HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010 07-07 BudgetMeridian City Council Meeting -Budget Hearing July 7, 2010
A Council Budget meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 1:00 p.m.,
Wednesday, July 7, 2010, by Mayor Tammy De Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy De Weerd, President David Zaremba, Charlie
Rountree, Keith Bird, and Brad Hoaglun.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy De Weerd
De Weerd: Okay. Welcome to our City Council Budget Workshop. We appreciate
seeing faces in front of us and they are all familiar, which is nice. For the record, it is
Wednesday, July 7th. It's 1:00 o'clock. We will start today's meeting with roll call
attendance.
Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda:
De Weerd: Item No. 2 is adoption of the agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: I move adoption of the special meeting agenda.
Zaremba: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as presented. All those
in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 3: City of Meridian FY2011 Budget Meeting Hearings:
1:00 -1:15 -Council assemble, review any additional materials.
De Weerd: Item 3 is our budget meeting hearing. Part of the Council assemble, review
any additional materials, includes a couple of the questions that you had yesterday in
regards to two different areas. One was in parks with the question about the arborist
and the second one was related to streetlights and so Steve Siddoway is here to talk
about the park-related items, if you want to come forward, Steve.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 2 of 106
Siddoway: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. At the end of the day
yesterday I was asked to come back at 1:00 o'clock and report on three specific topics.
The first one being the GMC one ton replacement. The second one the arborist. And
the third one was regarding park maintenance in-house versus contract labor. We have
been moving on and discussing those items since then. See if I can -- okay. So, the
first item was for the GMC one ton. Question was asked what are the maintenance
costs. Went back and got the records from 2006 forward. We spent $3,411.75 in --
really, in two years, '06 and '08. How much was it driven? Approximately 500 miles a
year, plus or minus, and are we currently throwing good money after bad. The current
trend on that vehicle -- it's about a 1,500 to 2,000 dollars worth of repairs every other
year. Don't know if that will continue, but that has been the trend the last four years.
What are the options? Option one would be to replace the vehicle per the capital
replacement schedule and per the request. Did want to make sure Council was aware
that we have worked on a capital replacement schedule for the department as the -- as
the CIP was being developed over the past year and looking at everything from mowers
and vehicles, utility vehicles and tractors as well. We have tried to balance that over the
-- without getting into too much detail, each year to try and balance that as much as
possible and so the -- the requests that we have made this year are based on the yield
in utility vehicles that were anticipated for 2011. We can, as we talked about, defer that,
which is option number two on here, but we just need to know that deferring capital
replacements in one year will impact a future year, if not the next one. There was a
discussion about possibly changing from a truck as requested to a truck and trailer. We
did look into that as well. If we were to go to athree-quarter ton truck, like an F-250, it
would pull a trailer that could hold those maintenance items, we could do that with some
minimal savings, 22,500 for the vehicle, 6,500 for the trailer, plus that trailer would have
to be modified. I don't know exactly what that would cost. We took an estimate of 2,000
for -- because we carry a gas welder, a compressor, and things that would have to be
exhausted outside of that trailer, so we would have to modify that. But the pro would be
that the trailer could be towed by multiple vehicles. The con is the maneuverability and
we are less able to access equipment in tight areas. There was a fourth alternative that
we came up with and that is if the replacement cost of this one vehicle is -- is too much
and we don't -- and by deferring we are, you know, impacting other years, I highlighted
a couple of upcoming replacement vehicles that we could swap out at less of a cost.
One is a 1991 Ford F-150 pickup that was scheduled for replacement next year.
Another was a 1994 Ford Ranger pickup scheduled for replacement in 2013 and any of
those in between, because there also was -- that Ford Ranger pickup actually has the
highest actual mileage and thought we would at least bring forward these -- these
options for your consideration and discussion. So, I will pause there before moving on
to the next item.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, questions?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 3 of 106
Bird: Steve, while I realize that that sounds like a lot of expense on it, driving it 500
miles ayear, Istill -- in this -- in this economy -- in normal years I would probably have
no problems with it, but I just think we can get by, because in these times everybody --
our taxpayers have to get by with stuff, we will have to, too. And Ithink -- I think you
agree to that, that we can get by and we will make it work.
Siddoway: We could make any one of these work, we just need to know the
implications of what that means.
Bird: We understand. I understand that we could -- but we -- I also understand that
with vehicles that -- running it only 500 miles a year, if that, we might not spend a penny
this year on maintenance, other than just gas and oil.
Siddoway: That is possible.
Bird: That's my -- still my stance on it.
Siddoway: Any other questions or comments on this one?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? Steve, you know, just looking at what would be of more
versatility and I think down the road, if we don't replace that this year, I think if you get
another three-quarter ton truck to give you more versatility to allow it to be used in other
things and, then, have the trailer and, then, have numerous vehicles that can tow it --
and Iknow there is some tight spots you have get into, but that might give you more
options, so when we go look at another vehicle replacement down the road we might
get a two for one type of swap as a possibility on that.
Siddoway: And there are some pros to that. As we talked about the con on the
maneuverability -- there are a lot of play ground areas that do have to go in for repair
that are quite tight and the con of the maneuverability seemed to outweigh the pro of
being able to be towed by multiple vehicles, but that is something that we can take a
hard look at. Yeah.
Hoaglun: Yeah. And if -- in the interim, if it looks like it's just not doable, I mean that
maneuverability is critical, then, we go back to the truck and have it truck mounted and
that sort of thing, so -- but just a little more time to look at that.
Siddoway: Okay. The second item, then, was regarding the city arborist and, really, the
big overriding question to me that I believe is sitting out there is, you know, when is --
when is the right time to hire an arborist? Is it now? Is it some point in the future?
Have we past it already? I wanted you to know, first of all, that while I was developing
the enhancements this spring, I contacted the International Society of Arborists to ask
them if there was a threshold based on numbers of trees, based other factors. They
told me that there is not, that it varies widely from community to community and it's kind
a community-based decision of when. So, they were not able to give me any specific
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 4 of 106
guidance. I will -- I would point out that I understand the -- the Council's changed quite
a bit since then, but back in 2002 when Council debated and passed the Meridian
Community Forestry Ordinance, it was discussed that about five years from then it was
anticipated that an arborist would be needed and that was seven years ago. That was
in 2002. So, maybe eight years ago. We do have -- regardless of that, there are 2,000
trees in our existing system, as we have talked about before, and we do have about a
thousand more coming with Kleiner Park. One of the questions that I think is fair is, you
know, have other cities around us hired arborists or city foresters. The answer to that is
yes. I'm looking at Nampa, which I think we are probably most closely aligned with in
that realm, they do have a city forester, as well as a forestry tech and, then, they also
use some seasonal labor for forestry activities. Boise actually has a staff of 12 in their
forestry division, including two crew chiefs, five urban arborists and three forestry
specialists. I don't see that as our need, but I think it points out that other cities have
seen this need for arborists work and responded to it. A lot of the questions that were
discussed at the end of the day yesterday was really what tree work should be
contracted out and what should be in house. Today we currently contract out the large
tree work that has to be done for pruning or spraying of the large trees in areas like
Storey Park, Centennial Park or the downtown area. What work should be -- I would
say that that should continue to be contracted out. It doesn't -- I don't see us taking in
that large tree pruning with this position. What tree work should be done in house? We
have talked about tree inventory and we have the tools now to do that. The fertilizing
and spraying of smaller trees. Structural pruning of trees. Tree planting projects.
When there are public construction projects, either at parks or elsewhere, the inspecting
and grading of those trees as they are coming off the trucks, making sure they meet
spec. Oversight of the planting standards during planting. And, then, creating a forestry
management plan for the urban forest, including irrigation monitoring, tracking of pests
and diseases, the replacement interval of trees, such as in the downtown area. A spray
and pruning program. Education and out. reach as required for our Tree City USA. And
administering the tree mitigation requirements when development sites are removing
existing trees and have to mitigate for them. We have been doing ad hoc spraying and
pruning so far to date based on where the emergencies are, where the most visible
needs are, but I believe we need a more systematic program and much of the work that
is defined up here and what should be done in house is a known need, but has been
deferred for some time and continued deferral of these activities will cause increased
cost in the future if they are not addressed while these trees are young. Finally, adding
Kleiner Park is the -- is the catalyst for needing this position, but it's not the sole reason
for this position. The position is city wide, but within Kleiner Park, the arboretum that we
are getting will need special care and it's increasing our urban forest by 50 percent in
one year and the existing staff resources simply can't respond to it. There was also a
question about is this position administrative or a field position and the real answer is it's
both. It's probably 40 to 50 percent administrative and 50 to 60 percent in the field,
probably a little more in the field than it is in the office, but there is office work
associated with the inventory with the forestry management plan, but there is also field
work related with the spraying and the pruning and the monitoring of the trees. So,
that's what I have for you in response to that and I will stand for questions on this one as
well.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 5 of 106
De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Questions from Council?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Siddoway: Thank you. Final item. Oh. Which I don't believe is tied necessarily directly
to an enhancement request, but came up in discussions with the maintenance shop,
was this idea of in house versus contract maintenance and I wanted to share with you
that we now have 30 contracted sites. I can show those to you here. This is part of the
contract that was issued this last winter. It includes areas like the City Hall site, some of
our smaller pocket parks, like Generations Plaza and Centennial. But also a rough site
for Public Works, fire stations, ACHD storm drainage ponds, police station, areas like
that, all of which we oversee the maintenance of by contract. All of the neighborhood,
community, and regional parks that we own are maintained by city staff. They are more
able to get the customer service levels that we want, et cetera. Our general rule of
thumb to date is that sites larger than approximately six acres in size are maintained by
city staff. The smaller sites are maintained by contract. The notable exception to that
smaller site statement will become the Ten Mile interchange, as it's, you know, 24 acres
or -- I can't remember the exact acreage, but it's much -- it's more than six. But, still, it's
a right of way related area and fits in that way. There has been reference made to an
analysis done that shows it's more cost effective to do contract labor than in-house labor
on those sites and I believe that's true. However, I would propose that it may be a good
time to re-analyze that this winter coming up. We have more sites now than when that
analysis was previously done. So, that's something that I would offer to take a look at
later this year after we get past our busy season and report back to Council on. So,
with that I'll stand for any questions or comments on that as well.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay.
Zaremba: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thanks, Steve
Siddoway: Thank you very much.
De Weerd: Now, Steve, is not available later and so that's why we did put him at the
beginning. So, last chance for questions.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 6 of 106
Siddoway: I will be in the building. We are meeting with the Kleiner team up in the
Public Works area in their conference room, so if there was a need I could be reached
up there.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Siddoway: All right. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thanks, Elroy and Mike, for getting further information. Okay. With that we
will launch into our Public Works world and -- oh, yeah. We have streetlighting first.
Sorry, Tim. Almost took away your -- your thunder.
