HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-07-09 BudgetCE IDIAN�---
CITY OF MERIDIAN
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
AMENDED AGENDA
SPECIAL MEETING AGENDA
BUDGET WORKSHOP
Wednesday, July 9, 2014 at 10:00 a.m.
City Council Chambers
33 East Broadway Avenue, Meridian, Idaho
1. Roll -call Attendance:
X David Zaremba X Joe Borton
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Genesis Milam X Luke Cavener
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
2. Adoption of the Agenda Adopted
3. Approval of a Budget Amendment for a Dog Park in the Not -to -Exceed
Amount $226,408.00 Approved (Pg 1-3
4. Approval of a Budget Amendment for Storey Park Improvements for the
Not -to -Exceed Amount of $1,344,860.00 Approved (Pg 3)
5. City of Meridian FY2015 Budget Meeting Presentation (Pg 3-41)
Adjourned at 12:58 p.m.
Meridian City Council Special Meeting Agenda —Wednesday, July 9, 2014 Page 1 of 2
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
City of Meridian
Proposed Presentation Schedule
Schedule is subject to change
FY2015 Budget
July 9, 2014 Wednesday
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Start
End
Minutes
10:00 -
10:10
0.10
10:10 -
12:00
1:50
12:00
- 1:00
1:00
1:00
- 3:00
2:00
3:00
- 5:00
2:00
Department
Council assemble, review any additional materials
Enterprise Fund
Lunch (Ordered In)
Enterprise Fund
Council Budget Decisions and Discussion
Meridian City Council Special Meeting Agenda —Wednesday, July 9, 2014 Page 2 of 2
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
Meridian City Council Budget Meeting July 9, 2014
A special meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 8:00 a.m.,
Wednesday, July 9, 2014, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, David Zaremba, Keith Bird, Joe Borton,
Charlie Rountree, Genesis Milam and Luke Cavener.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Stacey Kilchenmann, Todd Lavoie, Bruce
Chatterton, Jeff Lavey, Mark Niemeyer, Steve Siddoway, and Patrick Dilley.
Item 1: Roll -call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Joe Borton
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Genesis Milam _XLucas Cavener
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd_
De Weerd: I will go ahead and get us started for our special meeting agenda,
our budget workshop. I appreciate all of those in attendance and did I waste
enough time so we can have roll call attendance? Madam Clerk.
Item No. 2: Adoption of the Agenda.
De Weerd: So, welcome. Item No. 2 is adoption of the agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published.
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 3: City of Meridian FY2015 Budget Meeting Presentation
De Weerd: Item 3 is a budget amendment in front of you. Council, I will look for
your direction. ,
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
Page 2 of 41
Cavener: I move that we approve the budget amendment for the dog park for a
not to exceed amount of 226,408 dollars.
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 3. Any discussion
from Council?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I think my position on this is pretty well known, but just for the record I
support this on one condition, that I don't hear the name again.
Bird: That's the only reason I'm supporting it.
De Weerd: The Rountree Bark Park? Okay. I won't say it after this. Okay. Any
further discussion? Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor. It's no secret that I support this, but I would like to add
that I hope this is an impetus to the dog park committee or the group that is
organized to get together and do some fundraising. I mean they could create
amenities for the dogs on the park that are within walking distance of Zamzow's,
so they ought to talk about some advertising assistance and stuff. So, I do think
there is more that can be done by the dog users. I don't happen to have one, but
I'm thrilled this is happening. But I do hope that this is a first step for the dog
park users to get some more donations and some more activity going.
De Weerd: And, Steve, maybe you could take that to the Parks Commission in
terms of asking them to revise the subcommittee that was looking at the dog park
and seeing if they can start looking at concepts of an annual naming of shelters
and those kind of fundraising activities.
Siddoway: Yes. And I have already been in contact with Nampa's parks director
for some direction of what they are doing as well. So, thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Any further discussion? Okay. Madam
Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea;
Cavener, yea.
De Weerd: Wow. All ayes.
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
Page 3 of 41
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
De Weerd: Item 4.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I move that we approve the budget amendment for Storey Park
improvements for the not to exceed amount of 1,344,860 dollars.
Zaremba: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 4. Any discussion
from Council? Madam Clerk.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea;
Cavener, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
De Weerd: Thank you. Item 5 is our budget workshop continues. I will ask
Finance if they have any comments at this point.
Kilchenmann: We are good at this point, so we will just go ahead and let Public
Works begin.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, then, I will turn this over to our Public Works Director
Tom Barry. I just will note, I have a 2:00 o'clock soccer game that we hope we
are done then.
Barry: I think you may want to see if you can get that rescheduled, Madam
Mayor. We could be here a while.
De Weerd: It will show up in your evaluation.
Barry: Oh, great. Just one more thing. All right. Good morning, Mayor and
Council Members. It's our pleasure -- my pleasure, I should say, to present to
you the Fiscal Year '15 proposed Public Works budget. But before we do I
wanted to run you through a couple of slides that showcase, essentially, how we
put our budget together, the approach that we took and, essentially, put in
context what the requests are we have before you.
De Weerd: And, Tom, just know next year you go first.
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
Page 4 of 41
Barry: Fantastic.
De Weerd: We will do Enterprise Fund before General Fund.
Barry: That will put you in a better mood.
De Weerd: Giving you a heads up.
Barry: All right. Okay. Here is the overview of what we have for you today.
Essentially, we are going to talk very briefly about the Enterprise Fund and some
of the peculiarities and basics about the fund. Briefly go through a couple of
highlights for departmental accomplishments and challenges and speak also
briefly about a budget process to give you some idea as to what kind of thought
and what kind of approach was taken in the development of our budget and,
then, finally we will propose the budget enhancements and be open for questions
about the base budget and, then, be open for questions and discussion at the
end. I don't think this will take the full time that we have allotted for today. Most
of our amendments — or, excuse me, I should say enhancements are pretty
straightforward, but, nonetheless, it's good to have that time. There are some
differences and this is mostly for the new council members and also for the
viewing public. There is some major differences between the General Fund and
the Enterprise Fund. The General Fund, principally, the funding sources there
are taxes, whereas the funding sources primarily for the Enterprise Fund are,
essentially, civil services. So, water and sewer sales and also connection fees
for water and sewer infrastructure. Those are the dominant funding collection
points. Those funds, essentially, in the Enterprise Fund are restricted to the use
of the assets and the infrastructure by which that was funded through the
collection of rates and connection charges. So, we can't share between General
Fund and Enterprises Fund. We have to keep the funds in the Enterprise Fund
intact and they are only to be spent on Enterprise Fund activities. It is possible,
however, to pay General Fund monies and subsidize Enterprise Fund activities.
We have not done that, nor are we proposing to do that. But those are just some
nuances between the funds. Very quickly a couple of accomplishments that we
want to run you through. I'm going to use the modified balance scorecard, which
is what we have used for a couple of years now to highlight the major areas of
function for the department and the first one being financial and these are
highlights. You know, we will see you in October and go through a much more
thorough discussion of the accomplishments and challenges we have in our
strategic focus presentation to you as I say in October. But, essentially, we have
done a lot of good things in the last fiscal year up to this point in time and one of
the things, of course, we did on the financial side was to do a really robust rate
model update. We have been able now to get the rate model to project ten years
and we have also been able to incorporate some depreciation calculations into it.
But as you will find later in our presentation, the rate model that we used, which
is a glorified Excel spreadsheet, is really becoming difficult to manage with all
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
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these additional inputs and so you will see a little bit later on another slide that
while the rate model may work for us and it does a good job for us at this point in
time, is also a challenge in getting it to do more going forward. Plus putting
together our fiscal year 2015 budget, that's a huge accomplishment with about a
30 million dollar budget and there is a lot that goes into it. Operationally asset
management, the asset management program has really blossomed. We are
able to bring asset management to the water division and add an additional
17,000 assets over the last 13 months, which we are very, very proud of. In
water quality we have done many pilots operationally to evaluate the efficacy of
iron and manganese improvements to the drinking water wells. We are pleased
with that. And that has led to some of the enhancements that you will see, which
is the request for installation of those water quality treatment methods or
mechanisms into a couple of the wells around the city. Of course you all are
familiar with the Meridian Heights Water and Sewer District and the enormous
work and I think success that we have been able to achieve in working with a
number of different partners on that. The wastewater treatment plant has been
undergoing improvements since, essentially, 1977 when it was located in its
current location. We continue to make improvements. We could go through a
long list of those improvements, but I will spare you the pain of doing that.
Strategically we have been continuing to move to more preemptive and proactive
approach, both legislatively, dealing with irrigation issues. You know, we have a
master agreement now, which has really alleviated years worth of problems that
we have had and we have also improved our relationship with the Nampa -
Meridian Irrigation District and Settlers Irrigation Districts as well. Project
managementwise, we have also been improving there. We have a little bit more
ways to go. But the process schedules and budgets have been improved. I
know that some of the staff are still frustrated by some of the processes we have
and how those processes, essentially, work into or against some of the
technology we use to track and manage projects and those are some of the
challenges that we will be addressing over the next short term as well. But yet a
lot of good work is happening in that area. On a customer standpoint we have
done a lot of outreach to automotive, printers, dental offices and the like with
regard to a pollution prevention program. We have done outreach to the general
community through a couple of different animations. You have seen the
wastewater animation. The water one and Republic Services partnership that we
did for solid waste are in production right now and should be available hopefully
within the next month or so. And the water quality management, again, this goes
back to iron and manganese treatment as it relates to customers and also the
utilization and prenotification and the quick response that we have to brown
water calls that we get. So, some of the operational changes that we have made
have allowed for us to reduce brown water calls over the years and in particular
when we know that we have a high demand, say, for example, of Roaring
Springs, we have a relationship with — by which they will give us a ring and tell us
when they want to fill up their pools for the start of the summer and we will
shutdown certain wells that might have a little bit more iron and manganese in it,
reroute the water that comes from better water quality sources and fill their pools
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
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accordingly. So, those types of things are very important to us and help keep
customers happy. On the employee front our -- we did an employee satisfaction
survey last March or so and the results of that have led to a number of different
improvements in the department, which have been good. One of the areas that
was important to our staff with relationship to the compensation program, which
was important to ironically staff across the city and, of course, to the City Council
and the Mayor and so we have worked diligently with the direct — or I have
worked diligently with some of the directors of the other departments and the
Finance director, the Mayor, and also our Human Resources director are pleased
with the compensation program that we were able to develop late last year and
institute. We have done a skills assessment. That is about a 40 to 50 point
check. The skills and capabilities of our staff. That's been deployed
departmentwide. That skills assessment has now allowed as to tailor the types
of training that staff should be receiving in order to remain confident in their work.
