23] if we could email out to the staff that they have questions to our technical review people,

[2:28:30] Public Works Directors and allow them to, if they have questions, to feed them back because they're going to obviously share with me what their concerns are.

[2:28:40] Again, getting into the weeds sometimes it seems and are we really going to get the answers that we need to make the decision?

[2:28:48] I may not have the same questions that Randy has so having to send all the same information out to everybody when maybe it's just important to Randy, may not be as important to me.

[2:28:57] So I'd like to see, maybe is that possible to be done?

[2:29:00] Mayor Velt, we will do that.

[2:29:02] We've already unofficially started receiving

[2:29:06] and soliciting questions from the customer agencies.

[2:29:10] One thing I do want to close at least my comments with is

[2:29:14] we very much take to heart what Mayor Dutre said about having to defend

[2:29:19] the inclusion of our rates and your own rates.

[2:29:21] And I've been directed and

[2:29:24] And myself, as well as my staffs, definitely support this by policy member Eli as well as

[2:29:31] our board to make ourselves available for any of your governing boards to provide backup.

[2:29:37] Because we know it's hard to defend what we're recommending, especially when you're not

[2:29:40] working in that field.

[2:29:42] So at any of those public meetings or if you need IEWA support, we're happy to be there.

[2:29:48] I think most recently I attended Montclair City Council just to talk about a general IEWA

[2:29:53] update, but we're very happy to do that in coordination with your staff to present the

[2:29:58] justification for these.

[2:30:00] And I think that'll set a lot of, you know, at ease, maybe that way there are questions that you have to have maybe a lot different than my staff may have. Same with John, same with Phil and all across this board here rather than debating it up here and challenging staff at this meeting. And I think that kind of puts a little bit of a dampener on the right in front of the lot of your staff. And I'm not comfortable myself.

[2:30:24] The timing of our email will be good. I think most are listening right now.

[2:30:28] But Randy reminded me that on March 12th we have our customer rates meeting so that'll be one week or one week from yesterday

[2:30:35] And I would encourage you all to get together with your staffs

[2:30:39] Between now and then and figure out what the questions are from both of you, right? I mean

[2:30:44] If

[2:30:46] To me, it's not a good answer to say I

[2:30:49] Don't like it. Well, okay, but why and what's what do you need? What don't you have? What doesn't you staff have for you?

[2:30:53] We're talking 9% sounds like a lot. Nobody wants the raise rates. Remember

[2:30:58] that this agency jeopardized its credit rating in 2010 by holding rates at that time during a recession

[2:31:05] to protect the public. We did the same thing during the beginning of COVID. We held the line,

[2:31:11] we didn't raise rates for a year, even though our staff pushed us to do it. So our board is willing

[2:31:16] to listen, but it's not going to be a free fall and come into our business. It's how can you be

[2:31:23] helpful and how can you you know because we were elected by the people just like all of you were

[2:31:30] and we have a responsibility for the region as a whole nine hundred thirty five thousand people

[2:31:34] that we serve and we're leaders in the state and we provide each and every one of your agencies

[2:31:40] a lot of support including you know when there's problems when there's issues training

[2:31:47] everything comes through here because our staff are the experts in the wastewater field

[2:31:52] And I think that gets lost sometimes at these policy committee meetings.

[2:31:57] I would really, it would be more constructive if we had genuine questions like Agent just asked that are universal.

[2:32:06] Then to berate our staff or to tell them, you're not giving me what you what I want.

[2:32:11] They work for us, they don't work for anybody else.

[2:32:14] A quick question, Savaji, to a team vote.

[2:32:20] Yes.

[2:32:21] The timing, the answer to one of the questions had to do with our two 18 vote, so things can

[2:32:26] be approved.

[2:32:27] So this is a two year plan, and two years will we, again, have to go out for a two 18 vote

[2:32:33] with the next cycle instead of five years or whatever it might have been.