Kerns: All right. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I have got some additional
information today related to the new streetlight installation enhancement and to address
some of the questions and concerns that I heard from yesterday.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Kerns: And just as a quick review, the enhancement was 50,000 dollars and the annual
ongoing program cost that listed there at the top, the 2,400 dollars, is specifically related
to the additional electrical and maintenance costs that we would expect to see from
those lights being installed as we go forward. So, just as a -- to give you an idea of kind
of what we have out there right now, our current lighting levels on our urban corridors,
roughly 94 percent of our corridors are halfway or below what's recommended for
lighting levels by our standards and just to kind of let you know what that looks like
going forward in the future, 75 percent of those corridors are nearing build out, so we
are not expecting a lot of -- a lot of new development to enhance the street lighting
along those corridors, so we wouldn't expect a whole lot of change. Like I said, a small
impact coming from development and also I'd just like to make the distinction that the
majority of the lighting deficient problems that we have in the City of Meridian aren't
within neighborhoods, they tend to be more along our corridors, our arterial roads, and
our collector roads, although there are some locations -- roughly 15 have been identified
in neighborhoods where we really should have lighting just for bare bones safety. So, in
terms of selecting projects, identifying areas that -- that meet improvement and
prioritizing those, the criteria that's used for that would be the current lighting levels that
we have out there and the future level of the lighting that we expect. Some corridors do
have development that would enhance -- enhance lighting. Whether or not these
corridors are in school zones where we are seeing a lot of children on their way to
school and also any pedestrian and cyclist accidents that we have that we get
information from the state and any particular routes that we know are important to
cyclists. Whether or not these corridors have park proximity where you would see a lot
of pedestrian-cyclist activity and also although we have very few transit stops at this
time, it's nonetheless important to take those into account as most people don't
generally like to stand in the dark at a bus stop, so -- and, then, finally, police and
resident crime complaints are something to take into account and have been taken into
account as it's a little bit different situation with these, though, compared to these criteria
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 7 of 106
listed above in that they would be more -- it's something you would expect to see more
of like a need for a light here or there in a particular subdivision, as opposed to a
corridor where you would be installing 15 or 30 lights. So, it doesn't have the same kind
of fiscal impact going forward if you want to make those installations if those areas are
identified and come up. It's going to cost something in the neighborhood of about 2,500
dollars to go plop the light in and if it's -- if it's an area like our older areas of town here
just around the downtown here, if we have a utility pole available we can stick a light up
for as little as a hundred bucks on an Idaho Power pole. So, this funding gives us that
mechanism to address those little issues as they pop up. So, if you run the corridor --
urban corridors -- I'm not speaking to any of the rural roads headed out of Meridian, but
strictly the suburban and urban corridors in Meridian, if you run those through that
ranking process, this is what pops up as the -- the corridors that are kind of the hot --
hot corridors to look at and that's Ustick Road, two different mile segments. Linder
Road, two different mile segments there. And also Franklin Road. And these particular
corridors they have very little lighting on them, they tend to be near schools, especially
on Linder, and parks and in the case of Franklin it's not near a park or school, but it has
very little lighting and it also has an accident history. So, that's just kind of the
information I wanted to give you to digest in helping you make a decision. So, if there is
any other questions about what I have here or anything that I perhaps missed from
yesterday?
De Weerd: Thank you, Tim. Any additional questions or information needed from
Council?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: This is either Tim and it might be Todd. Under -- under the current fiscal year
we have got 30,000 in -- in there for street lights, sign repair, maintenance and, then, we
are also carrying forward -- not carrying forward, we are also budgeting that amount for
FY-2011, the 30,000. So, to get back, then, Tim, it just shows the description of street
light sign repairs, maintenance, is any of that for new installation -- installation of new
street lights or is it just maintenance, replacement if there is an accident, that sort of
thing? What is that amount used for, the 30,000?
Kerns: Yeah. That maintenance item there is for anything that -- I should start by
saying the majority of our lights Idaho Power gives us a little basic maintenance on, but
if it's anything they can't handle, somebody hit the street light pole, or the whole fixture
burns up, then, that's where we use our -- our contracted -- our electrical contractor to
go out and repair them for us.
Hoaglun: So, 30,000, then, is used for -- for those types of things, not necessarily
putting in new street lights?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 8 of 106
Kerns: No. Not usually. A couple of times we have, at the end of the fiscal year, a little
bit left over and installed one or two on those Idaho Power poles, just because they are
so inexpensive.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thanks.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Tim, you mentioned a couple things that I need some clarification on. You
said the words our standards. I don't know what the standards are. I want to know
where they are. When they were adopted, by whom and why.
Kerns: Oh. At the time that I started here just over a year ago our standards were that
-- specifically for development, that we had a process for installing -- or for telling
developers where to put lights and it was -- it was a process that I could not identify a
source for as far as where we got to that process, so I looked specifically for a standard
to follow and discovered that most transportation authorities follow the AASHTO
standards, the design guidelines. So, we have had a lot of problems with -- the
development community is very unsure about what our standard is and our process
occurs and so we, basically, put together a little something and put it on the Internet site
available for the developers, so they know exactly that we just follow those standards
and it's clear for everybody as far as what they should expect.
Rountree: So, they have not necessarily been brought forward and officially adopted?
Kerns: And -- no. And I looked into this at the time that this issue came up and I -- if --
in the city's code under street lighting requirements for developments, the requirement
is that the developer shall install the lighting per the city's adopted standards. So,
asked the question, well, what does it take to adopt a standard for the City of Meridian
and the legal opinion that I got was that it's not something that has to go through a
formal adoption process, it can be whatever the department, basically, feels is an
appropriate standard. So, that's, basically, what I can tell you.
Rountree: You also identify corridors and we have a slide of corridors that -- how do
you define that?
Kerns: As one a mile segment, unless it's a segment of road that does not -- or heads
out of the city and is, basically, out of our -- our area where we have development. So,
not looking at any corridors that go into the rural area. Urban and suburban corridors.
Rountree: Functional class doesn't bear into it? Volumes don't bear into it? Traffic
control? Access control?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 9 of 106
Kerns: Not into the ranking of those. That comes in -- as far as what the need is for
level of lighting, yes.
Rountree: With that definition I'm not sure how Franklin Road between Locust Grove
and Eagle fits, because one side of that is county, so not -- I think we need to give some
thought to this particular subject yet again. I'm not comfortable that we are adopting
standards without official adoption, particularly standards that require developers to
expend money and the city expend money. So, I'm a real uncomfortable with this item.
I'm more uncomfortable today than I was yesterday. I don't disagree with the safety
aspect, but I'm not real happy how we got here, let's put it that way. Not to you, Tim.
Good information. Hasn't changed my mind. Thank you.
Barry: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Barry.
Barry: Mr. Rountree, you have asked great questions and maybe in Tim's defense, I
wanted to touch on two things he's talked about. One is standards. And the legal
opinion that Tim referred to earlier regarding standards is consistent with engineer
standards or specifications and other sorts of standards that are adopted,
administratively by department or division that's been charged with executing or
implementing decision making processes associated with those standards. So, they are
not policies per se, although some can be policies and that does -- that does lead to this
gray area, but a good example might be, for example, the size of a certain type of sewer
line or the size of a certain type of water line. We don't bring those particular standards
to the City Council for adoption. This is a standard that was considered by our legal
department upon investigation a similar stand and that's why it was considered an
administrative standard and, therefore, not brought to the City Council. So, I just want
to provide a little bit of clarity there. And, then, regarding the program itself, .you know,
this is a little bit about sort of chicken and the egg. Here we are meeting one of the
challenges that was bestowed upon us last year and the following year when we talked
about street lighting and the Council's frustration about how do we get new street lights
in, was posed to us and we talked about development of a program, which we have
done sort of in part this year in concept to present to you. We don't have all of the
details refined to the program, because we certainly don't like going down the path of
trying to develop very robust programs without the financial support for those programs.
So, we give out a concept of how the program might work, how the criteria might be
utilized to develop and identify specific corridors that might be eligible for the types of
funding that's being requested and see if that's something that Council is interested in
and if it is, then, we can refine that criteria, knowing that we are going to receive a
certain budget, to refine and develop the particular corridors that will be eligible, bring
those back for approval if the Council so desires and, then, implement the program. So,
we are in a bit of a -- it's kind of like Mr. Siddoway's experience yesterday with the parks
maintenance facility. We know -- we know sort of what the concept is, but we didn't
spend a ton of time refining all the details, because the funding isn't there. So, I just
wanted to speak to those two issues, because you raised very good points.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 10 of 106
Rountree: Well, I'm not going to -- I'm not going to debate some of those points with
you, Tom. There are standards that we approve, particularly as it relates to uniform
building codes and those kinds of things. We do adopt standards as they relate to the
activities of the city and the activities of the various departments and particularly those
activities that impact budgets. I will just leave it there. I don't disagree with the
program, but let's get a program, let's get consensus that that's where we want to go
and, then, if that's where we want to go, let's develop a budget. I guess my concern is
the budget process is not a place to vet this. This would have been a good workshop
item a couple months ago or yet this year and maybe later on for consideration as you
put a finer pencil on it, but I'm not sold right now, because I'm not sure where we are
going. That's my opinion. There are three other guys up here to convince, too.
Bird: I second that.
De Weerd: I think maybe the broader question is is something that will need our legal
opinion to come back with is, you know, you have administrative standards and policy
standards. What is what? And, you know, Tim did go and seek our city attorney's
opinion on this and got it and moved forward accordingly and so if you're in an awkward
position right now, Tim, I apologize. We need to have --
Rountree: I have no offense to you.
Kerns: None taken.
Rountree: But it's a good learning experience.
De Weerd: Yeah. But we will have to have that conversation on what should be
brought to Council and what traditionally hasn't been, so everyone is working off the
same page and, then, we don't get in these kind of situations, because I have had on
this very policy this conversation at the director level. So, we do need clarity on that
across the board, not just one particular topic, but all of them, so we know what the
expectations of City Council are. Okay. If you have no -- yes, Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I guess I would just ask one very underlying question and you did have one
line in this presentation. Do we know of any specific areas where safety is -- is
compromised by not having lighting? I mean is there -- are there a few spots that we
already know the accident rate is high and it has something to do with lighting? I mean
are we having vehicle-pedestrian accident places and -- I don't know if you know the
history. I keep looking over to see if we have a police representative and we don't, but I
understand the underlying question behind this is a safety question and I guess what I'm
asking -- how urgent is this? Do we already have some spots that are seriously a
problem or are we trying to be proactive and -- I know we need to solve this sometime,
but where are we? Are we proactive or are we catching up?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 11 of 106
Kerns: And I would say that in my opinion this is more on the proactive side. We have
accidents that we know could have been helped, but we don't have -- and we are just
fortunate that we don't have a lot of accidents that occur in the same places related to
this and, you know, we have a lot of accidents at certain intersections, but luckily it's not
related to -- you know, it's not interfering with pedestrian or hurting any cyclists. So, we
do have -- we do have locations out there where we have seen it and it's been noted,
but not reoccurring. So, that hope is to be proactive.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Rountree: To David's point, yesterday when we discussed this the police chief indicated
that there wasn't any indicated of any specific location, no -- that has potential, so --
Zaremba: Thanks.
De Weerd: Okay. If there is nothing further needed, thank you, Tim. Appreciate you
putting that together.
Kerns: No problem. Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further needed from Council before we move into the
Enterprise Fund?
Rountree: No.
Bird: No.
1:15 -1:45 - Public Works -Engineering
De Weerd: Okay. Tom, I will turn it over to you.