Instead of just broad-based training that kind of covers everybody as a large net,
we have been able now to, essentially, tailor the types of training that we would
like staff to achieve and make a part of their work plans, so that we can, as a
collective whole, more strategically move the competency of our staff in the
direction that is in alignment with the vision for the department. Safety training
has been one area that we have also put quite a bit of resources to at this point
in time. About 98 percent of the entire department has been OSHA trained and
certified in a ten hour OSHA safety course. That's in addition to all the other
safety courses that are offered in the operational side of our department, like
confined space, you know, fiber training and so on and so forth. And, then, we
have developed an onboard program and plan that we now have begun to deploy
with new positions. This plan is like a 30-60-90 day plan that sets up our staff
when they joined the city to be as successful as possible. It points them in the
direction of relationships that they should be developing, in procedures,
processes and policies that they should be researching and gives them a leg up
right from the very beginning on how to become successful as soon as they can
in their position and that's proving to be very valuable as well. We have a
number of challenges. Of course, the utility rate model I mentioned before is a
struggle for us, because it has been difficult and cumbersome, time consuming,
and laborious to manage, just because of the number of the inputs that we have
and length of time it takes us to change one and redo all of the different data. It's
not dynamic from that standpoint that we would like to see. Also NPDES
implementation, we have talked to you a couple times about that. Implementing
the improvements that are being mandated from the federal government are a
challenge for us. The utility billing software program, selection, and
implementation is also a challenge for us. We are working closely with the
Finance Department staff and Water Division and Public Works engineering, so
that we have as much functionality as we can on that particular program and that
it satisfies as many different user bases as we can. And, then, future funding of
the capital, infrastructure, and replacements. This is depreciation financing. This
is going to remain a challenge for us, particularly as we embrace the NPDES
challenges and have to postpone some of the long-term planning and strategy
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
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that we think is important for positioning our department for the bubble that's
going to come with regard to growth in the form of infrastructure. The good news
there is that we have 20 to 30 years before that bubble really hits us. So, we do
have some time there. But that is a challenge that we would like to begin to
address in the near future. Operationally, managing growth is a challenge. We
are, you know, the tenth fastest growing community in the nation, so I read in one
of the national papers recently. Our NPDES, again, and operations, both
financially, but in operations is going to be a challenge. SCADA system
improvements. This is supervisory control and data acquisition. These are the
telemetry systems that we utilize to manage all of the infrastructure, essentially,
that we have in Public Works. That is enormous. You will hear a lot more about
that today. Asset management, while successful to date, is still in its infancy.
There are a lot of -- there is still a lot of work to be done on the asset
management side, but there has been a lot of very valuable information and
outcomes that have been associated with the asset management program and
you will hear a little bit more about that, too. Inventory management is still in its
infancy stage, so we have got quite a bit of work to do there. Formalize a
program and make that program -- prove that program up, so that we can
maximize the benefits of an inventory management and maintenance program.
On the customer satisfactory side, while we are making progress on iron and
manganese control, it's still an issue for us and so we still continue to address
that on a monthly basis. Water treatment plant -- wastewater -- excuse me.
Wastewater treatment plant odor control, still an issue. It's becoming a bigger
issue. You may recall -- or might remember that the treatment plant was located
in the mid 70s out in the middle of nowhere and since then we have had quite a
bit of development that's occurred. Most recently the Isola Creek -- I think what
we are calling now Ballano Creek or Ballano Subdivision, which is immediately
downwind of the wastewater treatment plant. We anticipated probably getting
more calls as people move in and realize after they have purchased their homes
where they have moved. Strategically, we -- as we do every year, we know there
will be challenges at the legislative front. Particularly with regard to water issues.
Our strategic plan update has been postponed and our departmental
accreditation activities have also been postponed as we had 50 vacancy rate in
our executive team and so we just couldn't move that work forward until just very
recently when we filled those two positions. So, we are excited, would like to get
through this budget process and, then, began that work again. And, then, on the
employee front, you know, staffing levels, you know, making sure that we are
guiding growth and meeting that growth with appropriate staffing levels, not just
growing staff too quickly, not growing staff too slowly. That's always a challenge.
And, then, of course, recruitment and retention are challenges for us as well in
the fact that we have a very, very, very difficult time finding high quality
candidates for many of our positions. So, workforce development has become
increasingly important for us and I'm sad to say that we have not made as much
progress as I would personally like to see in that area along the lines of
secession planning and workforce development, but we have made progress.
So, we have listed that as a continued challenge.
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
Page 8 of 41
De Weerd: Well -- and, fortunately, you have hired only the best, so --
Barry: We are fairly picky about that. Thank you, Mayor. We do hire the best.
De Weerd: Right?
Barry: Thank you. I wanted to touch now briefly on the budget process overview
for us. You know, most of you know this is a long, painful process for most
departments. We are not excluded from that. The Finance Department did a
really nice job in laying out all the rules and the calendar dates and all of those
types of things. So, this just enumerates very briefly some of the activities that
have gone on. But I think what's really most important here is to remind the City
Council that there is an awful lot of thought, discussion, deliberation, dialogue
that occurs during this budget process and I think you know and appreciate that,
but we don't come unprepared or alternatively asking for things that have not
been thoroughly vetted through a number of different processes and channels.
One of the things our budget incorporates is this notion of working the plan. We
have a dozen or more plans that guide what we do in the Public Works
Department. I won't list all those plans out, but some of the general categories
are listed here. We utilize those plans to make sure that the direction this
department is going is the direction that the community and the City Council want
it to go and so we are in alignment -- this budget is in alignment with these plans
and is, essentially -- this budget, essentially, deploys the continuation of those
plans. So, I just wanted to make sure that we were clear that those particular
plans which are used don't just sit on the shelf, they are actually incorporated into
the budget request and that those budget requests are what, in part, you will see
today. So, we have an approach that we take in Public Works when we put our
budget together and it, essentially, is numerated here. These are in no particular
priority, but they are important for us in the consideration of the budget
development process. So, our budget should incorporate all of these aspects is
what we strongly feel and it does. We should meet current regulatory and safety
requirements, preserve product, service, and quality area and delivery levels,
adequately protect and maintain the infrastructure that we currently have, follow
our plan by instituting measured expansion of assets and infrastructure, continue
to use the just -in -time capital financing approach, utilize our technological
resources where we can to maximize efficiencies, sufficient funds and deploy
workforce training strategies, which allow us to invest in the staff, which are the
most important assets that we have in our department. Incorporate performance
based budgeting principles. This is not necessarily performance based
budgeting from the technical standpoint, but many of the principles of
performance based budget are excluded in the development of this. Maximize
our operational efficiencies and focus on cost avoidance strategies and ask for
only for what is needed. Maybe I should pause there for just a second to say that
this budget has been heavily cut. You won't see eight enhancements totaling 1.8
million dollars, because the executive team has already vetted them out. Those
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
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are needs that we have as a department, but they are not the highest needs in
consideration of all the other needs that this department has. So, about 16
percent of the requests were denied right through the vetting process. So, I want
to make that clear. And, of course, we want to empower our budget stewards,
because it is them, our division managers, that are responsible for executing and
implementing this budget and for being responsible and reasonable in its
development. So, our strategy is consistent with the rate model. We have talked
with you about rates. You know where we stand on rates. This model -- or,
excuse me, this budget is consistent with the rate model that we have developed.
It also continues with the pay-as-you-go strategy. It also accommodates
impending regulatory requirements. It includes an investment management of
our budget processes to ensure that we are maximizing efficiencies, reducing
costs wherever we can as well and it has some consideration for depreciation
eligible assets. You will see that we are still continuing to replace and repair
existing infrastructure. We don't have a ton of that, because a lot of that
infrastructure that we are replacing or repairing is, you know, 50 or more years
old. And, then, finally, we are still continuing to focus on continuous process
improvements. With vetting these budgets get many, many eyes. Obviously, the
Mayor and Council have been instrumental. Finance Department. Our Public
Works executive team and our strategic leadership team and many key staff
have put a lot of time and effort into the development of this budget. So, I
wanted to thank and recognize each of them. I wont read the list, but you see it
before you here. So, let's talk a little bit about a proposed budget and we will do
a comparison here of last year's adopted and this year's proposed budget,
because there are a couple differences. First of all, the budget that was
requested and adopt the last year was about 30 million dollars. This year our
budget is about 27.8 million. These numbers don't include inter -fund transfers
and a couple other incidentals, by the way. Essentially, you will see a growth in
personnel operations and maintenance and you -- you will get to hear that is
occurring and what the requests are today. Many of which are regulatory driven,
as we haven't been talking to you about for some time. The number of
enhancements is increasing, but their dollar value is decreasing from last year to
this year. You will see that in the next slide here. And replacements are holding
about the same for the most part. So, here is the enhancements I just spoke
about and this is a number of enhancements back to 2010, along with their dollar
value. So, in the fiscal year'15 we are proposing about 43 enhancements. So,
the largest number of enhancements over the last period, but a reduction in the
overall value of those enhancements, which is good news. So, a lot more to do,
unfortunately, not a whole lot, at least in this particular budget, with regard to -- I
mean there are some pricey enhancement, but not as pricey collectively as we
were dealing with last year. To give you a sense of where we are in the
Enterprise Fund from a revenue standpoint, the bars represent, essentially, total
revenue. The blue line represents at the top there utility sales. This is a sale of
water and sewer services and, then, the orange or -- orangish pinkish line there
at the bottom represented assessments. We did project FY -14. We were under
in our projection at the start of the year. We have recalculated that based on
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July 9, 2014
Page 10 of 41
year to date and also projection to the next two and a half months and you can
see that we are trending pretty nicely here with regard to the Enterprise Fund
revenue. So, with that we will get into our fiscal year '15 enhancements. You will
hear from a number of staff today. As I say we are empowering our budget
stewards, so I will be asking them to make presentations in their particular areas.
First off you're going to hear from our brand new business operations manager
Mr. Mike Pepin. I think you have met him off and on, but I will have him come up
and introduced himself and, then, he will run through the first couple
enhancements and, then, we will pass it off to the next staff.
De Weerd: Thank you, Tom. Welcome, Mike.
Pepin: Well, good morning, Madam Mayor, Council Members. I appreciate your
time and really excited to be here today. Quite frankly, because business
operations division -- supports all the divisions across Public Works, so two of the
enhancements that we are going to be posing and presenting today -- they are
not just about the business operations division, because we support all of the
divisions across Public Works, so they will have an impact across the whole
department. So, I wanted to provide that today to give you a little bit about where
we are coming from with these enhancements. The two enhancements that I will
be referring to today are an addition of an asset management analyst, which is,
obviously, a resource in personnel. The second one, which Mr. Barry
commented on briefly, was a rate model upgrade. The purpose of the asset
management analyst will enable us to optimize and manage the utility assets and
meet the increasing demands and requirements associated with the utility assets
that we currently have. A few duties that this position will be responsible for.