[2:32:37] That's an individual customer agency decision in terms of what assumptions you want to make.

[2:32:42] make sometimes agencies will go out with just assuming that the rate is going to be X amount

[2:32:47] and it stays within that, but that's a decision on your part. I will say an unfortunate

[2:32:53] wasn't here last month, but I heard the questions about the impacts to 2018 and why we're going

[2:33:00] from five to two, that's an impact. I'll just share that if we did have to, there was

[2:33:05] a reason we didn't want to recommend a five-year rate, we'd have to build in a lot of conservatism

[2:33:10] to that. And because of that, those rate increases would look significantly higher than what we'd

[2:33:15] want to recommend. And that's why we thought it was more fiscally prudent to do it in two years,

[2:33:19] even if it creates an additional notification responsibility by customer agencies. But we really

[2:33:25] didn't want to come in. If we had to do five years, the numbers would look higher than what we would expect.

[2:33:37] Okay.

[2:33:41] Anything else? All right.

[2:33:44] You know, today wouldn't have been so bad if that darn rate study would have been available

[2:33:49] to us two weeks ago, so that we could have gone through it and asked the questions that

[2:33:54] we would have had or not had. So that's number one. We all want transparency. I think we all

[2:34:01] want to get along, but because of lack of information, it just gets really hard, and I really

[2:34:08] get frustrated with the fact that because we have to pass through these costs, that our

[2:34:14] residents are the ones standing at the podium saying, we can afford it, seniors can't afford

[2:34:19] it, this can't afford it, gosh and darn it, I mean I would love you if I knew the residents

[2:34:24] were going to come out for you to come and sit there and listen to them, but like we have

[2:34:28] to listen to them when we pass through these costs.

[2:34:31] I don't know if there's enough time for 218, you know,

[2:34:34] by the first week of April rolls around.

[2:34:37] I don't know how that works.

[2:34:39] You know, the PowerPoint was great,

[2:34:41] but I don't, again, have the rate setting in front of me,

[2:34:43] so I can't really justify any of the stuff that's going on.

[2:34:48] Again, when I did some quick calculations

[2:34:50] on your $90 million of salaries that's looking

[2:34:54] like your people are making over $257,000

[2:34:58] a year.

[2:34:59] So.

[2:35:00] I mean, because I don't have that kind of stuff in front of me, I can't really guess it and I don't think Randall's asking for too much when he asked for that. Again, the Tino Basin Project, are any of the costs for that Tino Basin Project being included in that 9% this year and the 9% the next year? You know, you've always told us 20 million times that those of us that don't want to participate in the Tino Basin Project don't have to participate in it. And therefore, we don't have to share into those costs.

[2:35:27] So, you know, that's what's frustrating, and so any of the wastewater capital being transferred

[2:35:34] into the Chino Basin Project and planning, I don't know.

[2:35:39] You know, so it's just because we have all these questions, and if you guys just help us

[2:35:44] by providing that rate study and just helping us and answer the questions nicely, I feel sometimes

[2:35:50] So I'm being talked down to over here, it's just, you know, and that's big just because I don't have the knowledge and I want to be able to pass that knowledge on to my residents and Steve, I talked to my water staff probably twice a month to try to understand everything that's going on here.

[2:36:09] So, that's why too, and I had the lot of an extra position.

[2:36:13] I didn't sit there because I let Scott Burton sit there for a reason.

[2:36:18] You know, so that's why, you know, question darn it.

[2:36:22] I just, this is all about trying to do the right thing by the taxpayers.

[2:36:27] We all are municipal agencies and we all are responsible to the taxpayers.

[2:36:31] We're not a private sector thing where we have a board and stockholders that want to make

[2:36:37] money.