Barry: Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. It's my pleasure to
present to you the fiscal year 2011 budget for the Public Works Department. I'll run
through a couple things here. First of all, in -- make sure I have got this pen thing
situated correctly. Bring up the presentation here. Okay. So, one of the first things I
want to do is thank all the parties and people who were involved in helping to put
together our budget. As you know, our budget is a fairly considerably sized budget and
it's not a piece of work that I could have put together myself, so there are many folks
that I'd like to thank that are on the list. I won't go through the list. But certainly our
folks in the finance department have been instrumental in helping us put our budget
together. We have sat through many meetings with them and got lots of good
information and had good dialogue that have helped to strengthen our budget and --
and ultimately put together a strong budget for your consideration today. One of the
things I wanted to address here -- let's see. Seem to be having a couple of technical
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 12 of 106
difficulties here. This particular slide is supposed to be the graph. Do you show that?
Well, you're supposed to see something there. All right. So, you have that slide in front
of you. See, we always have contingency plans in Public Works. All right. That's a
graph that Todd has put together to address a question that Mr. Hoaglun asked
yesterday, which was actually a very good question. And so -- and in going in that
graph what you can see is that there is considerable amount of budgets on the graph
and, then, the amount of money spent is, oh, approximately maybe half of what the total
budget is. And I wanted to walk through that, because that's what we would expect to
see with the way we budgeted in the past. And so I want to sort of expand on that and
also expand on -- or let you know that the process is between the Finance Department
and the Public Works Department as it relates to the budget process in our construction
season are different and they look something like this. If you look at the calendar to the
top what -- what -- what's put in brief is a typical project where in January we are
sending out request for proposals. February we are doing contract. February and
March time we are doing design. Maybe into April. April we are doing business
contracts. And, then, our construction season starts sometime -- we try to get it started
as soon as we can get. Sometimes it's May, sometimes it's June, and it runs generally
through the end of October, sometime a little bit later. This is just a general calendar.
But during the construction season we have two events that are actually critical for us.
One of them is we have two -- and this is coming up on July 16th of this month or July
16th and that is we have to put together our preliminary carry forward month numbers,
which is difficult for us to do, because we are not really sure how much we have to carry
forward, since we have just started really the construction season. So, that makes it
difficult for us to put carry forward numbers, which are -- as a finance department we
are kind of changing all the time and don't really get nailed down until around January
time. And, then, we have the end of the fiscal year, which is in September, which is
kind of near the end of our construction season, which also complicates to a certain
degree, you know, knowing how much finance -- how many financial resources we are
going to have to carry forward into the next period. So, our construction season is split
by generally two different fiscal years and that's kind of exemplified graphically at the
bottom is a bi-mobile graph, which, essentially, talks about activities and dollars with
regard to kind of finance activities and Public Works and we lag a little bit, because the
period of the fiscal year is, of course, as you know, October 1 to September 30th, but
our construction year and sort of the way we are set up to operate capital construction
wise is a little bit different, about three to four months different. I think something that's
more significant than that related to large amounts of unspent funding versus the actual
spent dollars, is related to something called all at once project financing, which is
something we have done up until we introduced -- or I introduced the just in time project
financing component, which, Mr. Hoaglun, you had asked about yesterday as well. And
we didn't actually integrate fully just in time project financing until really on the fiscal
year 2009 slash 2010 period, but you have to realize that our projects are multi-year
projects, so it takes awhile for us to have a fully one hundred percent just in time capital
project financing approach and so what we are seeing is -- we are still in this transition
with hopefully this next year and for sure the year follow will be completely in just in
time. But let's just talk quickly about sort of the way things were and how that helps to
get a better understanding of large, unspent balances. For example, if a project that
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 13 of 106
was two million dollars and took three years to do was going to be financed the way we
had done historically, the full two million dollars would be made in that fiscal year as a
request, even though it was well known that the project could not -- we couldn't spend
that kind of money and possibly finish that project in that kind of time frame. So, in this
example say maybe 500,000 of the two million dollar budget was spent, that would
mean our project execution rate, which is the relationship between budget to actual,
would be equated to 25 percent, even though maybe from a construction standpoint,
maybe not, exactly what was supposed to be done on the project got done, but from a
financial calculation, the execution rate would be 25 percent. Now, if you go forward
and carry forward now that 1.5 million dollars, which is left over that didn't get spent into
the next fiscal year at FY-08, you have one and a half million dollars in this example,
say you spend 750, because now you're into construction, your project execution rate is
50 percent, you can kind of see where I'm going with this. The leftover gets carried
forward as 750,000 into the final year where say you spent -- you know, the 600 of the
remaining 750, which gives you a project execution rate of 80 percent. Now, imagine if
this is going on for ten or 20 projects at the same time, with different stage -- in different
stages of construction and that's what we recognized a couple years back that is
problematic for us, because it creates two big problems. One, we are budgeting the
entire project amount in the first year, which really consumes an enormous amount of
financial resources for us that we know we are not going to use and, two, it creates the
perpetual problem of carrying forward large dollar amounts and that's what you see in
this particular example. Now, we take the same example using just in time, three year
project, two million dollars, and we said we are going to spend the same amount in each
and every year, what we are going to say at the beginning of each of those fiscal years
what's realistic for us as it relates to how much we think we are going to spend on the
project and we put in say for fiscal year 2007, 550,000 and we spend 500, the project
execution rate is 91 percent, the carry forward amount in this case is only 50,000 and
this is all conceptual. I'm not highlighting any particular project, this is, you know, kind
of in a dream world, so we will caveat that. But you take that 50,000 dollars, you add it
to the fiscal year 2008 budget and now you have 800,000, you spend the same 750,
your execution rate is 94 percent, you're carrying forward less money again until the
finality of the project where you spend the remaining 600,000 and your execution rate is
92 percent. This is what we are moving to in Public Works. So, what you see and what
you have is something that we know is a problem and we'd like to have fixed, but we
can't fix it overnight. These projects are long term and it's also a fundamental cultural
change and an operational change for not only the Public Works staff, but also for the
Finance staff. So, hopefully, this helps to identify and clarify, yes, there is concern, but
the concern is somewhat artificial, because of the way we have budgeted and because
of the ability of our staff to complete projects when they are having to budget the full
amounts in the first years. So, I wanted to provide that to you to give you just a little bit
more context and also I wanted to confirm, Councilman Hoaglun, that, yes, we are
embracing just in time project financing for these reasons, but we are not quite one
hundred percent there. So, I don't know if you have, before we go into our budget
presentation, any specific questions on this, but I certainly was made aware of the
concerns that you had yesterday, or at least the questions about it and wanted to
address it.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 14 of 106
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Keith. I mean Mr. Bird.
Bird: You know, Tom, I -- I have a hard time -- what if in '07 you budget -- for a two
million dollar job you budget 550,000 --
Barry: Uh-huh.
Bird: -- the next year the Council changes or the economics change and we are 25
percent into the project and they said, no, we are not going to budget it this time.
Barry: Uh-huh.
Bird: When you sign a contract with a guy it's for a job; right?
Barry: Right.
Bird: Do you write it up 25 percent at a time? No. You can, but how many contractors
are going to gear up to do 25 percent of a hundred percent job? Not very many. This
time and the economics today, you can probably find one. Three, four years ago you
wouldn't have had a single bidder. I think your -- I think you -- I think we are asking for
more trouble than we have already got by doing this.
Radek: Could I make a comment on that?
Bird: Sure you can.
Barry: Just a moment. Because I do want to -- Mr. Bird, I know you have struggled with
this concept ever since we have introduced it and I appreciate that. But what you also
notice is that we come to the Council for adoption of long term plans, like a five year
capital improvement plan. The plan came to you not necessarily for adoption, but it
came to you for review and discussion maybe a month or ago and the goal here is for
us to present the long term plan that will identify these types of projects, if, by the
alternative -- well, I don't even want to get into the alternative. But I understand your
point and --
Bird: Let me make one thing -- the four us and Tammy cannot say what we are going to
budget next year. We cannot incur the next -- even though we are all the same, we
can't do that.
Barry: Understood. And, Mr. Bird, just maybe to provide some confidence, while that is
a -- that is a very real possibility, we could stop the project. If the Council -- if a new
Council comes in and decides that project is not worth pursuing, we can stop work on
the project and, granted, there is a contract and the contract is for work performed, so
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 15 of 106
we could stop work on the project, in which case that may even be more beneficial to a
new Council, who said I don't want a new well to go in. So, instead of having the two
million dollars already approved for a new well reservoir or for a new reservoir and they
stop the project at 500,000, they have saved them self 1.5 million dollars on whatever --
Bird: Yeah, but they have wasted 500,000 of taxpayers money.
Barry: That's true, but they haven't wasted two million on a project they feel wasn't
founded.
Bird: Anyway, go ahead.
Radek: Madam Mayor, Council Members, Councilman Bird, this isn't necessarily in
conflict with our contracting practices. As an example, my big projects are usually well
projects and those well projects go over a period of two to three years and there are six
to seven contracts involved in the well construction process from the test well to the
production wells to the pumping facilities and there a design of all that. So, all those
contracts can be in single years, but the whole project gets spread out. So, in that
example there is no conflict.
Bird: But when you -- when you sign acontract -- or when the Mayor signs a contract,
she's stating that if that contract is for seven million dollars -- we have got seven million
dollars for that. We don't have 50,000 dollars for it. Am I not right?
Radek: Councilman Bird, that's correct and in my example we are stretching out the
project in --
Bird: It is budgeted. We don't have it.
Radek: Correct.
Bird: And you bring a budget amendment --
Radek: Correct. But I might have --
Bird: This is causing more budget amendments, in my opinion.
Radek: Well, I might have half of that well -- those well contracts in one year and half of
those well contracts in another year, or they might be spread out to three years. But in
any case, when I contact for the test well, the production well, the pump house facility, I
have always got all the money for each of those phases and they might be spread out in
multiple years.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 16 of 106
Zaremba: I just -- I'm not a budget expert, but just -- just in looking at the way we have
been doing it, it would appear to me that if we set aside two million dollars for a project
that's going to take three years and we already know we are only going to spend half a
million of that in the first year and there is some other project that went unfunded
because we had two million dollars set aside for this and it seems to me that in the
meantime we may be able to better use that money, if we are using just in time
financing, instead of setting aside the whole amount and removing some other project.
Am I understanding this correctly?
Barry: Yes, Councilman Zaremba. That's really the whole point. And this concept is
one that is not new to the City of Meridian. This is done all over the place. It's really
kind of the standard for how you want to finance multiple projects with limited financing.
Otherwise, we can -- you know, you know that our capital budget generally is 12 million
dollars. So, if I have six two million dollar projects, all I'm working on is six two million
dollar projects for that period. That's it. And each year I'm going to carry forward the 12
million -- in this kind of an example I'm going to carry forward at least ten million to the
next year and, then, maybe another eight million for the next year and I'm only going to
get one or two projects that comes on, which is kind of why we are in arrears in the first
place, because we didn't have the kind of money -- even though we did finance the
capital improvements that we needed during the growth period, because we had over
leveraged our self in budgeting large dollar amounts for money that was just sitting in
our account, not -- which we had no intention or even ability to spend on a year-by-year
basis. So, that's really the whole point to this, so -- and I understand Mr. Bird's
concerns, but that's why we get the Council to approve comprehensive plans, capital
improvement plans, and other sorts of plans, because the city must continue in some
direction and that direction is set by the Council who exists on the stand at the time
those things are approved.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Question for Tom and Finance. Do we have mechanisms in place, though, to
make sure that we aren't spending duplicate dollars on multiple projects where that
could get us into trouble? I understand that just in time it makes sense how that flows,
but at the same time we got to have protections in place to make sure we don't get
ourselves in a bind.