They will be able to proactively manage asset life cycles, provide customer
service and support, perform QAQC functions, identify additional critical assets --
and I will get to those additional critical assets shortly. Conduct work order
management. Maintain preventive maintenance schedules, which is very
important for both of our utilities. Provide repair and replacement savings
strategies and conduct end user training to our sole database, which runs our
asset management program and it's called Hansen. So, if I refer to that again,
that's the asset database that takes care of all of our assets and provides
preventive maintenance schedules and things along those lines. A little bit of
history really quick. The department was compelled to actively manage our
assets nearly seven years ago and since we have found a great success,
especially through wastewater and, then, have since moved into water. We have
23,000 assets identified within the wastewater division and anticipate adding
nearly 30,000 more. The success from wastewater, as I mentioned, has moved
into water and as Mr. Barry has commented, we have identified 17,000 assets
within water and anticipate adding potentially 64,000 more. Those aren't just
assets that you can potentially touch, but they are also services that go along
with maintaining scheduled maintenance of those assets. With our estimated
valuation of both utilities at nearly 600 million dollars -- and that's a large number,
but that's if the utilities went away tomorrow and we had to build them from the
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
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ground up. So, we take that approach when we are talking about asset
management and evaluation of our utilities. So, adding another resource in
terms of the personnel to this program will reduce vulnerabilities of the program
and maintain a level of support vital to the utilities and their longevity. The impact
that this position will have on the program will be felt immediately. Having a
backup to the administrator of the Hansen database that I mentioned earlier is
really important to us. Currently we only have one individual serving as the
administrator of that program and when she's not available the heart and soul of
asset management just runs, it doesn't improve. So, we see ourselves a little bit
vulnerable in that aspect. We want to conduct more QAQC what we have in the
system. As you all know, the better the data the better the work. We are not
able to provide those functions right now, because we don't have another
resource to QC all of those assets that are in our system. We want to improve
customer service and support. As I mentioned, we are providing support for two
divisions now, but we have one individual splitting her time. We want to provide
concurrent support at both divisions simultaneously and overlapping, so that we
don't miss anything. We want to increase productivity, which improves efficiency
and reduces redundancy. Perform work order management. We average nearly
1,000 work orders a month across both utilities and we feel by adding this
position it will enable us to increase the support to those work orders. Provide
end user training. Our database Hansen is currently going through an upgrade
and, as I mentioned previously, we have one individual providing that training
and, by the way, she's been out for the last couple of days with the flu and we
have some training scheduled, so that came to a halt. And, finally, this position
will assist in identifying the conditions of assets, which, in turn, allows for efficient
cost decisions to be made and, as you know, that saves the time and money.
So, as you have heard, this position is critical to our asset management program.
We would appreciate your support and I would be happy to answer any
questions you may have on this enhancement right now.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Just one. Mike, does the work order -- 1,000 work orders a month, do
those originate from this position and the systems that are being maintained by
it?
Pepin: Madam Mayor, Council Member Borton, the answer is yes. They are
generated from that system. Take a piece of equipment and you input all the
data that goes along with that piece of equipment and it generates the scheduled
work order.
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Borton: The current position is doing --
Pepin: The current position is doing all of that. We do have some support in
terms of a data entry that -- we are utilizing another individual, who is an
administrative assistant helping with data entry, but the back end of that entire
database falls on one individual.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: First of all, welcome to your first budget workshop
Pepin: Thank you.
Rountree: We're in good shape. Just to get the information out, I'm going to ask
you to define asset as you have described it here by using examples, because I
know it's more than just things and pieces, parts, as you alluded to, but what --
what is -- give us an array of what those assets might consist of.
Pepin: Well, if you take the Water Division specifically, it goes from the well to
the house, meter cans, the pipes themselves, the pumps -- booster pumps, the
wells themselves and when you talk about a well you're not just talking about one
piece of equipment that goes down however many feet the well is, you're talking
about every single component that gets the well from above the ground where
the motor is, all the way down to where the water is. All those items in there
have a shelf life or what we like to refer to as a life cycle and asset management
is really about managing life cycles of equipment and their schedules, so that we
are proactive rather than reactive on when things need to be replaced, serviced,
maintained and things along those lines. So, that's one example. Another
example from the wastewater perspective would be anything that has to do with
the plant that needs to be replaced or maintained, you know, there is -- and, you
know, that is very many individual processes out at the wastewater treatment
plant. We have all of those within our asset management database to provide all
those records and maintenance for our maintainers and operators so they can
perform those things to keep our assets running healthy and properly. I don't
know if that answers your question.
Rountree: That's what I was after, so people can get a sense of what -- what all
is entailed.
Pepin: Absolutely. Thank you for that question.
De Weerd: Any other questions at this point?
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Bird: I have none.
Pepin: The other enhancement that the business operations position is seeking
and proposing -- and Mr. Barry, as I mentioned previously, mentioned it already,
was an upgrade to our rate model. In 2008 the department established an
internal rate model tool that enabled us to assist and establish the utility rates.
Despite a series of upgrades and enhanced functionality, we feel our current tool
does not align with the demands and requirements of our growing utilities. It's
not robust enough to fully assist with planning and forecasting financial
requirements. It's dynamic, by which I mean it doesn't account for fluctuations,
and changes in business. As you have heard, it's a bear to manage. It's
cumbersome and time consuming. It's essentially an Excel database program on
steroids that we have a hard time managing. The purpose that we are looking for
-- we want a tool that will project rather than predict. Contain strategic content.
Establish a baseline for long-term decisions and over -manipulation of
assumptions, build the scenarios for consideration, and to provide annual models
to allow for fund gap analysis comparisons and even account for seasonality.
The impact, much of the cost associated with what we are asking for in this
enhancement will go towards bringing a consultant on board. We are going to
charge that consultant with conducting a needs assessment, evaluating user
requirements, performing gap analysis on what we have now and what we need
in the future to help us. Gather model tool options to purchase. Integrate our
data. Test the tool. Train users. And, then, obviously, implement to use.
Accuracy of utility rate -- excuse me -- utility rates is vitally important and a new
rate model tool will enable reliable forecasting and stronger stability of our rates.
And, again, I appreciate your support on this and will take any questions that you
may have.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
Pepin: Well, Madam Mayor, Council Members, I appreciate your time and
kindness today and I would like to welcome Mr. Dale Bolthouse. He is our
deputy director of operations.
De Weerd: Also known as Bruce. Only on the south side of 1-84, though. And
we will field questions, Bruce, at the end of your items, unless Council might
have some --
Bolthouse: That would be fine. Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council
Members. I, too, appreciate the opportunity to address you this morning. You
are looking at my single and only slide today.
De Weerd: There you go.
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Bolthouse: It might keep us on the schedule for that 2:00 o'clock soccer. I am
very pleased to join you here as a representative of -- as your deputy director of
utility operations over water and wastewater divisions and although I have a
relatively short tenure here with the city and the government operations, I do
bring with me 25 plus years of overall operations experience and I hope that in
time I can continue to inject that into the organization. One thing, though, that is
common, not only in our processes here, but through all of the other budget
presentations that I have been through is that they are time consuming, they are
challenging, and so we are right there with the rest of the world in terms of our
process here at the city. But that's not all bad. It yields the kinds of results that
move -- move us forward in a manner that we would like it to. I have been very
pleased to have the opportunity in my first few months to take the time to observe
what makes up some of the strong culture within the operations group and that
includes a variety of items. It is not limited to, but, you know, a real dedication to
the development of the professional and well-trained staff. It is very favorable to
other top notch organizations that I have been associated with and the city has
done a very good job in investing in its people. As many of you have seen as
you have had the opportunity to tour the facilities through -- as recently as the Go
With The Flow tour, we can all take just great pride in the facilities and how they
have been maintained and the infrastructure. That's very, very important. I think
it reflects the financial and responsible stewardship that you have given us in
managing those -- those facilities. Very excited about the appetite for continuous
improvement. That really is one of the key factors that enticed me to the city was
that drive to always look for ways of doing things better, not accepting the status
quo. That creates an exciting environment and offers us the opportunities to look
for more efficient operations, more effective operations. And one that's kind of an
underlying theme of today is we talk about, you know, the concept of SCADA and
asset management and things is it does have a very strong desire to improve our
manufacturing and management information systems and the ability to
communicate that to the folks who need it. As this department and our utilities
grow, it's becoming increasingly difficult for us to keep our arms around that
operation and that's only going to become more challenging if we don't invest in
those tools and automation that allow us to -- to do that. So, you know, all of
these base characteristics that I have observed I believe have served the city
well and will continue to be a part of the foundation of our efforts going forward.
As I step back just -- and look at the overall budgeting process, one of the things
that I look for is making sure that we are, indeed, having a balanced approach to
investing in many of the critical operational functions in operations. Things that
have already been touched on in some of the previous comments, but include,
you know, making sure that we are improving our customer service and
consumer confidence. Incorporating investment in the personnel and the
processes of which we managed. Meeting those ever increasing and always
important growth objectives and improving our reliability of the services that we
are providing. Obviously, meeting the intensifying requirements brought on by
regulatory compliance and although we are seeing and hearing a lot about the
wastewater side, some brief exposure I'm getting to the water world suggests
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that that is on the horizon as well for us. And as mentioned earlier, providing
investment for operating efficiencies and the effectiveness of what we are doing
and implementing the command and control requirements, so that we have better
information. So, I believe that the budget and the enhancements presented
today by the operations team represent a good balance against those
dimensions and will continue to build, you know, upon the past efforts and allow
us to continue to strive towards our Public Works mission. So, with that at this
time I would like to introduce Tracy Crane and Clint Dolsby. They are going to go
ahead and walk us through today's budget enhancements for the wastewater
division. Thank you for you time.
De Weerd: Thank you, Dale.
Crane: If I can figure out how to use this. Madam Mayor, Members of the
Council, good morning. It's great to be with you. We will get the -- right off the
top we are the expensive division I guess. I get to the pleasure of presenting the
majority of our -- of our --
De Weerd: Expensive and cause us a lot of concerns.
Crane: Yes. I'm sorry to hear that. We, essentially, have 20 enhancements
totaling about ten million dollars and we will go through each one of them in a
little bit more detail and stand for questions at the end. Our first enhancement is
the NPDES elimination system compliance plans. So, as you're aware we have
received a pre -draft copy of our new permit and compliance activities are
featured prominently throughout our enhancement request this year. This
enhancement funds some studies that will look at our treatment capability and
help develop a longer-term compliance plan that will both help us figure out how
to manage growth and choose treatment technologies. These early design
studies are purposely put in the front of the capital upgrades, so that they can
feed the information into and, hopefully, help us make the most cost-effective
decisions that we can. The plans and studies -- the information that comes out of
this will be a critical to help us balance the needs to increase capacity and meet
the new strict nutrient limits. Also serves in coordination with that and the rate
model are the -- this enhancement is seeking funding for a financial evaluation
plan. This would be, essentially, an in-depth look at the financial evaluation of
the wastewater utility and the capital improvement plan. Now, with the initial
compliance estimates at over 150 million dollar range, this enhancement would
proceed in conjunction with that to help make sure that accurate funding is in
place and also that the funding comes from the right source. For example, that
growth pays for growth. Our next enhancement is a first year of a two year Just-
in -time finance project that would include the design and construction of side
stream nitrogen removal process and a centrate equalization tank. The
dewatering process and centrate that comes out of it, essentially, accounts for
about 25 percent of the total nitrogen load to our facility. It's a very concentrated,
relatively small stream and it's most cost effective to treat it in the small stream.