[2:36:37] we want to break even we want to be able to pay for things we want to be able to pay good wages

[2:36:42] just find sometimes this whole I mean we don't do this at the water facilities but we don't do

[2:36:47] this at the desolter we don't do this at any of our other water meetings this is the only water

[2:36:52] meeting that gets contentious and I don't get it so that's my two cents okay thank you anybody

[2:37:00] well gentlemen it's been a fun sitting up here with you all night uh so this is my standing on

[2:37:05] on this whole thing. And I understand where you're coming from because it is frustrating when

[2:37:08] you're looking at other people's books that are not your own to try to decipher what's going

[2:37:11] on to figure out if there is something that we're missing on our side, right? There is that section

[2:37:17] of having the contract and trying to actually have good faith in one another to make sure that you

[2:37:20] guys are going to be representing our residents well. The same time I understand we have Fontana

[2:37:24] has our own elected member that's their job, right? And it's their job to represent my residents,

[2:37:29] but it's also as a contract holder, it's my job to go and back that up and say,

[2:37:32] As the city of Fontana, this is the best contract we have.

[2:37:36] And when your contract is not the best contract we have,

[2:37:38] city of Fontana will take back over our sewer, and we will leave.

[2:37:41] But right now, you guys are the best option we have.

[2:37:44] I ran the numbers.

[2:37:45] I can't do it for cheaper.

[2:37:46] It's going to cost me a lot more in the long run.

[2:37:49] So we stay on the board.

[2:37:50] And as long as you guys can promise that you guys are going to give us

[2:37:52] the best rates on it, Fontana is going to stay.

[2:37:55] And trust me, I don't think you guys are going to,

[2:37:57] I don't think I can do for cheaper at this point.

[2:37:59] and we looked at a couple of years ago, it's not going to change. So I appreciate what you guys

[2:38:04] are doing. As far as your guys' employee payroll, I get, we got a lot of employees and we got to

[2:38:09] do a bunch of payroll increases here going up and we're in the middle of a bunch of contracts. So

[2:38:14] your guys is what you guys take care of when your employees is up to you guys. I'm not going to get

[2:38:17] in the middle of it as long as you guys are paying them livable wages and they're not complaining to me.

[2:38:22] I don't care. It's your guys' budget at the end of the day. But at the same time, you guys have to

[2:38:26] answer the residents and so do we. And so just make sure the contract's good for me and that's all I appreciate.

[2:38:32] All right. Thank you.

[2:38:37] Third, as an action. Am I correct? That's correct. Great. Thank you.

[2:38:43] You're good. A lot.

[2:38:44] You're good.

[2:38:44] It's one with one quickly. And I understand a level of frustration is the timing. That's what this has

[2:38:50] all been about. It's about timing. And so when you put staffs in the cities under the, you know,

[2:38:54] with everything that's going on right now,

[2:38:56] that's where that level of frustration comes from

[2:38:58] because there's so much going on in these cities.

[2:39:03] And under the gun get it done.

[2:39:05] So that's probably the level of frustration

[2:39:06] where I know we're hearing from our staff also.

[2:39:08] So I wanna make sure that that's understood

[2:39:10] and I don't wanna see staff get beat up anymore

[2:39:13] because we gotta get answers, they gotta get answers.

[2:39:16] And so we just wanna make sure it's collaboration,

[2:39:18] it's open dialogue and everybody's talking each other

[2:39:20] and we won't have this contentious relationships

[2:39:23] set this at these meetings. Thank you. We're good aren't we? Let's then we'll move on to do we have

[2:39:33] any comments from Roger? Do you have any additional comments to share? I had a presentation ready but

[2:39:40] I'll skip it today. Yeah I kind of figured yeah that's where I'm hesitating here. How about we've

[2:39:46] already talked about future agenda items which is focus of what tonight was. Do we have any additional

[2:39:54] committee comments, committee member comments that have nothing to do with this presentation.

[2:40:01] Good. Well, I've got something to go to also. So our next meeting is April 3.

[2:40:10] Let's

03-06-2025 Regional Sewerage Policy Committee Meeting

Agenda

Transcript