Barry: Right. Mr. Hoaglun, that's a fantastic question and, yes, we do, at least in Public
Works. I think Finance, you guys -- when you set up our capital project list you see
each of the projects and the dollar amounts and it showed that there is not duplication of
funding for the same type of project. We have the same thing in Public Works. So,
that's not a concern for us at all.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 17 of 106
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Tom's right, this is -- this is pretty much a standard practice when you're
talking large construction projects and that sort of thing and it works really well as long
as you got churn and you got cash flow. That's the thing that I think when you get down
to philosophically where Councilman Bird is concerned, you know, you can get yourself
in a pickle, too, if you're not really careful on the financial side and no matter what you
do you still have to establish by policy a reserve fund just in case and we are all
generally kind of risk adverse by our -- by our fiscal nature, you know, so I don't have a
trouble with this. I mean I have -- today. I mean I have worked with it for 30 some
years, but you still have to have that reserve and you have to have that number out
there and it has to be a number that we are all comfortable with as elected officials who
have to answer to the rest of the folks in the community. I've not had that answer yet,
what's that number -- what's that reserve number going to be, so we can progress into
this with the degree of comfort that I think we have to have in order to move forward. I
agree this is where we ought to go, it's the best way to leverage money, it's the best
way to get the biggest bang for the buck that you can, but, again, we still have to take
care of that -- that risk aversion that causes some folks not to sleep at night.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I absolutely agree with Councilman Rountree. The one thing that I would say
modifies that a little bit for me is for every project we are reserving the entire amount
and to me there ought to be some way to say, okay, we have got 20 of these projects
and if we had a reserve that was equal to ten percent of all of them, we probably would
use that. But what Iworry -- or 20 percent of all of it. We need to establish a policy on
that, I guess. But if you multiply what we are reserving -- in this example, the first year
you're reserving one and a half million dollars and if there is five other projects like that,
I agree you avert risk by holding some money in reserve, but we don't need the whole
amount for all of the projects, though. What that number is I don't know, but --
De Weerd: Well, it goes -- it goes back to I think you're -- you're tracking two different
things. You're tracking acommitted -- a contractual committed project amount, so that's
your big -- your big number found in your CIP. Then, you do your just in time, year by
year tracking. So, you're not carrying forward major amounts that I'm sure our auditors
look at and think what on earth are you doing here. But those are committed funds,
whether it's in that exact year or in subsequent years. It should be reserved, because
you are making a commitment to a project and if we start pulling projects you're going to
start seeing very few people bidding on those projects and the ones that we do get are
probably not necessarily the ones we want to award it to -- and I just said that on record.
Sorry.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 18 of 106
De Weerd: But -- so, you know, I think in these budget requests what would be helpful
for the elected officials is not just -- not the just in time -- well, no. We want the just in
time number, but we do want it noted on the enhancement that this is your three of a
five year project. This much has already been expended. This is the remaining. And
that I think should answer some of those questions. Then that remains on carry forward
for whatever phases that start to blur is where we get bogged down into, is that phase
didn't get completely finished and your three -- we are now in your four, so we are
looking at your four contribution and we are carrying forward your three and it really
starts to get murky. But if we can have a more black and white record, I think that is
what Council's ideally looking for, so we know committed amounts, annual amount, and
remaining funds to be committed. Is that what we are looking for?
Bird: Madam Mayor, I do have one question, though. Either for Stacy or for Bill.
Legally we can't commit money unless we budget it. If we have got -- if we have got a
fund balance we can use it for anything. It can't be committed for one -- it can be
committed for one thing, but, then, we can't use it for something else if an emergency
comes up. Am I not right? To commit money you have got to budget it. Am I right or
wrong?
Kilchenmann: You can actually write construction contracts that are subject to funding.
Bird: Right.
Kilchenmann: So, you can write --
Rountree: Revenue anticipated.
Bird: That's right.
Kilchenmann: But you won't -- but the contract's null and void if the legislation doesn't
happen. But one thing I wanted to add is maybe what in the future will give you a higher
level of comfort is I think Public Works has worked on developing a CIP plan that they
brought to you I think a couple of weeks ago or so and probably the other side that we
need to work on is the revenue projection side, so we -- we need to -- like there is the
General Fund, we have the project, but we have to kind of go into the future and insure
that we have the revenue to match the capital.
De Weerd: And I think that's what you saw in the General Fund this year is you got the
request in front of you, you could almost cross-reference that with the CIP and say,
yeah, in 2011's CIP you had the construction documents and in 2012 -- or 2012 you,
then, the --
Kilchenmann: Exactly.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 19 of 106
De Weerd: -- next phrase, whatever that is. So, you know, it is going to tie more nicely
together with your CIP as we move further along with that process.
Barry: I think this is fantastic dialogue. I just want to make a couple points, because
think a lot of the information you folks seek you have. As an example, the rate modeling
that was presented to you in February of this year, February of last year, October the
year prior to that, all had the five year CIP included in it. It was a projection of revenues
and expenses over the five year period. It is what we have trending and tracking
against for the inclusion of projects. It is what's helped to make us -- make our
decisions easier as it relates to what kinds of projects, what priority is the project, and
certainly what type -- which projects go into the long range plan. This is one year of that
five year cycle.
De Weerd: You know, Tom, Iknow -- and I know we do, but this is kind of 101 for
dummies and we are the dummies sitting up here -- we are dummies sitting up here that
-- I guess when they are looking at 12 different areas at any one time, it's very helpful to
just continue to put that information in front of us in as simple a format as you can, so
it's easier for us to track and it's easier for us to -- to regurgitate when we are being
asked by a citizen, because you can almost visualize it as it relates to that one item,
instead of having to go back and look at a chart and say, oh, yeah, that's it. But it's hard
to bring that up when you need it, because it's all separate -- it's in bits and pieces.
Barry: Right. Well, I think those are great points, Mayor, and I guess we had thought
we had done that with this budget. One of the things we encouraged the Finance
Department to do --
De Weerd: Every year you get better.
Barry: Well, that's true. We included our project description sheets, which do show a
year-by-year analysis of the cost and in conclusion of this year and how much the total
is and all that's included in your -- in your budget. And we appreciate the Finance
Department spending that -- I suppose with that and the modeling and other things, we
thought we had our bases covered, but we will certainly go back and look for maybe a
more efficient or streamlined way to -- to get that information back in front of you. To
Mr. Rountree's point, I did want to mention we do have operational reserves. Mr.
Rountree, you had inquired as to a certain dollar amount. That is the equivalent of four
months of the entire financial year, so those reserves do exist. There is a four month
reserve for the wastewater group and a four month reserve for the water. I don't recall,
think it's 2.8 million for each or something close to that. So, there is about a five million
dollar total reserve, which could cover those kinds of things, in addition to existing fund
balance, but as we know, the fund balance is going down and we will talk about that
here in just a moment also.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, just -- I just want to thank you, Tom, for doing this. This is
very helpful to see the change that we are going to and that helps as we look at that,
you know, with those huge amounts to carry forward you're wondering are we making
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 20 of 106
progress. I mean every year if -- if we were to fund
and we are carrying forward and each year it's ten
years that's -- and there is delays in some projects,
sometimes, but, you know, are we making progress.
we spending and are we responsible for that. So, tt-
see exactly what we are doing a little better, so --
Barry: Thank you, Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Thanks.
hypothetically, ten million a year
million, all of a sudden after four
that's the nature of the business
How much money is out there are
at helps to narrow that down and
Barry: My staff will kill me now, because, we pulled a slide that kind of showed the --
De Weerd: Remember, they are sitting behind you.
Barry: Yeah. I know. But we have that very slide, we carry forward amounts, which is
partly related to our transition of just in time, but also related to the fact that we have
smaller budgets. So, if you have smaller budgets you are carrying forward smaller
amounts and so we didn't want to be misleading in that either, so we pulled that slide.
But thank you all for your comments and appreciate that very much. So, without further
adieu we will go ahead and get into our budget presentation. One of the things I'd like
to do is sort of set the stage for how we approached in Public Works the departmental
budget and its assembly and the selection of priorities and projects, services, plans,
those kinds of things. So, I'll run through very quickly what our approach was in putting
our budget together. Here you will see the departmental mission. You're familiar with
that. One of the -- and these aren't in priority order, but certainly they are all important.
One of the most fundamental things we did with our budget -- and we will continue to do
-- is to make sure that we meet current regulatory and safety requirements. That's a
priority for us and I know that you all support that initiative as well. So, we have built the
budget based with that approach as well. We also did not receive any direction from the
Council, nor did we determine that there was a need to modify products or service
quality or areas of delivery and so we preserved all of our service levels and quality in
this budget as well. We want to make sure that the budget accurately or appropriately
protects and maintains our infrastructure and also that we adequately fund and insure
appropriate staff level training and the inclusion of technological resources that help us
to be more efficient and productive in our every day work. We want to have the
expansion of our assets and infrastructure to be strategic and measured. We don't want
to just go building off in one area and, then, go build off in another area. We want to
make sure that we are following plans. You will notice in this budget we have large
dollar amounts for planning. That's important to us. We want to make sure that the
plans are updated. We notice that over the last four to five years we have deviated from
some plans that were developed back in 2004, 2005, so we want to make sure that
those plans get updated, submitted to the regulatory agencies, get approved and that
we, then, stick to and follow those plans. Let's see here. All right. Got a little bit of a
delay here. We wanted to be conscientious of rates also in what we do and you know
that we have been diligent about monitoring rates, projecting future revenues,
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 21 of 106
identifying expenses and those kinds of things, to doing what we can to try to reduce
and/or -- or not and, but reduce or eliminate the next rate -- scheduled rate increase,
which is scheduled for next year. It is too early to tell if we are going to be able to do
that, but certainly our .staff have been made aware of that as a priority within our
department. We also have done this setting aside. As you know, depreciation in
operational reserves, and we are utilizing -- we just talked about just in time capital
financing to better leverage our financial resources. We are trying to reduce costs
where possible. This includes efficiency improvements and also productivity
enhancements, optimization and those types of things. We want to maximize those
operational efficiencies related to what was just mentioned. We want to ask for only
what is needed. This was a challenge for us this year when we put our capital budget
together, we looked at the five year capital plan and we eliminated about half of all the
capital needs in order to put into this budget. What we did is we had the staff put
together what they felt was -- would be their wish list regarding capital projects over the
next five years and, then, we went back, because we knew what our revenue
projections were, because of the modeling and we cut back after rating those projects in
high, medium, low priorities. We were able to, I'm happy to report, cover all of our
highest priorities and quite a few of our median priorities, but all of -- all of our low
priorities and a good portion of our median priorities from a capital construction point,
were eliminated from the budget. As well we wanted to conserve resources. We are
trying to find ways that we can reduce, recycle, and reuse, not just equipment, but other
types of resources as well. You have noticed that some of the pilots we have brought to
you in the past and some of those that have continued into the future where we are
trying to push the envelope on the conservation of resources, whether they be financial
or environmental. And, then, we want to empower our budget stewards and that's
important for -- personally for me and Public Works. I think a lot of times the senior
management team is the one doing the budgets and exercising the budgets and
tracking numbers, doing all that stuff, and, really, the folks who -- who really make the
budget work and are the ultimate ones that are accountable -- not accountable, but
responsible for helping to move forward the initiatives of the department, are folks that
you often don't see and so today you will notice there is quite a few Public Works folks
in the audience. Many are here for just support, you won't be hearing from every single
one, so -- there is quite a few. But you will be hearing from some of the leadership of
the Public Works Department as we present the budget to you, so that you can make
the connection between the person who is responsible for that request, responsible for
moving it forward, and is ultimately the one behind helping to make the department work
and help senior management move forward a responsible budget. So, with that I
wanted to go into more as a reminder than anything else. If you look at your budget
summary you will notice the budget summary has identified the use of fund balance of
around 7.2 million dollars, which says, essentially, over budget, which is true, we are
over budget. But this was predicted two years ago. We knew that we would be over
budget and this is the reason why we have, in addition to trying to identify efficiencies
and cut costs, also made modifications to our rates -- to our rates. And while we are
very very sensitive to that, I do want to make the connection between this year's budget
and the rate projection model. In February we presented that model to you. The model
predicted that we would have about a 7.16 million dollar deficit in our budget for this
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 22 of 106
year and that we would have to eat into the Enterprise Fund balance in order to cover
operations and capital and when we took that model and I compared that against what
you have in your budget summary, we were off by 40,000 dollars. Now, I don't know if I
can take credit for that or not, because that's pretty good. But we will go ahead and
take credit for it anyway. So, I just want to also remind you that next year is the last
year of the bottoming. If -- now, this is based upon three years of increases. So, we
are still working strategically to figure out how we can not take that third increase and
still turn the corner in the third year. We haven't quite figured that one out yet, but we
are working on it. If we did need to take the increase, this is what it would look like next
year with the bottoming out of the curve and, then, we start going positive after that and
it stabilizing as an organization. So, these are things that we have -- which we have
talked with you about for several years now and I just wanted to make a correlation that
it is something we are still watching and aware of. Maybe I will pause there. I don't
know if there is any questions or comments before the enhancement requests --
De Weerd: Questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Tom, the first part of your discussion you talked about identifying needs and
you talked about asking staff to develop -- you used the word wish list and, then, you
talk about cutting to highest priorities. So, my question is what criteria do you use to
differentiate between a need and a desire?