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If we don't treat it in side stream, we have to treat it in the main part of the plant,
which means that our secondary systems, our aeration basins and our secondary
clarifiers get 25 percent larger, so it's more expensive the longer term to treat this
nitrogen load in the main part of the plant. So, the next -- the next enhancements
are for laboratory positions. Continuing with our compliance theme here. Our
new NPDES permit that we have seen -- roughly the testing that's in there will
quadruple. Just to give you an example, it contains 121 limits, constituents and
plans. If you want to put that in perspective, the permit we are running under
today contains 32 constituents, limits, and plans. Surface water sampling out at
the river will increase from four sites weekly from zero right now, which we don't
have to do. These new limits require highly technical specialized equipment and
methods to perform. We have consulted with both EPA and DEQ and our
current understanding is that monitoring for these new parameters will have
numerical limits, will be required to begin as soon as the permit becomes
finalized, which right now, if everything keeps going down the path, could be as
early as November. I should also mention that when we add technology at the
facility process testing increases, so operations can get the data to make sure
that the process is working. Just to give you an example, we recently this last
month started up our fermentation product -- project, excuse me, and the
laboratory staff was asked to perform 26 additional tests each week and the test
provides the necessary data to operations, so that folks can make sure that the
process is operating efficiently. Also the addition of these positions will allow our
staff to be -- our lab to be staffed seven days a week up from the current five
days a week and allow that information to flow through the weekends as well.
The next enhancements we will address are the operator positions. We are
requesting two full-time operator positions, largely due to the combination of
utility growth and increasing regulatory oversight. As you can see from the
pictures our utilities just continue to grow. Since 2006 we have experienced 22
percent growth in sewer pumps. We have completed in 60 capital projects with a
cost in excess of 55 million dollars. In that time the plant has increased in
technology, complexity, and size. We have increased the treatment capacity.
We have done a solid stream expansion, a liquid stream expansion. Added
biological nutrient removal. A Class A reclaimed water program, as well as
fermentation, just to name a few of the projects. And to give you an example, the
fermentation process alone added an additional 135 assets and 102 additional
valves to our facility. Also I'd like to say we rock around the clock. Our facility
runs 24/7/365. It has to run all the time. It's currently staffed 18 hours a day,
seven days a week, by a staff of just six operators and two leads. Construction
also presents a challenge for our operations team. As you might imagine, the
plant must stay running all the time and so we have to -- as we construct and
build new things operations has to be consulted, we have to work closely with
engineering and contractors to make sure that the plan can stay running all the
time. We are pretty proud of ourselves over the last eight or ten years of keeping
up with the 60 million -- or the 55 million dollars in a capital growth. With the
production planned to double, we are going to need some more operational of
oversight of those construction activities. The next enhancement is divided into
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two parts. The first part is requesting a -- two additional collection staff and a
CCTV -- a closed circuit television inspection camera for our sewer. The CCN
information is used to establish conditions assessment of sewer line and,
essentially, serves as the backbone of the entire O&M program for the collection
system. Essentially, how it works is you do a five year inspection schedule, you
get a baseline, so for the first five years we are inspecting and creating a
baseline of our entire collection system and, then, the next five year cycle you
compare the change in asset to the baseline and you can either elongate O&M
schedules or shorten them based on what you see. If you look at the graph
there, our CCN program, our entire in-house collection program has been in-
house for -- next year it will be its fifth year of operation and we are only about 65
to 70 percent of the way done with the initial baseline assessment. So, two
things that primarily slowed that down. One is service connections -- 29,000 plus
service connections, each one we are responsible to maintain if it falls in the right
of way of the road. So, what our CCTV folks have to do is as the camera goes
down the line it has to stop at every single service connection and note it's
location from the manhole and it will look and it will say it's 27 feet, you know, at
3:00 o'clock, here is a service connection, and also grades the pipe using a
standard PACP pipe assessment condition assessment rating as it goes through
it. The second thing is growth has slowed us down. In the last five years 37 and
a half miles of new sewer line -- or eight and a half months worth of additional
work at our current rate have been added. Estimates put the value of our
collection system infrastructure well over a hundred million dollars, most of which
is located underground. In addition to these resources it will allow us to stay on
target with the collections program objectives and keep pace with utility growth.
The second part of this enhancement is to fund additional camera equipment and
an easement cleaner. Our current camera equipment has been in continuous
operation for over four years, as you might imagine, in a very harsh environment.
Updating the camera equipment was -- provides advanced -- new and advanced
imagery and also improved -- excuse me -- improved reliability. The second part
of the enhancement is to purchase a sewer easement cleaning machine that you
see on the picture. It has a little red circle. I say it looks like a bomb robot or
something, but you see from the pictures of our stock cleaner truck there --
De Weerd: It might be.
Crane: It could be -- and maybe it's dual purpose. There are many sewer lines
located in easements and along creeks and alleys that our big truck just cannot
get into. If you see -- as you can see from some of the pictures. We have 16
miles of sewer lines that are easements that currently right now are a challenge
or impossible for us to access with our current equipment. So, the purchase of
this easement cleaner will give us the capability to go in there and clean those
easements that are located. Now, this won't solve all of our issues surrounding
easements, but it will improve our emergency response and our ability to
maintain those compliance. The next enhancement is the second of a three year
just -in -time project to expand the ultraviolet disinfection system. Currently right
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now we have -- our UV system is in two channels, each channel has seven and a
half million gallons a day of disinfection capacity. However, if we have to do
maintenance on a channel you close that channel off, you lose half of your
capacity. This is a problem. Our channels are normally drained and cleaned and
inspected on at least an annual basis. This is a problem for us and we can only
do this in the middle of the night right now, because you cannot get a -- when we
close that channel off and we only have seven and a half MGD of disinfectant
capacity, our peak flows so far for 2014 is 10.16. So, essentially, also are UV
system represents one of our lowest unit processes and that's how they rate the
plan based on unit processes. So, no matter what we do in the future with
treatment technology, disinfection is always required and it will need to be
expanding anyway. So, this project here will address the UV channel
maintenance issue and expand the system for future growth. And with that I will
turn to Mr. Allison.
Allison: Apparently Bruce forgot I had a slide as well. So, this enhancement is
for the construction of our new wastewater maintenance shop. The current
facility -- or the current structure we have out there is the top picture. It's
approximately 1,600 square feet. We have three bays, only one of which is
actually able to be utilized. The other two are completely full of equipment and
parts that are currently being work done. The new facility is under -- the plans
are being reviewed right now in our development services downstairs. The new
facility is 10,000 square feet of usable space on the first floor and, then, a 2,000
square foot mezzanine structure, which will help keep the equipment and other
supplies up away and keep the shop space usable. Right now the plan builds
out -- this is the only facility we have onsite to help maintain and repair pumps
and equipment that need to go down for regular maintenance and things that
may break. So, thank you.
Dolsby: Good morning, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. This next
enhancement is for SCADA system upgrades. You have heard SCADA
mentioned a couple times already during our presentation. I'm going to step
back a little bit and define what SCADA is. The SCADA system, if you look at the
definition, are used to monitor and control equipment at the wastewater treatment
plant, such as pumps, valves, clarifier mechanisms -- the list kind of goes on and
on. And also to control -- monitor and control equipment at remote sites, such as
lift stations. So, this enhancement is part of a multi-year effort to fund the
purchase, design, and installation of upgrades to the SCADA system at both the
base stations, which would be the wastewater treatment plant water division -- it
would be City Hall here shortly, and remove terminals, such as lift stations.
Periodic upgrades to these base stations and remote terminals are required
when they become outdated or obsolete. Notable projects for FY -15 will be an
upgrade to The Landing lift station, so during FY -14 we have -- we are in the
middle of upgrading both the Black Cat lift stations. And a similar enhancement
to this will be presented by the water division. The next enhancement is for plant
PLC replacements. This graphic is meant to illustrate that many of our current
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PLCs at the wastewater plant are older than the cell phone. So, PLCs are
defined as programmable logic controllers. Basically they are digital computers
that are used to automate processes, such as control pumps at the wastewater
treatment plant. Currently we have outdated PLCs that are no longer supported
by the factory at a plant. The PLCs aren't compatible with our new software
platform as well and for year one of a two-year just -in -time finance project that
will fund replacement of the outdated programmable logic controllers. Next
enhancement is for sewer main replacements. This enhancement will fund the
design and construction of sewer lines to replace aging infrastructure in the
sewer collection system. These replacement projects are identified through the
sewer, TV, and cleaning program that Tracy has discussed, as well as through
analysis of the collection system age, condition, material and capacity by the
wastewater division and Public Works technical staff. Notable projects for FY -15
are the third and final phase of the NW 8th Street sewer project. Also this
enhancement is an enhancement that we bring back every year for sewer main
replacements. Next one is for sewer line extensions. This is also an
enhancement that comes back each and every fiscal year. This enhancement
will fund the design and construction of new sewer lines in the collection system.
One major driver for these types of projects is Ada County Highway District, the
ACHD road construction projects. By these improvements the sewer system, in
coordination with road construction projects, the city saves money on pipe
installation by removing the need to restore pavement and pay for traffic control.
Notable projects for FY -15 include the Ten Mile, Cherry to Ustick, road widening
project. This next enhancement is for year one of a three year just -in -time
finance project to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant head works. Now, the
head works at the wastewater treatment plant is the initial treatment process after
the flow goes through the collection system and goes through an influent box
and, then, into the head works and it is designed to reduce the level of pollutants
in the wastewater through screening wastewater and also removing the grit. This
enhancement is part one of a three year project for improvement to the head
works that includes influent flow measurement, pumping, grit removal capacity,
also screening upgrades and this project will increase the firm capacity of the
head works and provide better screening upstream of future nutrient removal
processes, such as the side stream nitrogen removal process that Tracy
discussed and these nutrient removal processes anticipated required for our new
NPDES permit compliance. Next enhancement is part two of a two year project
for a site specific aquifer recharge study. So, the aquifer recharge is defined as
the replenishment of the groundwater supplies by manmade means and in our
case that would be through the use of the reclaimed water system. Currently our
reclaimed water system irrigates a city park, Heroes Park, the Ten Mile
interchange, Fast Eddie's car wash and the wastewater treatment plant
landscaping, but aquifer recharge has a potential to utilize our reclaimed water
resources year around to augment the natural groundwater supplies and it may
or may not allow the city to meet our NPDES requirement at a lower cost than
wastewater treatment plant upgrades to go to Five Mile Creek. So, this
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July 9, 2014
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enhancement will delve deeper into that study and provide answers to those
questions.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Borton: I wanted to interrupt just while you were on that point. How is this study
different than the component of the aquifer recharge that was -- we approved it
this spring that they were going to look at that as one of the additional benefits of
the NPDES compliance. Do you recall that being --
Dolsby: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, I'm trying to recall -- I remember we
had discussed it. We had an enhancement -- not last fiscal -- not this fiscal year,
but in FY -13 that was related to aquifer recharge where we did a business case
evaluation and a study of recharge, but this enhancement is more of a site
specific study where we will head out to a couple chosen pieces of ground and
actually do some drilling and figure out if they are viable for recharge.