Barry: From the capital construction standpoint, what we did, Mr. Rountree, is we put
together the capital construction list that we felt we would like to do, the projects that felt
that we would like to get done in a certain time period. When we looked at each of
those projects the staff were asked to rate those into three categories, high priorities,
meaning they had to get done, either it was some regulatory requirement, there was
some urgent need, it's coming on the heels of some other project that was related to it.
It was a safety issue. Those kinds of things. And, then, we went into sort of a medium
ranking, which was, okay, what would really be good -- and opportunistic to get taken
care of now, it had moderate levels of grading in each of those areas I just described
and, then, we had the lower priorities, which is just, you know, kind of this will be great
to do, but we don't have to do it now. I don't have those criteria, Mr. Rountree, in front
of you, but that's the approach that we took with this from a .capital construction --
Rountree: That's fine. I don't need the clockworks, I just need the general overall
philosophy. Thank you.
Barry: Thank you for your question.
De Weerd: Okay. If there is nothing further --
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 23 of 106
Barry: All right. So, what we will do is go through the Public Works budget first. There
is only four enhancements being requested and I'll just do the first one and, then,'I will
have two other staff go through the other three and, then, from that Iwill -- we will go
into the water division and, then, we will go into the wastewater division and that will be,
essentially, the end of our -- of our presentation. So, for the engineering division, also
known as -- Finance called us the Public Works, essentially, kind of division or group or
whatnot. We have four requests totaling about 149,000 dollars and I will take the first
one. You may know that when we moved into City Hall there were a lot of challenges.
One of the challenges was making sure that we balanced existing needs from a space
standpoint with regard to future needs, so that we build this facility to hold -- hold us and
our staff for a hundred years and when Public Works moved over into this facility, the
areas that we took that were at first and second floor south, which is great. Now, the
challenge happened when we had put together our -- initially our budget for furniture,
the furniture that we were trying to pursue were additional cubicle spaces that were
eventually removed from our budget, in part to cover cubicles, which is fine. That space
was eventually removed from our budget in part to cover a shortage for Council
Chambers, which is fine, because we didn't have the need at that point in time, but now
we do have the need and that's what this request is all about, is about putting back into
our budget the funds that were lost to now add cubicle spaces that are needed, they are
not just empty cubicle spaces in the first floor, these are spaces that will all be filled out
by staff. The spaces are needed for a couple reasons. One, we now have an
environmental team, something we have kind of had in part in the past with our
pretreatment program. We have hired an environmental manager, which some of you
have met. You will meet here again today if you haven't met her or see her again if you
have already met her. And what we did is we moved the environmental team into one
cohesive work group, which makes a lot of sense, is the whole point to this building.
We don't have anymore space at the wastewater treatment facility, so it was out of the
question to try to move the staff and environmental team over to the wastewater
division. We just don't have the staff -- the room there. As a matter of fact, we had four
or five or six different staff members that were at that time sharing offices. And those of
you that have been by have seen that. So, what we would like to do is do a minor
tenant improvement, which is really very minor. All we want to do is put in an 18 foot
wall and that, essentially, if you notice -- and I don't know if I can draw on this. Let's see
if I can. This wall here is an 18 foot wall that we want to add and, of course, to meet or
to continue to conform with the LEED standards, it would have the same sort of window
transom at the top and a door with a window along side, as you can see these here.
And that's actually not very expensive to do based on the quotes that we have received.
The expense comes in the addition of cubicles. So, we would add one cubicle here,
another here, another here. We would modify this cubicle and add these to cubicles to
accommodate staff. And the cubicles we are told cost about 6,000 dollars each cubicle.
So, you know, you take six times five cubicles we need and you can see that's the
majority of this particular enhancement. But that's -- that's just what we have been told,
if you're going to add a cubicle, that's what it costs to do. So, in any event, that's the
need for the office space modifications, to utilize space that's currently empty and to
house work groups together, that makes a lot of sense to keep consolidated. So, I don't
know if you have questions on that, but --
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 24 of 106
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay.
Barry: So, with that I will go ahead and move on and Mr. Warren Stewart, our
engineering manager, will talk about the next couple and, then, our environmental
manager will finished up with the comprehensive surface water program.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Stewart: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, you may recall a couple three weeks
ago I came to you and presented a capital improvement plan and as a part of the
discussion in the capital improvement plan I highlighted some of the challenges that the
engineering group face and one of those was the -- sort of the inconsistency in the
approach to project management and in order to address that I had indicated that we
would be coming forward to you with an enhancement to purchase some project
management software that would allow us to standardize the approach to project
management and hopefully create some efficiencies and some improvement in that
department and this is what this enhancement is for. We, actually, worked jointly with
the IT department and of the other departments in the city to evaluate various different
types of software for accomplishing that and after we had gone -- went through the
evaluation process there was one particular software that came out sort of on the top of
the heap, if you will, and we developed this enhancement around that selection. It
includes not only the purchase of additional licenses -- we have to have three licenses
for that software currently. The software, however, has been purchased by another
company and the licensing requirements for that have changed, so we would have to
buy some additional licenses and also some additional modules and also this
enhancement includes a training to, you know, get staff educated on how to use it, so
that they can fully implement the software. And there is a fot of advantages to this, not
only from being able to track financial information more accurately, to track submittal
information more accurately, but also to be able to develop scheduling, which is
something that we have not done well in the past and we want to be able to make sure
that on our project management we include this scheduling feature. I will say that since
we have evaluated that and have developed this enhancement, there is one other
particular software that we have received some information on that looks promising, but
it is not finished at this point, it will not be complete for us to evaluate until this fall and if
it turns out that that software, in fact, has the features we think we need, we will, you
know, reevaluate at that point. It does appear that it could be less expensive and easier
to implement. So, we are excited about that opportunity, but I don't want to, you know,
basically, you know, shed too much hope on that, because it is incomplete at this point.
We do not know. But that's the purpose of this -- of this enhancement and I think it will
be a very valuable asset to our staff and their ability to more effectively and efficiently
provide project management for our capital improvement projects.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 25 of 106
De Weerd: So -- and, Warren, the cost on this is 78,872 and the remainder of the -- the
total cost of 101,000 is in General Fund for the 38,848 that, Council, you had questions
on yesterday. Okay. Any questions on this enhancement?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Yeah. What -- what scope of project that the City of Meridian would do
scheduling for are we talking about, as opposed to the scheduling that would be done
by the folks that we typically hire to do the major projects in the city?
Stewart: I believe, if I understand the question right, it is correct that when we actually
contract a project out generally the contractor is required to come up with a project
schedule during the construction phase. The scheduling that I'm talking about actually
takes place long before that. We are actually wanting to put together schedules, which
will not only detail -- well, which, actually, won't detail too much the construction, only
the construction phase, but we will talk about, okay, when do we have our consultants
on board, when do we need to get DEQ approval. When do we need to get irrigation
district approvals. When do we -- there is key milestones as we move through a project
and if you don't keep track of where those milestones are and adequately plan for them,
then, you can get down the road several months and realize that you have missed, you
know, an irrigation district easement that you had to get before you could start
construction and it may hold you up several weeks. So, the scheduling that I'm anxious
for the staff to be able to utilize is actually more of a long-term schedule that will have a
construction phase where we identify that, but it will actually be up to the contractor to
develop a detailed construction schedule.
Rountree: What's the software you have identified?
Stewart: The software that we currently have that we built this around is Primavera.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Hoaglun: Warren, you mentioned training. Is that the training that will be done in house
or do they have to travel somewhere to do training? What's -- if this is the software that
is selected?
Stewart: That's a good question. I believe that that -- and I will turn and look at Clint
real quick, because he's the one that developed that, but I believe that that was to have
them come and provide that training here; is that correct?
Dolsby: That is correct.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 26 of 106
Hoaglun: And, then, just afollow-up. The annual ongoing cost, is that primarily to
maintain the licenses?
Stewart: Yes.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thanks.
De Weerd: Stacy, do you have anything you want to add on this particular item?
Kilchenmann: I'll let Todd answer that. I haven't been involved in the discussions.
De Weerd: Yes.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, we feel that this software project tool will definitely benefit the
Finance team, in conjunction with the Public Works and, actually, it's different tools to
track their projects. If the Council and Mayor or citizens ever ask what's the project
status on any project that we have in the city, whether it be police, parks, water,
wastewater, we have to go to four different tools, four different people to find such
answer. If we had the entire city using this tool, we could easily get you or the citizens a
quick answer, be able to tell the percentage of the completion rate and, then, also from
a financial perspective, it will give us a check and balance. Right now the financial
system is what kind of drives our check and balance and right now if we had a project
management tool we would be able to take our financial system and compare it to a
secondary data source, would be a project management tool, and make sure if it's six
million dollars it's six million dollars on both sides and that would kind of go with
Councilman Hoaglun's request -- are we spending the money twice. This check and
balance will also help with management. So, from a financial perspective, we think it's a
very strong tool, it would help the entire city and the city managers -- project managers
like Max Jensen, all the other project managers out there, on one source, instead of us
going to, you know, four different products to try to give you the answer anytime.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, question for Todd. Todd, have you had an opportunity to
tickle the keys on Primavera?
Lavoie: I have only had a few slide shows with it. Clint Dolsby and a few of the other
Public Works division has showed me the product tool in the past couple of years. I
think it's -- you know, just like with any software, I think we can figure it out, we can get it
to be used. But I'm not an engineer or a project manager, so I don't really use
Primavera too often. I'm sure we could figure it out and make it very useful.
Rountree: I would suggest to make sure that if it's going to be a multi-use tool, that --
and Finance truly wants that as a tool, that that be part of the criteria and selection.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 27 of 106
There is no sense of getting something that is marginal and have it continually frustrate
you.
Lavoie: Finance has been involved with multiple meetings over the last two years with
the Public Works division, the parks division, and other representatives from other
divisions talking about getting such a tool and the tool has also been presented to the
MSI committee for the city itself to make sure that it is going to be compatible and
supported by the ITD servers and staff.
Stewart: I think -- pardon me, Councilman Rountree. Keith Watts is pretty familiar with
the tool and he has been a part of the evaluation process.
De Weerd: Any other questions from Council? Thank you. Do you have the next item?
Stewart: Yeah. The next item is the -- essentially the conversion of one quarter time
intern position to a half time position in our GIS department. We currently have funding
available for one full-time individual, which Robin Jack fills that position as our GIS
technician and also one quarter time intern position and we have -- as you heard
yesterday, Terry Paternoster talk a little bit about some of the changes that have been
taking place in some of the shifts that have been taking place with regard to the GIS
work that's being done in the city. And this -- the Public Works Department has been
working with IT to shift some of those responsibilities to the IT department to allow them
to take on some of the more high end and more complex aspects of the GIS program
and also to help spread that program and to help implement that program throughout
other departments and in the city and we are excited about them taking on those
responsibilities and working with them in that regard. But that does leave the Public
Works Department with a tremendous amount of work, not only to kind of stay on top of
the workload that we currently have or that we have had historically, but also with
regard to Hansen implementation and we got two hydraulic models now that run off of --
or that will as of the end of this year when those projects are complete, will run off of
updates to the GIS system, as well as additional requests for additional layers in GIS to
help our Public Works Department identify easements when they are out in the field and
other work in the data bases that need to be done in order to provide the services that
are being requested. This shift from a quarter time person to a half time person is going
to allow us to, hopefully, address all of those and keep on top of it. Currently we are
actually falling behind and some of those initiatives are just being set on the table we
are hoping that we can find resources with this additional help to tackle some of them
and get them accomplished. So, we are asking for the conversion to -- from a --
basically a 7,500 dollar, one quarter time summer intern, to a half time FTE.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, Warren, yesterday there was aquestion -- and I just can't
remember the response. There was a distinction between the GIS request in IT and
your GIS request. I was trying to remember the difference, what that response was.
Can you help me? Do you remember that or was it Todd or somebody gave that
answer that --
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 28 of 106
Stewart: I think it was Terry Paternoster that talked about that and I don't remember the
exact nuances of his explanation. I know that they have a need for GIS work --
essentially it kind of comes down to the fact that we have the enterprise department --
or Enterprise Fund and the General Fund and we are trying to make sure that resources
which are working in the Enterprise Fund and the resources that are working in the
Enterprise Fund are -- are divided appropriately and we felt like the -- you know, we
have given up some of the positions that we have had, some shifts with them, and kind
of done some realignment to try and make sure that we are looking at this and tackling it
the most efficient way we can.
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I just wondered if Bill wanted to answer your question or I'd throw something
at --
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Rountree and Hoaglun,
what I think Terry said was, basically, they are doing two different types of things and
this one is really primarily a Public Works function only and the one that's for IT will be
requested -- is going to help us to continue to roll that GIS program out city wide to the
different -- to other departments and the needs that they have and to provide that level
or support for the rest of the city. So, this is really -- there are specific needs for Public
Works that would overwhelm using this other person in IT and that's why we were
supportive of this position for that, too.
Hoaglun: Thanks.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would just add to that -- part of the decision, as I understood it, is there is
symptom administration, which IT is going to do and, then, there is user management,
which Public Works wants to do for itself.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Stewart: No further questions? I think I am done for the moment.
De Weerd: Thanks, Warren. Hi, Mollie.
Mangerich: Well, hello, Madam Mayor and Council Members. I'd like to introduce
myself. I'm Mollie Mangerich and I am your new environmental program manager here
at the City of Meridian. I have been here three months now and must say that I'm really
proud to be a part of this team. The forward thinking and strategical way of doing our
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 29 of 106
business here within the Public Works Department to myself is very motivating and
innervating. So, very pleased to be here today and come forward for the first time.
De Weerd: Thank you. And, then, they throw you in front of us for the budget hearing.
That was nice.
Rountree: Hopefully we don't stifle her too much.
De Weerd: We hope you can still say that after this.
Hoaglun: I think it was Tim's first time, too, today -- or yesterday, so --
De Weerd: I know. All the new people.
Mangerich: He's a pro now. Well, I'd like to introduce the enhancement of a
comprehensive surface water program with an administrator of one FTE. Funding is
going to be allocated necessary for staffing, to develop, implement, and maintain the
work required to meet the regulatory requirements of the components of this program.
Now, as you remember, this program was approved in both fiscal year '09 and '10 by
the City Council and it was delayed primarily in place so that we could get this position
that I fill to administer the program, to do a better job about defining the components of
that program and we have done so, we want to make clear those components to you
today, we have reduced the budget from 175 -- I'm sorry -- 125 to 75 thousand and we
have more equitably -- that's a good word -- equitably distributed the cost of this
program between our Enterprise Fund and our General Fund. Previously it was noted
to all General Fund. There are three components to this program and you will see that
there is a very important integration of all of these components as to the purpose and
function of this comprehensive surface water position. You will see that we are
leveraging our finances, we are leveraging our regulatory compliance issues within this
program .and we are stepping forward to meet those challenges that are upon us now.
Component one of this program is our MPDS requirements or storm water, in other
words, for our MS4, which is municipal separated storm sewer facilities. We are
required by EPA, by definition, we are a phase two city under EPA's requirements of
population between 10,000 and under 100,000, with an MS4 regulated facility in an
urbanized area. That's what we are as the City of Meridian. It is our responsibility as a
phase two city to comply with the EPA clean water requirements to protect ourselves,
for potential litigious actions, being responsible to our community. Also to protect
ourselves from damages that may be incurred due to illicit discharges that we have not
been able to educate, prevent, or forestall through becoming an permanent entity.
You're going to see that presentation, the control of storm water is integral to all the
components of the surface water program. The increase of impervious surfaces and
our compacted soils that are often a part of our new development and redevelopment
within our community, increase of surface water runoff and this has a very important
part as it relates to our flood plain management responsibilities under FEMA and NFIP
programs, which I will talk'about next. These changes increase the volume and velocity
of flow water, so by having permitted storm water NPDF in place within the City of
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 30 of 106
Meridian we can help to abate those flooding programs. This slide shows you the six
minimum control components that each requires of a phase two permitted facility. I'd
like to just go briefly through these components to tell you what we are currently doing
and what we are not currently doing. Illicit discharge detection and elimination.
Basically, partially to none at this time. We have developed somewhat -- developed an
inventory of our storm water system, those that we have a responsibility for and those
that whom we don't. We need to develop a detection plan for illegal discharges and
dumping, so that we can prohibit those, enforce, and ask for compliance. We also have
to develop educational activities about the hazards of associated with illegal dumping.
Construction sites. I have to say this is one of the great news that we have for you.
Through our Public Works and our building services we have put together a storm water
pollution prevention plan for our construction industry, for development that happens to
one acre and above, to prevent sediment from escaping that construction site and as
we know sediment is the largest problem that we have impacting our waterways in the
Treasure Valley and, thus, we wanted to target our construction sites and we have a
fabulous training handbook, with best management practices and certified trainers who
are going out to the site, educating, enforcing, and insuring compliance on these. So,
well done for our forward thinking of our building services and Public Works Department
in this regard. Post construction and runoff controls. Little to none have been done
here and is a component that we can readily take on should we take on our compliance
with NPDS, our permitting compliance. We need to develop, implement, and enforce a
program to address discharges of post-construction storm water runoff from new
development and redevelopment as it occurs. Applicable controls can be best
management practices, such as development of swales, the placing of water away from
storm drains, retention and captive of those storm waters. Public involvement and
input. None to date that I am aware of. However, the city of Nampa has begun this
process already and I'm meeting with them next week to get involved to see how far
they are along in their process and develop a networking of professionals within our
regional communities to see what we are doing. The city of Nampa is providing
opportunities for citizens to participate in program development and implementation, to
become a phase two permitted city under EPA and GDS. Public education and
outreach is another component -- critical component to our requirement of getting
permitted. I will have to say none to date formally, but I have to give -- my hat's off to
one individual in our wastewater treatment plant by the name of Crystal Green, who,
through voluntary efforts, has conscripted the volunteer help of Girl Scouts within our
community, our youth conservations Corp most recently to go out and develop storm
drain details and door hangers and going out to targeted areas and detailing our storm
drains that run directly to the Boise River and educate our citizens as to why and what
not to put down our drains. Thank you, Crystal. As part of her graduate thesis I'm sure
she will do well. Pollution prevention and good housekeeping is the final component of
this and this is developing a pollution prevention plan for the operations and activities
that occur within our municipal facilities. This needs to be done. Segue to component
two. We have obligations under FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program.
You can read the responsibilities of the basic criteria on the street, the screen, but the
position that we are asking for will insure compliance with our obligation to FEMA. We
must make sure that we have the latest maps and data published by FEMA for our uses
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 31 of 106
and to use these maps to administer our flood plain management ordinance.
Development permits are required to insure the proposed development projects meet
the requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program and also our ordinance and
development must not increase the flood hazards or encroachment to other properties.