Borton: I will find what I was looking for and I will bring it back.
Dolsby: Next enhancement is for generator load banks. So, currently at the
wastewater treatment plant and also at the North Black Cat and South Black Cat
lift station we have generators that are capable of providing full backup power to
those facilities, but the National Fire Protection Association requires that these
generators be exercised monthly under the load. So, the current method at the
plant is to transfer the entire plant load to the generators, which causes two
separate disruptions. First is when we transfer from Idaho Power to the
generators. The second disruption is when we transferred back from the
generators to Idaho Power. But this enhancement will provide the funding to
install external load banks, so the generators can be routinely exercised under
load without transferring the entire plant to this emergency service and it would
also eliminate the power disruptions to the plant's sensitive electronic
infrastructure.
Crane: The next enhancement is the second of a three year project to acquire,
essentially, spare parts, tools, and equipment. The first year we have acquired
most of the tools and equipment that we were looking for. What the plant staff
has done is we have gone through the plant and sort of prioritized equipment and
each one of the unit processes based on criticality and also lead time and due to
the high cost of this equipment to acquire, we have tried to set up a budget
enhancement so that we can acquire one or two pieces of this equipment each
year. This year I think we have two or three pumps that we were looking at and,
essentially, what we do is generally we get this equipment, we put the new
pumps into service, we take the pumps that they were replacing out, service
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them and put them on the shelf in our inventory, so that they are ready if we have
any issues. With that I will turn the last one over to Tom.
Barry: Thank you, Tracy. I'm sad to say Bruce also forgot that I had a slide with
an enhancement on that I need to present. No. We will be talking tomorrow at
8:00 o'clock in my office, so --
De Weerd: As long as you call him Bruce. Probably would as well; right?
Barry: Our last enhancement for the wastewater division is the interpretive
center request. The interpretive center, as you know, is going to serve as an
education outreach facility to promote learning that broadens the public's
knowledge, understanding, and support for Public Works projects, programs,
plans and services. It will target four different audiences. First, it will target
ratepayers by educating them on treatment plant processes, operations,
regulatory treatment requirements, phosphorus reduction, capabilities or
opportunities and the like. It will also target business owners and operators by
informing them about pretreatment requirements, elicit discharges, best practices
and also phosphorus reduction opportunities. It will also educate and inspire
high school students to consider a career in Public Works, something that's
vastly needed in our field. And, lastly, it will aid us as a -- in recruiting talent from
other organizations to join our first-class operation. But consider this. The vast
majority of people have no idea what Public Works is, what we do, or why it's
even important. This makes it difficult garnishing the public support for major
public infrastructure or overcoming future challenges, like the NPDES one that
we have ahead of us. It also makes difficult the recruitment of a replacement
workforce, not just in our industry, but also in our community. This particular
facility has been in conceptual design for the last several months and we have
developed a design team of over a dozen different professionals, which span
university and high school instructors and educators and also incorporates
professionals from other areas, including the Boise River -- or, excuse me, the
Boise watershed. It has helped us to create the content for this particular facility.
Glowing testimonials have already been received from these educators about the
facility and its opportunities that will be brought to our community. The facility in
and of itself is going to include a number of different components in it that I think
will be very informative for our community. It will talk about the history and
importance of sanitation in our lives. It will have a model of the current treatment
plant process, which will be electronic and be queued off of different processes
and educate those on those processes. It will also include the process, value,
and benefits of biological nutrient removal and also reuse. It will talk about the
sustainability of approaches and projects that we have going on at the
wastewater treatment plant. Include wastewater treatment technologies, both
past, present, and future. Include the potable water cycle, water production,
distribution, collection insights. Bio solids, management strategies and
opportunities, environmental sustainability as I have mentioned and careers and
job opportunities in the field. One of the most important comments that we get
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back -- actually a couple of the most important comments we get back from tours
when people go out to the wastewater treatment plant. First of all, I had
absolutely no idea. I had no idea how complex it was, how expensive it was,
what you guys do. And the second is this is really cool. Particularly for the
younger audiences. How do I get involved in something like this. And it's
biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and there is all sorts of disciplines that
are highlighted in the work that we do, but because nobody knows about what we
do, it often goes missed. The American Public Works Association says that
about -- that one of the single biggest crises in our industry is the lack of talent
that's coming out of the schools. The lack of interest and talent. So, we would
like to use this as an option to help change that as well. So, we are excited
about the benefits and opportunities that this facility will create for our community
and our department by showing that what we do is not only cool, but that it
matters. So, with that I will stand for any questions. I and the staff will be able to
address any questions you have on the wastewater division enhancement
request.
De Weerd: Thank you, team. Council, any questions? Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor. Thank you all. I think my question is probably
directed at the Finance Department and I think I have probably asked this same
question every year. For some reason I don't remember the answer, but let me
pick an example. Sewer main replacements. If we make the assumption that in
order to keep the system up to date we need to replace a certain amount of that
every year, let's say we assume it has a 50 year life, we have to replace two
percent of it every year no matter what and my question continues to be why isn't
that base budget instead of enhancement. If we know this is a regular thing and I
know you have answered that question for me before and I'm sorry I don't
remember.
De Weerd: Well, I thought I would let Charlie answer it.
Zaremba: It seems to me it ought to be base budget.
Rountree: It's Todd's turn.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Zaremba, good question. We do talk about
this I think annually. We like to present these annual enhancements, the
waterline -- or for sewer line extensions, the replacements. As a practice to
make sure we are transparent with you as the Council Members and the citizens.
If we start earmarking monies into the budget part of the base ongoing, new
Council Members -- Luke, Genesis, Joe, they would not have known about those
earmarks in prior years. So, this is just a process that helps educate new
employees, citizens, staff members, these are annual requests that we need to
acknowledge, especially capital large items like this. Can you implement a
process, earmark them? Yes, you can. We promote this practice to help with
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transparency with changing of staff, citizens, and that's the primary purpose is
just the practice to be transparent and show the data. Can we do it? Yes. But
this is just what we have promoted here at the Finance Department and we are
open for change if that's requested, but that's the reason we do it.
Zaremba: Thank you. And I will try and remember that.
Rountree: We look forward to hearing it again. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Can you give me a sense of what the streamside nitrogen treatment
equalization consist of?
Crane: Madam Mayor, Councilmember Rountree, essentially -- so, the centrate,
our digesters after the digested sludge goes to a centrifuge, a high speed
centrifuge that separates the liquids and solids. The centrate is the liquid that,
essentially, is sent back around for a treatment at the plant. Very, very strong in
ammonia and phosphorus. About a thousand milligrams per liter of ammonia.
So, extremely strong. And as I said earlier, it represents about 25 percent of the
total load among the load that's coming into the facility. It's about the 60,000
gallons a day right now. To give you some examples that -- so, essentially, that
25 percent of the load, the entire amount of the load on the facility is contained in
a 60,000 gallon side stream. The idea is to treat that side stream, because it's a
relatively small stream and concentrated and knock that ammonia load down
before it hits the plant. What happens in our aeration basin is the conversion of
ammonia is a biological process. There are no chemicals that we use. So, what
happens is you have to size the aeration basins and the secondary system
bigger and bigger based on the ammonia load. So, if we treated this in a smaller
side stream is more cost effective to deal with it there than to make the aeration
system itself bigger to accommodate that ammonia load and, typically, it is
ammonia load that dictates the size of the basin, because it is a biological
process and it takes the longest of all the nutrients that we are removing.
Rountree: Thank you. Makes sense. The CCTV van, that's just an expansion of
our existing operation and a modernization of the equipment on our existing
equipment. That will still remain in service and would function to do the
inspections; correct?
Crane: Madam Mayor and Councilman Rountree, that is correct. We are
seeking to add an additional van and camera and, then, upgrade the existing
one. Essentially we would standardize the equipment between the two as well.
Rountree: The facilities maintenance shop, you didn't say it, but I'm assuming
that's also going to be a warehouse for your spare parts and keeping your
inventory or are you going to expand that facility to some other spot on the site?
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De Weerd: We are not going to forget him twice
Allison: Madam Mayor, Councilman Rountree, we are not planning to house and
store any -- any spare parts here at this time. We had proposed at one point
having a storage facility, but that has been put off until we know what we need to
deal with the NPDES permitting currently.
Rountree: So, I guess my question is where will the storage of these additional
parts take place? In the existing facility or in a new facility or an off-site facility?
De Weerd: This is a team effort
Barry: You bet. Thank you for your question, Councilman Rountree. As a
matter of fact, that request was made this year for an inventory facility and it was
denied until we matured that particular program a little bit more. We didn't want
to invest the money in developing that site. It will be a different building located
at the wastewater treatment center or facility in a different location, so -- and we
have ground that has been sort of designated for that particular facility. We were
going to go into the design phase this year with the request to the Council for
that, but I don't feel comfortable at this point in time in the maturity of the program
to be asking for capital dollars for a design to -- design a facility that we don't yet
know what we really need yet until that program is fully vetted more.
Rountree: Thanks, Tom.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree, anything further?
Rountree: No follow up.
De Weerd: Okay. Mr. Cavener
Cavener: The question is about this -- this interpretive center. One, I applaud
your efforts to engage with the public on information that sometimes is
complicated and over the head of the general public. You touched on some
partnerships with educators and I was curious if you could share what type of
commitments they have made to provide people to come through this facility.
Are we in a if -you -build -it -they -will -come mentality or have we forged
partnerships that we expect to see students coming through here as part of a
regular field trip?