To cover our obligations -- oh, I didn't know it was a two parter. There we go. To cover
our obligations with NFIP, there are two aspects to this program. Insurance and
regulations and they are related to one another. They reinforce each other. How well
our flood plain management regulations are enforced affects the flood insurance rate
that our citizens can pay by maintaining our eligibility and participating in NFIP, a critical
component of the position that we are asking for, an important benefit occurs. Meridian
citizens living within the flood plain, have the opportunity to purchase federally backed
insurance. This benefit requires that we issue permits for all development in flood zone
areas and insures that this development is regulated. The approval of this
enhancement also provides us a tremendous opportunity and I want to forecast this
information to you, so that we can think ahead of potential benefits. Under the NFIP
program, a community that has an exemplary program that includes flood plain
management activities above and beyond that basic criteria, which you see in front of
you, we can apply for a community rating system, i.e., we develop a series of credits by
above and beyond work that we do to enhance our flood plain management
responsibilities. Currently, the City of Meridian has no classification within the CRF
program. However, within our Public Works Department in our five year strategic plan,
we -- I think you will see in the next week -- one very important goal within the
environmental division is to receive a classification of a class four city. Classes of cities
are rated from one to nine, one being the highest, with those citizens who can achieve
up to a 40 percent reduction in their insurance costs. Class four city is a reasonable
and pragmatic goal that we believe we can do with the resources available to us,
providing up to a 30 percent reduction in insurance premiums for our city residents in
these areas. Component three of our surface water program is the oversight and
management of our stream and riparian resources. We have 24 miles of riparian and
watershed corridors in our service area that we, Public Works, City of Meridian, are
responsible for to provide that public stewardship, to protect these waterways
enhancements. These -- going back into the restoration of these riparian areas,
integrate specifically with flood plain management methods and our storm water
program, all three are related together and that's why this is the third leg of the stool of
the storm water and surface water protection program. We, so far, have probably
completed, dubiously, about 724 feet. Is that right, Kyle? Of Five Mile Creek? And
have done a wonderful job and we want to build on that. We have got 24 miles, we
have got partners and property owners that we can engage with, develop relationships,
and work forward to protect these ideal wonderfiul areas that exhibit a cultural
component and an esthetic component to our community, besides very pragmatic
effects of flood diversion, et cetera. The benefits not only improve the flood plain
characteristics of our Treasure Valley and specifically related to the City of Meridian, but
it preserves and enhances our public safety and helps prevent property damage. It
also provides us many credits towards applying for a community rating system. Very
important. It also improves our surface water quality and the qualitative benefits is that
it can also promote our master pathway plan in conjunction with our parks and
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 32 of 106
recreation department and it encourages beneficial management of our urban irrigation
systems. I hope that you have seen that we have -- I have been able to provide for you
that we have over time to develop a program, put it together for you in a very
reasonable, pragmatic way, with a very reasonable budget. We are ready to go, the
ducks are aligned, the pre-work has been done, we now have the body in place, myself,
the energy to get this off the ground and we need to get a person in place to carry
ourselves forward, so that we can meet the regulatory requirements that will and are
being asked of us. Thanks so much. Do you have questions?
De Weerd: Thank you, Mollie. Questions from Council?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mollie, I know this is a one time 72,000, the surface water program. What is the
long term cost going to be? Do you have any idea?
Mangerich: We have scheduled at this -- at this juncture that this is coverage for the
wages and benefits of a full-time person, which we are splitting 50-50. Much of the
internal resources we already have engineer services. Down the road there may be
some opportunities for professional services, but as you can see within the budget that
we have provided you today, it is a very minimal component. Tom, did you want to add
more to that? Thank you. Councilman Bird.
Barry: Mr. Bird, actually, to clarify, it is an ongoing request of 75,000 dollars. So, your
question was alluding to the fact that it was one time and, I'm sorry, it's not. It's actually
a 75,000 dollar ongoing request and that satisfies only the staff member component to
it, which we feel like we can get probably 70 percent of the program accomplished with
that staff person. You may recall in last year's budget there was 125,000 dollars in the
General Fund for this program, which was not pursued, it was put on hold and we were
asked to come back and re-present this at a reduced rate, which we have done. There
will be from time to time -- although we think we can cover it out of Public Works
professional services. The need for us to LOMAR, letters of map revision, or some
hydraulic studies or those kinds of things, so that's why we feel at this point in time the
75,000 ongoing -- we are going to give that a try and see if we can cover a majority of
the needs with that.
Bird: And that's why I asked the question, because I recall last year that this wasn't a
one time enhancement, this was a continuing enhancement.
Barry: That's right. And for some reason the whole -- the whole program was placed in
the General Fund last year, which was not the intent, but that's why when we -- we have
reworked the program, found what we think is a way that we can reduce the program
and, then, we equitably divide the benefits, because the Enterprise Fund certainly
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 33 of 106
benefits as much as the General Fund does, so it didn't make sense for the General
Fund to bear the burden.
Bird: Madam Mayor, follow up. And while we are hiring one person at this time, I'm
sure we are looking at a couple years down the road of hiring another and, then,
another?
Barry: Mr. Bird, I know that's a sensitive issue for you. Our intent at this point in time is
that we have no plans, even in our strategic plan, to hire anyone else for this particular
program. But I can't tell you in five or ten years if the EPA comes out with new
requirements and regulations and those kinds of things, that we will be in a position to
respond with the resources we have at that time.
Bird: Tom -- and I'm not even asking for five or ten years. How about one or two?
Barry: One or two? Oh, no, sir. No. There is no plan at all for that. Absolutely not.
Bird: In the next two years -- I mean I'm only guaranteed three more budgets, so within
those three budgets you're not going to -- if you come and ask, you're buying lunch.
Barry: I think we can make this wager.
De Weerd: You can't commit one year to the next, Mr. Bird.
Barry: I think we can reasonably stand behind that agreement, so not to worry.
Bird: Okay, Tom.
Barry: Thank you, sir.
Bird: Thank you.
Rountree: Tom, while you're there. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Rountree: Just a need to know. What's the consequence to the city if the slide that
Mollie put up there with the various programs -- or various requirements from EPA,
what's the consequence to the city if we don't comply -- and I'm not even sure comply is
the right word. If we don't recognize the requirements are there and do nothing.
Barry: Mr. Rountree, that's -- it's a great question and, you know, we sort of evaluated
that, too. I can tell you what could happen, but the likelihood of it happening is different.
So, what could happen is we could be fined. As a matter of fact, we had a contractor
that was fined for not meeting the EPA general construction permit requirements for
Stomar controls. That's management controls. That has happened to us in the past.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 34 of 106
The fine was I think seven or eight thousand dollars. It wasn't significant. But there has
been dialogue between the folks who -- the national -- or the folks who are in storm
water and region ten has been put under pressure to take more of a leadership role in
this area, whatever that means. Does that mean they are going to be enforcing more,
reviewing more -- we are not really sure what that is. Technically, we could be fined for
not following or having a program in place that meets the minimum control measures
that the EPA has designated for us. Logistically we are a little bit of an odd duck,
because a lot of the surface water control and infrastructure components are related to
streets, which we don't have and, of course, ACHD has a lot of that infrastructure. One
of our challenges is that ACHD has been very vocal, as has the city of Boise about the
fact that we are not a permitted phase two NPDS surface water regulated entity and
they feel that at a minimum we need to join onto ACHD's position, that we should join
onto their permit as a co-permitee, in which case we will have to meet many of these.
ACHD's concern -- we don't have adequate surface controls or source controls that
ultimately create problems for them in their system. So, we could be leveraged fines for
that. For some of the other minimum control measures, I can't tell you that I have
experience with them coming down on people who haven't had public education or illicit
discharge protection and elimination programs or private system storm water inspection.
Those are all elements of the program. If you -- I think the question is more at, you
know, cost versus risk. I think --
Rountree: What are the consequences?
Barry: Yeah.
Mangerich: Well, if I may say from the operational perspective, when we get storm
water illicit discharges, if we get notified at all, we are having to react to it, then, we have
to contact the regulatory body within the city of Boise and by that time the damage is
done. Now, that's if we are notified or we stumble across it. Believe me, that pollutant
events are happening. People do not have the knowledge and they need to have the
knowledge of what to and not to dispose of down the storm drains. So, we are very
behind the ball in terms of what we can do in terms of prevention.
Barry: I think just in a nutshell, Councilman Rountree, fines are probably the biggest
enforcement mechanism. You know, either notices of noncompliance, which you
comply with, or fines and we have been fined -- contractors working for us. On the
National Flood Insurance Program it is -- if we don't maintain certain program elements
that does impact insurance ratings. It also impacts our eligibility for the insurance
program. So, those are some of the consequences associated there. It's hard to know
how far they want to take -- take enforcement of these kinds of programs, so --
Rountree: Follow-up, Madam Mayor. From the overall program's perspective, would it
be viewed more as an educational function coming from the city or are we moving --
ultimately going to move from that or are we already towards an enforcement mentality?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 35 of 106
Barry: Well, you can pipe in, too, but I think education is a requirement. So, we have to
do education. Is that the majority? I don't believe so. There is a lot of technical
components associated with the program requirements that they have. So, there will be
a large amount of time put into meeting those technical components, making sure that
we are compliant with each of the programs, that there is testing being done. It's kind of
similar to our pretreatment program. That kind of thing. With some education going on.
We have a lot of field time, folks going out and doing inspections and that kind of stuff.
And we would treat it very much the same way as our pretreatment program, where our
mode is compliance. Our mode isn't to go out and hammer people over the head, it's to
educate, inform, engage, build understanding, and help them to comply. But certainly
we have an ordinance now that's on the books that does offer enforcement
opportunities and mechanisms if we should need to move forward with that.
Rountree: Follow-up, Madam Mayor. Mollie, you mentioned if we became permitted.
What does that mean and what are the pros and cons of being permitted?
Mangerich: The pros is that we would be able to have the person in place who could do
these MPDF requirements. As I mentioned before in a presentation, we have already
covered the construction site with the development of their sediment -- I'm sorry, the
construction site with their pollution prevention plans, as the components of both
enforcement and compliance, and that's currently being done within our Public Works
Department. This would enable us to come up and go out into our community and to
provide educational opportunities, start doing some stream building, we can develop
groups to partner with us, to do stream storm water protection. We can get businesses
to discharge non -- illegally in our storm drains. Some do. We don't want that to be
happening anymore. So, it provides us that impetus, a cadre of technical assistance,
materials, and resources available to us to meet all those components, to not be able to
do so hinders us without disposition and we are very limited in the ability of the outreach
education and information that we can provide many of our targeted generators on this.
Barry: Councilman Rountree, Ithink --
Rountree: My question is do we permit, don't we permit. What are the advantages and
disadvantages.
Barry: Yeah. That's a -- it's a good question and, really, it's a matter of compliance and
so right now we have maintained a position that we are a nonpermitted agency, under
the premise that we don't own and operate the majority of storm water infrastructure
within the City of Meridian. We have filed a letter to the EPA region ten, headquarters
at state staff, and they have acknowledged receipt and have not decided if we are or
are not a permitted agency. So, it's in the gray area. What are the benefits of being
permitted? If you're permitted you're covered. You, essentially, can demonstrate that
you have programs that meet the minimum control measures and with those programs
you are offered some protection, certainly from the federal government as it relates to
enforcement or noncompliance, fines, and those kinds of things. But how much is that
protection worth having the permit or not. Ithink we can all agree that it's probably best
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 36 of 106
not to be permitted if you don't have to be permitted. But the question here is with the
overtone that's coming from our neighbors related to what they see as an unfair
situation associated with storm -- surface water, are we -- are we going to be prepared,
do we just want to react if that -- if permitting comes down? We don't really -- I don't
know what's going to happen from the permitting side. But that would be the benefit is
to be covered if you were permitted. What this program does, however, is in advance of
that permitting, is it covers those bases, so that we are covered, even without having a
permit.
Mangerich: De facto.
Barry: Yeah.
Rountree: Thank you.
Hoaglun: Just on that -- follow-up, Madam Mayor and Mollie, on that education and
outreach. Is there a credit given or is there recognition of overlap, for example, in
SRC's educating households and businesses about their household hazardous waste
collection or other types of collections where they are trying to take that hazardous
waste out of the waste stream, preventing illegal -- not only to the trash, but illegal
dumping, providing alternatives. To me that's an overlap we can participate in or
enhance, those types of things. Is that a good thing? Do they recognize that when that
is being done?