Barry: That's a fantastic question, Councilman Cavener, and I'm going to lean to
Mollie Mangerich as she comes out, but before I will attempt to address a couple
of your questions. The partnerships that we have developed so far in the design
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concept phase include educators from a couple of the high schools around, as
well as Boise watershed personnel and in addition University of Idaho education
personnel. I believe that the notion at this point in time is if you build it they
absolutely will come. Just as an example, the Boise watershed right now
services 14,000 visitors every year. Those visitors are mostly between the age
of, you know, six and about 14. Our particular facility is designed to capture the
older crowd. It is meant for 8th grade and above. That will be, essentially, the
target audience here and with an emphasis on high school and the idea is the
high school curriculum will be adapted in such a way that would allow for field
trips to be included for special high school classes to come out to the wastewater
treatment plant, which is, again, why we included a nice turnaround in the
development of the parking facility out there as well for buses and those types of
things, which has already been predesigned and constructed. I would like Mollie
Mangerich to come up and maybe expand on this. She's our environmental
division manager, so --
Mangerich: Thank you, Tom. Excellent background. So, to answer your
question, Commissioner, we started out with a focus group and we hand picked
and received a lot of interest to become a part of the focus group of Treasure
Valley science teachers, University of Idaho water quality programs. There was
expressed need for a facility that provided a higher technical experiencial
experience to meet the science standards that are currently in place within the
state and that there was a want and a need for the biological, chemical,
engineering, sustainability, social aspects and so we brought those components
in and spoke with them and got feedback with our ideas on what should be
placed in this interpretive center and that's why it's very discretely placed for the
separate target audience which Tom just provided you. What is wonderful -- and
we are receiving a lot of compliments in this -- is that we have been thinking
collectively forward, so that we are actually developing an interpretive center that
is compatible with the very popular Boise watershed facility, which all of our
second graders here in the City of Meridian get to be bused to and tour through
with the help of a grant through Micron. So, there is a lot of interchange,
collaboration and symmetry between both of these facilities that will be net
positive for our Treasure Valley we believe.
De Weerd: So, Mollie, have you pursued a grant through the Micron foundation?
I think they always look for opportunities to promote, you know, the education
components and I would imagine because of the target audience you're looking
at this would be ripe for a grant from them.
Mangerich: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, they are on the list of those who we
would target for assistance and further development, education, and also in
participation.
De Weerd: Very good.
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Mangerich: Really good.
Cavener: One follow up, Mayor. Along those same lines I guess my follow-up
question relates to the -- all these organizations that have indicated a significant
amount of interest in participating, have they been willing to put any -- for lack of
a better word -- skin in the game and help keep this facility funded or are they
really relying on the city to do that job and once it's built, then, they will, then,
send students to come and attend?
Mangerich: The focus group participants were primarily educators, so those are
not the funding target group.
Cavener: Okay.
Mangerich: However, we haven't been in conversation with Department of
Environmental Quality and one of the rooms within the facility is dedicated to the
Meridian water cycle, that's the potable water cycle side. There is some funding
available from their source water protection program. I have met with them and
been in conversations with them. We will have an idea of what a contribution will
be about August.
Cavener: Okay.
Mangerich: So, there is something like that. And, then, there is also a list of the
private sector potentials that could gain benefit from becoming a partner with us
as well.
Cavener: Thank you.
Mangerich: I think it's really important.
De Weerd: Any other questions while we have Mollie up here? Thank you,
Mollie.
Mangerich: All right. Well, thank you.
De Weerd: Any other questions on the wastewater treatment plant
enhancements? Or what are we calling it now? We are not the WWTP
anymore, are we?
Barry: I'm glad that you asked, Madam Mayor. I have been meaning to tell you
that as part of the improvements at the wastewater treatment plant we have been
compelled to develop new signage and we have gone through a long process of
trying to identify what would resonate better and better describe what happens at
the wastewater treatment plant and be in alignment with what the industry
standard terms are and so the wastewater treatment plant, as it has been
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July 9, 2014
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commonly known and endeared for years and years, has been renamed to the
Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility. Now, I know going forward it will
probably --
De Weerd: That doesn't flow. That doesn't flow.
Barry: Yeah. It doesn't flow yet. Give it time. So, the signage that you see on
Ten Mile Road will be -- will enumerate that and it will be called the Wastewater
Resource Recovery Facility, because we feel like it is a resource that we are trying
to recover and that many of the sustainability initiatives like struvite recovery,
which is a slow release fertilizer, that we would like to harvest out of the
wastewater treatment plant. Biosolids, which we would like to do a better job of
reusing the reclaimed water program -- all of these things are recovered from the
wastewater treatment plant as a resource and, therefore, the term makes a lot
more sense.
De Weerd: Charlie had a better idea.
Barry: Oh -oh.
Cavener: The Rountree Resource Recovery?
De Weerd: Well, it's kind of like the bark park.
Rountree: No. The Aquatic Resource Recovery Facility or ARRF.
Barry: ARRF.
De Weerd: See?
Barry: Ouch. Okay.
Bird: ARRF instead of barf.
Barry: Maybe we could put a B in front of that and call it biological.
Milam: There you go.
Barry: All right. Okay. Thank you very much. If there is no further questions I
will introduce the Water Division and their enhancements and I think that we can
be finished and ready for deliberation before noon. So, as some time
management.
De Weerd: No pressure, Dennis. You got that from John. He always brings
props.
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Bird: Visual aids.
Teller: Okay. All right. Well, good morning, Madam Mayor, Members of the
Council. I'd like to thank you for your time today in reviewing the water division's
2015 budget enhancements. In the following Water Division presentation Kyle,
Clint and myself will be going in great detail. A total of 22 individual budget
enhancements for your consideration. The requested Water Division budget this
year totals a little over 4.1 million dollars and is primarily focused on SCADA
system improvements, distribution system improvements, and water quality
projects necessary to improve operations and keep up with our current growing
water system demands and with that I will turn it over to Kyle for our first
enhancement.
Radek: Dennis, if you want to go into your great detail that's your business. I'm
going to cover the important topics. Our first enhancement is our source water
protection program. We are requesting 60,000 dollars ongoing. We have been
requesting enhancements for this program for several years and although our
requested amount has decreased significantly since work began, we are now
requesting this on an ongoing basis, because we continue to have challenges
and opportunities in this area. This work is some of the least expensive and
most important work that we do to insure a viable future for the city water supply.
We have made significant progress lately, including completing our well
database, actively enforcing higher well construction standards in the Meridian
impact area for other people's wells. Completion of a report that documents and
interprets over 17 years of well monitoring data and the acquisition of over 19
cubic feet per second of licensed water rights. Just as an aside, 19 cubic feet is
about 12 million gallons of water a day, which is over our current average day
demand. That is a significant achievement over the last few years, because of
this enhancement. This work endeavors to, number one, understand the quantity
and quality of our water supply resources, protect our water supply from
contamination and insure future access to our water supply. Some of this
enhancement will insure that we continue to complete work that will accomplish
these goals.
Teller: Okay. Enhancement number two, this was a request for the addition of a
lead operator within the distribution section of the water division. The water
division system is made up currently of 450 linear miles of water lines and the
newer infrastructure items, such as fire hydrants and valves. The water system
has grown dramatically over the past decade and has continued to grow at a
substantial rate. We have seen about 22 percent increase since 2006. This
additional system growth has reached a point now that it requires additional
staffing to keep up with our maintenance and repair needs. We currently
maintain 45 fire hydrant, 4,500 valves, 19,000 water services and 29,000 water
meters within our water distribution system. Items such as fire hydrants and
valves need to be serviced individually every four years to insure that they are
operational ready and prepared for emergency use. These activities are
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becoming more and more time consuming and are requiring more staff to assist
with their timely completion and a good example of this is our Dig Line program.
We have recently hired a new staff for that and that program is going very well
with that additional help. As such we are starting to see the same staffing needs
in our repair efforts due to our increased growth and system age. Repair
activities are becoming -- we are beginning to start to fall behind with our limited
staff and we need to try to keep up. Although we have completed over 98 large
system repairs over the past year on fire hydrants, valves, and water lines, we
have an ongoing list of repairs that still need attention. This list will only increase
as our system ages. Currently only two full-time staff are dedicated to complete
these repairs and this new position will provide an additional operator to lead the
staff and assist with these repair activities. Additionally, it will assist our chief
water operator by allowing him to concentrate more time and management on
our growing maintenance program, such as our Dig Line program and valve and
hydrant programs. The addition of a lead operator will improve efficiencies and
timeliness of repair activities that will allow us to keep up and overall assist in
providing a better, more reliable service to our customers.
Worthington: Our next enhancement is for some water system upgrades --
SCADA upgrades this enhancement is for the purchase, installation and
permitting upgrades to the SCADA system both at the water department base
station and remote terminal, including wells, storage facilities, and PRVs,
pressure reducing valves. There are 47 remote sites throughout the city and
these components of these SCADA upgrades consist of PLCs, which are
programmable logic controllers, radios, their cabinets antennas, and ancillary
parts. This request will create improved radio communication, fiber links, and
operational control. Projects under this enhancement will result in upgrades to
the SCADA system to allow for a faster, more reliable and efficient means to
monitor and control water system facilities. This request is a third year of a four
year plan for SCADA upgrades in accordance with our SCADA master plan.
Teller: Okay. Enhancement number four in the amount of 35,000 dollars is for
the purchase of a vehicle gateway base station or what we call a VGB. This
electronic equipment will be utilized by our meter reading staff to remotely
capturer our 29,600 meter reads monthly and upload them into our meter -- or
our billing software. This equipment is required to be fully utilized in the
transmission and data collection capabilities of our replacement water meter
transmitters. The VGB radio system -- reading system will allow for full use of
our new generation transmitters that will now transmit an increased power signal
that will give the operators the ability to capture reads over a larger area. This
will improve our efficiencies by reducing our drive times needed to capture reads
and improve customer service through more detailed usage data. Enhancement
number five in the amount of 50,000 dollars is for the retrofit intelligent chlorine
injection pumps. Injection pumps are essential for critical -- or an essential and
critical component of our water production facilities and we rely on these pumps
to inject chlorine disinfectant in the exact dosages to maintain the adequate
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water system protection. This is our first line of defense to minimize oxidation
reaction that is currently causing iron and manganese problems. That's the large
source of our brown water issues. Our pumps being 20 years old, are reaching
their useful end of life and aren't able to perform as accurately as needed. This
retrofit will work in conjunction with current SCADA system improvements and we
will find not only better accuracy, but critical feedback information, such as
voltage flows, alarming, and operation performance data. These pumps are
more accurate and are more reliable than our existing pumps. With this better
control capability operators will be able to accurately manage chlorine dosages
and will have direct influence on improving the water quality which we deliver to
our customers. Enhancement number six is for the purchase and development
of a conditioned based monitoring software for our SCADA system. With the
recent completion of our phase one asset management plan, we are now
positioned for the incorporation of conditioned based monitoring software. This
software will analyze existing operational data available from our SCADA system
currently and utilize it to automatically monitor and generate repair and
maintenance work orders based on specific operational conditions. Currently this
operational data is captured manually by system operators and physically
entered into our asset system. This method is time consuming to collect data
and enter into our system and this manual data entry is vulnerable to input error
and cannot be collected on a continuous basis that our SCADA system provides.
Data currently can only be collected once daily and requires physical visits to 20
plus well sites. This software will reduce the dependency on our manual site
visits and, more importantly, help predict and alert operators to potential critical
equipment failures based on operational parameters. The software will improve
operations through implementing just -in -time proactive maintenance, which will
free up staff resources needed for the operations of our upcoming water
treatment facilities coming next year. Enhancement number seven in the amount
of 70,000 dollars is for professional services to help assist with the remaining
programming and development of phase two and the start of phase three of our
asset management plan within the water division. With the unique water system
features of Meridian, professional programming assistance is required to ensure
that the development of our asset management system is fully utilized, it's end
user friendly, and functional on a day -in, day -out basis. To give a brief update, it
will help complete the phase one of our asset management plan and it was
completed on time, ahead of schedule, and it captured, as Tom said earlier, over
17,000 water system assets. Currently phase two, which started in March, is
underway and consists of incorporating an additional 29,600 water meters and
service assets. Upon our phase two completion approximately 46,000 assets will
be tracked and maintained within our asset management system.
Radek: Well 16 and pumping facilities is the final construction project necessary
to replace pumping capacity lost with the abandonment of the original Well 16
due to uranium and well construction issues. We have completed a new test well
and two production wells. This project is the first that we have designed
specifically to mix water from two discrete production wells on the same well site
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in order to optimize water chemistry supplied to customers. We are requesting
320,000 dollars to equip the new wells and existing building with public facilities
to get this important water source back online. We are requesting 500,000
dollars for water line extensions for FY -15. Our main water line extension project
for FY -15 will be construction of water line from Black Rock Subdivision to
Reflection Ridge Subdivision to tie these two islands of pressure zone five
together. This will improve water quality and operational flexibility and system
robustness. Development of pressure zone five is also critical for enabling water
distribution to south Meridian. Constructing and adjusting infrastructure in
conjunction with ACHD or ITD road projects in order to minimize cost and
inconvenience to the traveling public continues to be a primary purpose for
waterline extension funds. In FY -15 we have waterline extension work in
conjunction with ACHD Ten Mile Road, Cherry to Ustick, project.
Teller: Enhancement number ten in the amount of 27,000 dollars is for the
purchase and incorporation of a Shore Tel phone system for the water
administration office. This enhancement has been requested to replace the
current phone system and bring it into alignment with the city standard Shore Tel
system. This will provide a more versatile communication connection for our
customers, as well as our staff. This phone system will provide options such as
automatic forwarding, extensions to -- and the connectionability between
departments to handle overflow calls, provide menu options for frequently asked
questions, plus it will provide the necessary communication flexibility required by
the city's emergency response plans and continuance of operation plans. Overall
-- the system will increase overall options and flexibility of our phone system for
better, more versatile operations, while providing the customers a more
convenient and overall better customer experience. Enhancement number 11 in
the amount of 125,000 is for the one time purchase and installation of nonflip
water lid valves within the rights of way with speeds over 35 miles an hour. With
increasing traffic flow over main streets throughout town, more and more water
valve lids are becoming dislodged from the street and causing traffic hazards and
in some case damage to vehicles. The dislodged lids have been an ongoing and
ever increasing challenge to prevent until a recent solution was found in the form
of these new nonslip lids and I have got one of them here as an example. The
new lids are currently made of a composite plastic and they are sealed with
rubber diaphragms to actually hold them into place in the street, so they are not
pulled out by the tires. Previous designs that everybody has used historically are
a cast iron. They weigh about 20 pounds and this is actually the same lid found
in the photo here. When they flip upside down they cause damage -- you end up
with valve lids like this, we get complaints from our customers in the form of
pieces of their rims. So, basically, these lids are a little bit more versatile than
the traditional ones and they reduce damage claims. Additionally, they are going
to be color coded as you can see, so they will identify where our water valves are
and they also act as a debris cap and keep water and silt from entering our valve
cans. When we get the traditional lids anything can just filter in off of the street
and that covers up the actual operating of the valve, so that way when we do
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July 9, 2014
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need it we can access it. This minimizes the time that we need to actually
access the valves in the street and improves the safety of the operators and,
more importantly, reduces the hazards to our public. We have piloted several
hundred of these lids over the past year with no failures and this enhancement
will retrofit all main arterial streets with approximately 3,500 of these new lids.
Our next enhancement is for water main replacements. This enhancement is for
the design and construction of waterline projects to replace old, leaking,
undersized water mains or water mains made of substandard material.
Replacing these water mains will ensure the water loss -- water loss that is due
to leakage is kept to a minimum and the main breaks is reduced. Water quality is
sustained and fire flows are maintained or improved. This is a yearly
enhancement to maintain progress with our waterline replacement program. Six
projects are planned for 2015 under this enhancement.
Radek: We have three enhancements relating to water treatment that will allow
us to continue the groundwater correction program that we presented to Council
a couple years ago. These projects will improve water quality and customer
satisfaction by removing iron and manganese from water supply. We are
requesting 400,000 dollars to fund year two of a two year project to design,
procure equipment, and construct a water treatment facility at Well 19. Initial
product testing equipment procurement has been completed on this project and
we plan to build out construction at the beginning of FY -15. We are requesting
600,000 dollars to fund year one of a two year project to design, procure
equipment, and construct a water treatment facility at Well 27. And, finally, we
are requesting 100,000 dollars to fund the remaining work to complete a --
complete pilot testing of aquifer conditioning at Wells 22 and 18. This is an
alternative method of removing iron and manganese by injecting oxidized water
into the aquifer, which causes the contaminants to come out of solution in the
aquifer.
Teller: Okay. Enhancement 16 in the amount of 24,000 dollars is for the
purchase and incorporation of an audio visual system and wireless WIFI
connection for the water administration building. The water administration office
currently has three conference rooms utilized solely by staff and outside
affiliations for meetings and training events. None of these rooms are currently
fitted with equipment needed for training and presentation needs. These
upgrades will improve the efficiency and versatility of these rooms by providing
audio visual and network access through options to presenter staff and visitors.
Enhancement number 17 in the amount of 25,000 dollars is for the purchase of
equipment required to better compliment our routine maintenance and
emergency repairs in our water distribution system. With maintenance repair
activities increasing, critical equipment such as concrete saws, asphalt saws,
boring machines and capable surface vehicles are required to minimize damage
to the right of ways, expedite our excavations, and carry the necessary tools and
parts needed to perform maintenance and repairs. With our system aging and
failures increasing, as I stated earlier we had 98 last year that we completed in
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house -- this equipment has become critical need for our daily operations and,
more importantly, for emergency situations. It will allow for better utilization of
existing excavation equipment and reduce impact and damages to streets.
Radek: We are requesting 25,000 dollars to conduct a feasible study to
determine our options for upgrading our existing -- upgrading or constructing a
new pump house at Well 11. The existing building is reaching the end of its
service life and the project goals will be to improve safety, site security, and
accessibility at the building.
Teller: Enhancement No. 19 in the amount of 50,000 dollars is for the design
and repurposing of our existing Well 14 building. The Well 14 site on Overland
Road was originally designed as a well and booster station combination and
subsequently is a larger than a normal well building, as it was constructed to
house the extra pumping equipment. With the booster pump now gone, all that
remains is a single production well, along with some remnant piping and
unutilized space. With the city continuing to grow, drive times have increased
making it more difficult for our operators to quickly gain access to parts that are
normally housed at our 8th Street office. This enhancement will modify and
repurpose the building into a much needed storage facility that will be utilized for
storage of critical parts, tools, and traffic control equipment. This building
modification will increase operational efficiencies by decreasing response times
needed for gathering parts and improving our customer service.
Radek: We have two enhancements from new wells to serve the water supply
needs of our growing community. We are requesting 350,000 dollars to fund the
second year of a three year project for design and construction of Well 29. This
will be the first supply well in the newly created, but rapidly growing pressure
zone number one, and we are requesting 210,000 dollars to fund the first year of
a three year project for design and construction of Well 30. This will be the
second supply well in pressure zone five. And with that we have concluded our
enhancement presentation. We will stand for any questions.
Barry: And, Madam Mayor, if I will, this is it for the enhancements and request in
our budget presentation for this afternoon. So, you're free to modify your agenda
and schedule as you see fit, of course, but we will stand for the questions on the
Water Division amendments -- or, excuse me, enhancements at this time.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, do you have any questions at this time for our
water division?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
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Cavener: The WIFI and injection system, I assume that's run through and IT is
on board with that as equipment that they support and will be able to
troubleshoot should any issues occur?
Teller: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, we have consulted with IT on this
the entire way and they have assisted us with the -- not only the equipment
procurement, but quoting them and everything. So, they are completely
prepared to support this.
Cavener: Great.
Holman: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Jaycee.
Holman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, just so that the Council
Members know and Councilman Cavener, all of the amendments, both
Enterprise and General Fund, get vetted through IT. If Finance sees anything
that they think is an IT item or -- I'm not sure if you send all of them or just the
ones that you see as having an IT impact. Okay. So, we do see all of them and
Dave and Mike review all of those at the very beginning of the process.
Cavener: Thank you.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Milam
Milam: I have a couple questions. One is related to this -- the same item, the
WIFI and upgrade -- upgrades. This is for the new building or is this --
Teller: Madam Mayor, Council Woman Milam, this is for existing water admin
building at 8th Street. It's about eight years old.
Milam: Okay. And the other question -- on the condition based monitoring
system, sounds great, but it's also -- it sounds like it's going to save somebody
driving around to 20 locations a day, which means we have extra personnel
maybe?
Teller: Madam Mayor and Councilwoman Milam, you are correct. With that that
is going to free up our staffing resources for the treatment facilities that are
coming on board next year. So, if we can incorporate this come fall we should be
ready for that transition and be able to shift those resources over into treatment
concentration. It will not completely take over the need for physical inspections,
there still needs to be a physical look, touch, smell to these facilities, but the
overall data capture that happens everyday is currently taking place with our
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July 9, 2014
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SCADA system and this will incorporate all of that data into our asset
management and workflow. So, it will free up our time.
Milam: Thank you.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: This may or may not be a budget question. When you showed this
slide of the SCADA cabinet this question came to my mind. How vulnerable is
the SCADA system to hacking or disruption from external electronics and do any
of the upgrades and whatnot that you're proposing address that, if, in fact, it is an
issue?
Teller: Madam Mayor, Councilman Rountree, that's an excellent question and it's
something that we are very, very concerned about, because we want to make
sure that our system is as less vulnerable as possible and currently our SCADA
system is not connected with the city's network, so it is a stand-alone system that
is not vulnerable to anyone from the outside getting into it. If that answers --
Rountree: That's reassuring
De Weerd: Any other questions?
Teller: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Bird: Let's break for lunch.
De Weerd: Council, if you -- this is probably a good time to break for lunch and,
then, we can resume at 12:30. Okay. Good deal. Well, then, we will recess until
12:30.
(Recess.)
De Weerd: Okay. I will go ahead and reconvene this meeting and at this point
we will follow the same the process that we did yesterday. You should have a
summary for the Enterprise section in terms of the enhancement requests that
you have in front of you that's in the summary section of your binder. If we want
to just go through it section by section like we did yesterday. So, the first part is
under the Public Works starting with the asset management analyst and that
section. Any questions in that? Under water?
Rountree: I don't have any.
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July 9, 2014
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De Weerd: Okay. And we can scroll down to wastewater.
Bird: I think everything is needed myself.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I just -- I just had a question on -- I'm trying to recall. I
thought I saw on number 16, the head works upgrade, but to include odor
control; is that correct? Okay. All right.
Bird: Kind of an expensive carpet. That's a joke.
Rountree: I don't have any other questions.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I guess I would ask a timing question and I'm looking at the laboratory
analysts. What is the relationship between hiring them and the completion of the
lab, which is currently being built?
Crane: Madam Mayor, Councilman Zaremba, the lab is scheduled October,
November'ish it appears. It's a little bit behind the admin building, but I'm told
they are catching back up. We have had discussions with HR already about
trying to get out in front of it and get the advertisements out there and get the
recruitment process started. We wouldn't actually bring those positions on until
after October 1. We would like to get those folks on as they deliver the new
equipment and the reps come in and do the setup and the training and all that
and have those folks available at the startup of the lab, because it puts them that
much further ahead, but we are thinking that it's coinciding pretty close to about
the right time, hopefully. If that's -- for lack of a more concise answer.
Zaremba: Well, that's good. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank You, Tracy. Any other questions on -- as it relates to our
waste resource something. Our WRRF. Okay. If there is nothing further for our
Enterprise Fund, anything further to discuss in the General Fund?
Cavener: Madam Mayor? Not so much a question, but more of just a comment.
Building off of Councilman Borton's comments from yesterday about taking the
three percent. I personally struggled with this issue myself since the budget
process began and after going through the process, hearing from staff and their
very detailed report, I'm more in favor of it now than I was at the start of this
process, but I guess I would ask staff and you, Mayor, moving forward, that this
three percent to be viewed as an exception, not as the rule. In discussion with a
lot of different staff members it seemed like the three percent is the rule and that
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July 9, 2014
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-- that causes me great concern and so I would hope that as we move forward in
years to come that as we go through this process that staff are looking at it only
as a have to, not as a standard operating procedure.
De Weerd: I appreciate that comment, Mr. Cavener, and I can assure you that it
is -- it is fully vetted every single year, not only by -- through the months leading
up to the workshops, but also with our Council Members as well. It's never a for
granted to your comment. We'll take them to know it.
Kilchenmann: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Kilchenmann: Madam Mayor, can I make one more comment about the three
percent and, then, I will stop. The thing of the three percent -- this is the General
Fund and mostly the General Fund is public safety personnel. So, if we look at
not taking the three percent over time, we can increase that personnel base. So,
that's where the issue becomes complex. So, we can take out one time items,
like the parking lot or the Finance projector and we can balance the budget for
one year, but when we look forward and we look at new construction is not going
to stay at the level it is, it's already starting to dip, we don't have any way, not
only to not grow, but we can't just stay with what we have. So, when you look
through and you look at like the cost of the police vehicles are increasing, we will
talk to the police next week about the STEP plan increases, those are the things
we just can't maintain without some kind of growth in our revenue source. It's not
that it can to be done, it certainly can be done, but you have to really -- when you
think about that you really have to look at the base public safety personnel costs.
So, that's my three percent plug.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I have a related comment as well, because, obviously, this is what we
struggle with. This is my first year doing this, so I'm also trying to understand, but
the tax base is going to increase based on the values of our homes going way up
this last year and so -- so I still struggle with that and I don't know why it has to
be -- it's like three because we can, it's either three or none. There is also one
and one and a half, there's two -- there are other numbers. The other thing is
with the three percent increase in pay and the compensation plan, the average
Meridian citizen makes -- the average Meridian -- median household income is
65,000 dollars. That's most of the time two people working. Our average
employee base wage -- now, this is just companywide -- is somewhere between
70 and 80 thousand. So, for me to tell my neighbor our employees make more
then your household, I need to raise your taxes to give them a raise, I struggle
with that.
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
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Kilchenmann: Madam Mayor? The formula for calculating the individual property
tax is -- it's partly based on -- when the value goes up on taxing property, what
that does is it changes the denominator in the calculation, so it makes our levy
rate go down. So, actually, our levy rate goes down, but your taxes go up
because of the overall increase, if that makes sense, because the enumerator is
-- stays at lesser increases, so what you pay in property taxes is like taking a pie
and, then, slicing it all kinds of different ways, depending on the value of your
property. So, commercial property paying about 40 percent, 45 percent of the
tax burden. The calculation is different. It's a different -- it's more based on the
revenue base. So, it's a little -- it's complicated, but it's a factor of a lot of
different things, but the amount of the property tax revenue basically is fixed. So,
we know what it is a long time in advance. So, the only way to change that -- the
new construction -- if new construction kept going we would keep generating
more income. Now, we keep spending more income, because we would be -- if
we were hiring more services to service, you know, more traffic, et cetera -- now,
you can stop that. I mean we can control growth. We definitely -- that's an
option. So, it's not that it's not an option, it's just -- I want to caution you where
there is a stopping or a slowing in cost has to come from.
De Weerd: And I think that this has been a discussion for the directors for some
time. Every time you approve another plat it means our service demands
continue to be stretched and our service levels are stretched without -- as Stacy
mentioned yesterday in her opening remarks, our tax collections are two years
behind, but your service demands are immediate, and so there is a balance and
what is that balance? I can tell you that my property value is what it was now in
2006 and I'm paying the same amount of taxes that I was there then. I never
complained when I saw my values go down, because I paid less in taxes.
Someone was making up that gap. I'm back to what I was paying then and I'm
getting the same service -- every year I have gotten the same service. Someone
is paying for that service and if we want to look at our service levels and say we
are okay having less service than we can look at our budgets a little bit
differently. But at this point when you look at our base -- you almost have to look
at the replacements as part of that base and probably half of the enhancements
as part of that base, but that's not how we have done in the past. So, it's a little
bit misleading and what is -- what is new service levels through the enhancement
or keeping up with the growth versus just maintaining it.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I think what's been said is -- is good to hear and to the folks new to
the Council my advice to you is don't unnecessarily buy into one thing or another.
Vote -- vote your conscience. We have a number of weeks yet before the
hearing on this. I will tell you from experience in 15 years with this that if
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
Page 39 of 41
anybody more than Ralph is here from the public to testify I would be pleased. I
think the most I have ever seen at a budget hearing from the public it was three
people. But right now -- I was in the audience that year. I was not a -- you did it
to yourself. Anyway --
De Weerd: The previous Councils had done it to us.
Bird: We had a department that --
Rountree: Anyway, getting back to the point is we have an opportunity -- we
have heard this budget and an honest representing what is the thoughts and
needs of the folks that are running the city for us. Hopefully, you have
understood it, you've had an opportunity to digested it, this is one of the few
opportunities that you actually get information and get some time to really sit
down and think about it. Typically you want the information and an instant
decision from counsel. We don't need to do that this year for this item. So, take
your time. You've already started to do the math. That's good. And have the
opportunity to hear whatever public comment is and maybe be ready to express
your opinion and vote your conscience. That's what you have been asked to do
by the people who elected you to office you have to, in my opinion, represent
what you represented when you asked for their vote of confidence and go from
there and really and truly if you have questions, work with the department heads,
work the liaisons of the departments. You as liaisons to the departments
certainly have the opportunity to sit down with your departments and get more or
less comfortable with what's been said, so you can fully support it or maybe
make some recommendations that generally I support it, but this item needs to
go. You heard yesterday that we have the ability to add or subtract from -- like
we just did enhancements, but from the budget in particular. So, if you see
something there and you want to ask a question about it, do it. And, then, come
prepared to represent those issues and get a sense of the Council or up or down,
we will take a vote, we will have a budget, be ready to go and -- whatever budget
we come up with I know that the city staff will go out there and do the jobs that
they do in the best way they can given the resources that we have been able to
give them. So, that's my advice to you in dealing with this. It does get personal
at times and -- but, you know, it's -- it's what you have been asked to do, so go
do it.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: And I appreciate those comments. I would add one more thing and
that's something that it took me awhile to grasp and when we are talking about
talking with our neighbors and other citizens about the three percent, is to be
clear about what that three percent means and what it applies to. The city's
budget can grow by three percent a year without us having to go to a vote of the
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July 9, 2014
Page 40 of 41
voters to increase the mill rate. That three percent isn't actually an increase in
mill rate -- I know everybody shares that as saying my property tax is going to go
up three percent and there is -- there is a direct correlation, but there isn't a
percentage correlation in that respect. Our property taxes go up and down really
more affected by the assessed value of our property, which the Mayor has
already said, but, as I say, there is a tendency and even I at first thought, oh,
three percent, my property tax is going to go up three percent and we do have
Finance explain the calculations and what it is, but they do tell us how that does
affect specific target houses that they tracked from year to year and I just wanted
to point out that where the property tax has changed -- they don't change by
three percent just because our budget changed by three percent. That's spread
over an awful lot of kinds of taxes and inputs and outputs and all sorts of stuff.
So, I'm just throwing that in to bear it in mind.
De Weerd: So, at this point is there any further information we need from the
directors?
Rountree: I would ask Finance if they need anything clarified from any direction
we may or may not have given them.
Kilchenmann: Yes, Madam Mayor and Councilman Rountree. So, what I
understand is at this point we will take what we have that was presented to you,
we will put it together, it will come back just as a total for the notice and, then, the
actual decision will be made at the public hearing. So, I won't have -- we
probably won't have anyone present again at the public hearing about individual
enhancements, but I will come up and give some sort of format and if anyone has
any suggestions on what they would like to see to kind of consolidate the
presentation be sure to share those with me. We will update new summaries
and, everybody, I will give you hard copies so I won't crash your hard drives. So,
you can look at them, so is that --
Rountree: Yes.
Kilchenmann: And I really do encourage you to talk with the departments or
come and talk to us, because it makes us feel needed. So, I like it when you
come and see us. So, we really encourage that and appreciate it when you do
come and talk to us and ask questions.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: And we need to remember that what -- the final figure that she comes out
with at this point, we can deduct from, but we cannot add to, so -- and I -- I feel
that I'm ready to get this number published and we have got three or four weeks
Meridian City Council Budget Workshop
July 9, 2014
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to decide if we want to chop anything out and got the public hearing, which we
can do that at.
Rountree: And that date is August --
Kilchenmann: 19th.
Rountree: -- 19th.
De Weerd: Okay.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Do we need a motion to publish -- authorize publishing or does that --
De Weerd: I think we will bring back the numbers and that's when we will need
your Council action. Correct? Okay.
Rountree: So, that's an agenda item.
De Weerd: Yes. Okay. If there is nothing further, Council, I would entertain a
motion to adjourn.
Rountree: So moved.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say so go Holland. All ayes.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 1:10 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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