Mangerich: Thank you for that insight, Madam Mayor, Mr. Hoaglun. Indeed, this is why
when I began the conversation of this program is that there -- it integrates with one
another. The integration of education, as you say, crosses those different media from
storm water to riparian protection, to compliance and earning us credits for a SRC class
four city down the line. So, we are actually being able to triple the benefit through an
act or a series of targeted education and outreach about proper disposal and these are
the benefits of having it folded within this program. It also makes us eligible for grants
once we are permitted or once we become a classified city. Monies and opportunities
come available to us as a city. So, there is many benefits financially down the road if
we get over this next hump.
Hoaglun: A follow-up. Another question on NFIT, National Flood Insurance Program.
You talked about they had a basic program, but, then, we would look at doing above
and beyond and I assume there are specific criteria for meeting above and beyond, not
just doing a few extra things, but there is specific criteria.
Mangerich: Absolutely. It's based on -- and I can come back --
Hoaglun: You don't need to go into detail.
Mangerich: But there is four function areas. One component is stream protection and
recovery in those areas, because you're able to slow the water down. Education and
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 37 of 106
outreach as to water quality, water source protection, well head protection and, then,
there are fundamentals on what we are doing administratively, reporting to FEMA. So,
there is four different components and within class four we want to get in between a
range of earned credits between 3,000 to 3,400. We believe it's been assessed by staff
previously that we can reach that and its readily available.
Barry: There was one other element that you mentioned, which, actually, is important,
because several of you -- I think some of you are invited to our source water protection
workshop later -- well, actually, it's next month and this program does benefit that
particular element as well, because what we are trying to do is protect our source water,
which is, essentially, our groundwater, from contamination, and so there is a direct
benefit also in having this program, which was not mentioned today and the
groundwater protection efforts that we are going to have to pursue through our source
water protection program. So, there is, actually, even a fourth leg, I guess, of the stool,
which is that this particular program lends itself very well to incorporation of these kinds
of best management practices, which almost by default benefit the protection of our
groundwater resource. So, I just picked up on that while you were talking about that.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further from Council?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Mangerich: Thank you very much.
Barry: Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. We are an hour and 15 minutes behind schedule, but I do want to
call a break, which is not scheduled either, but we are going to have a break for ten
minutes.
Recess: (3:05 p.m. to 3:16 p.m.)
1:45 - 2:60 - Water Department
De Weerd: Okay. We will reconvene this meeting and move onto our next item, which
is the Water Department.
Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. We will go ahead and try to
pick up the pace here and get ourselves some time back, so I've had a talk with most of
the staff and they are going to try to expedite their delivery of the remaining
enhancements. Up next we have the water division. We will have a couple of staff
frequent the podium. First up we are going to talk to Rich Dees, our deputy director, but
serving in the shoes now of operations manager. He will present and, then, Mr.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 38 of 106
Hudson, our assistant superintendent and, then, Kyle will be up for a little bit and, then,
Warren to finish.
De Weerd: This is definitely a team sport, uh?
Dees: We will make it very quick. We are going to do these enhancements very very
rapidly, as rapidly as you can tolerate and -- yeah, that's the button we punch. Chip's
going to talk about the radio read program and, then, we will pick up after that.
Hudson: Okay. Hello, Madam Mayor and Members of the Council. This is
enhancement number one for the water division. And this has been an ongoing cost
since about 2005. Since the enhancement is for the -- to replace our manual read
meters with radios and with approval of this enhancement we will be about 92 percent
within the whole city of being radio read and the goal of this is, of course, to eliminate
our staff from having to go to each meter pit to read meters through the city. I expect
next year to be a hundred percent radio read and what that, basically, will do is free up
our staff to work on other tasks rather than read meters.
De Weerd: I guess I did have one question and I think I have asked it before, so bear
with me. There is also a line item for the radio read program of 300,000. So, that's why
replacement of existing radio read -- household or what items and this would be over
and above that?
Hudson: The ongoing cost you see below there, is that what you're referencing?
De Weerd: No. In your regular base budget line item there is --
Hudson: It's a 300,000 dollar line item and what that's for is the replacements and for
the new meters. What that's for, Madam Mayor, is that, obviously, the meters are our
cash registers, that's how we get our money, that's how we get our revenue in, and the
meters only last about ten years and, then, they have to be replaced. So, that funds the
replacement of those meters that are going out of service that we have to replace and
also for new subdivisions that go in, you got to put -- or in subdivisions and buildings.
You have to put the meter in to -- you know, to collect money. So, that's what that's for.
It's two separate issues.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Dees: The item is the SCADA server purchase. The SCADA system actually has two
machines associated with it. One machine is for the primary SCADA system and I don't
know if you know that a server has a bunch of parts inside of it, but they are redundant
and the idea is that if one part fails, it has default architecture, so it picks itself up and
continues to work, which is very important for a SCADA system. The other piece of the
puzzle is historian. Now, we have been using a regular computer for the Historian, it's
like alaptop -- not a laptop, but a desktop computer for that. Well, wouldn't you know
the thing failed and just couldn't tolerate the constant use. So, IT has recommended
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 39 of 106
that we replace that machine with a server, so we have that redundant backup and
that's all this funds, it's just a redundant machine -- or not a redundant machine, but a
machine for the Historian, which is a server, instead of a regular desktop computer.
Any questions for that? The next one is laptops and air cards. Laptops and air cards
are needed for our field folks, so they can go out and do business in the field. The way
we can -- well, sorry. Thank you. You got me covered? It's to have good help to fix the
machine. Anyway, the laptop and air card are needed to complete our field -- what work
orders are available to them, so they can dispatch, take care of the work order,
complete the work order on the computer right of way and, then, go to the next one.
The way that's done right now is either with a cell phone or with a radio and -- or a
combination of thereto. Particularly needed during turn off days and turn on days. We
get a lot of dispatches or turn offs, everybody has to keep track of when someone paid
and, then, when we need to go out and turn that service back on again or whether it
needs to be turned back off. The way to do that is through a laptop and a card. So,
buying these four computers and the air cards takes care of making sure that everybody
has the equipment they need to, so they can go do that.
De Weerd: And this will fully automate all your field personnel, then?
Dees: Yes, Madam Mayor.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Tell me what an air card is.
Dees: Internet system.
Bird: Oh. Okay.
Dees: Right. In the side port. It's an air card.
Bird: I'm technology smart.
De Weerd: No.
Dees: It took me awhile to figure out what an air card was. Now -- I guess they are
building them in now, aren't they? I don't know. Next is a portable vacuum excavator
and Chip's going to talk to you about that.
Hudson: Okay. Portable vacuum and excavator -- our water division staff is frequently
called out to make repairs on the underground water system. Finding the point of failure
means we must clear out the transfer vault and excavate the immediate area. This is
the safest and most unobtrusive way to do that is with a vacuum excavator. The goal is
to just minimize customer disruption of water service and to quickly make repairs,
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 40 of 106
provide a quick turn around time in locating, troubleshooting, and fixing underground
vault failures. Any questions on that?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, question. How is that done now?
Hudson: Right now typically we contract it out. We don't have very much excavation
equipment. The stuff we do have is very old.
Hoaglun: What are we spending per year right now, then, if we are contracting out?
Hudson: Boy --
Hoaglun: I'm sure it varies from year to year.
Hudson: It does. This year has been a bad year. I don't know -- many of you probably
know we had the water main leak on Main Street right by the speedway. That was --
that leak alone was 40 plus thousand dollars to repair.
Hoaglun: If it's major like that, though, would we still need some assistance -- I mean
outside help?
Hudson: We will occasionally.
Hoaglun: Because this won't solve all the problems.
Hudson: No.
Hoaglun: If there is a big leak.
Hudson: No. But it would help a lot as far as the small to medium size leaks.
Hoaglun: Thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird.
Bird: Chip, how -- how often would we actually -- the city crew on minor leaks, how
often would we use it and -- I mean what would your estimate be on hours used in a
year's time for a piece of machinery like this?
Hudson: Hours used per year -- typically I think we have been averaging right at two to
three leaks per month, doing the math in my head here, but two to three days per
month. Probably work days, so --
Bird: Twenty-four --
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 41 of 106
Hudson: -- 24 hours.
Bird: -- and you have 12 times that's going to be about 840 hours?
Hudson: Yeah. If we had a piece of equipment like this, though, we would probably do
a lot of preventative maintenance on our own. Maybe not a lot, but some.
Bird: And what is preventive? Going in -- and the vaults have always -- after a rain or --
can have water in there, so that you can pump it out and look things over, is that what
you're talking about?
Hudson: Yeah. Or, you know, replacing old meter setters and stuff like that, just
minimum size excavation. With a backhoe it's kind of difficult to do that, because, of
course, you have a hoe that's -- can damage other utilities. A vacuum's much safer,
because you're vacuuming it out.
Bird: Okay. And we don't need to buy a truck to go with it.
Hudson: No. It would be trailer mounted.
Dees: Unless you're absolutely willing to do that, thank you.
Bird: Is that right, Tom?
Hudson: Any other questions?
Bird: No. That's great.
Hudson: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Dees: The next one is access control and security upgrades. You will see this again,
by the way. This one is going to repeat itself in the wastewater division in a little
different format. At the water division we have access cards now, so you can get in all
the doors. The problem is it's a symptom that's extremely clunky to say the least. Each
door is individually controlled. They are not tied together, so in order to change a card
or if you do anything to find out if someone came in illegally, you got to go to every
single door in the building to find out of that happens and that requires an IT person to
come out and do it. So, it's not like here at City Hall where you can find out if you have
had a door forced or something happen. What we want to do is change the system
from that clunky system, if you will, to the same system you have here, the Linelle
system, using Apex, the same company, and it will take about 25,000 bucks to change
all the doors at water and to link it with the machines down here in City Hall. So, it's a
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 42 of 106
security upgrade is what it is. It's making the system so it works. The IT people will be
forever grateful if we get this enhancement through. Any question?
De Weerd: Any questions from Council. Thank you.
Dees: The next one is the asset management data services. We have installed
Hansen successfully at wastewater and it's up and running, we are happy to report.
We now need to migrate to water. We have got the licenses for it, but one of the things
that needs to happen is the GIS data that we have needs to be migrated into Hansen.
The other thing that has to happen is we have got to install the best practices possible,
the best management practices possible into Hansen, and also to layout the process
work flow for the water division in Hansen. Now, there is a company that does that. We
have hired them for wastewater, we used them, and it worked very very well. We could
use IT to do it, however, they don't have the -- they don't have the resources for it,
number one. Number two, this is very specific to Public Works. It's not citywide. So, it
doesn't really fall under their purview, we just need to get someone in to come and do
that for us that one time. And so this -- this provides the data services to migrate the
data from GIS into Hansen and also to set up Hansen for us properly. Any questions
about that?
De Weerd: Okay. By adding this it doesn't mean that we need at add a person; right?
Dees: No. Your Honor, no.
De Weerd: Hansen has turned into this monster with a bunch tentacles going
everywhere and --
Dees: I have a --
De Weerd: I thought I'd ask before Mr. Bird did.
Dees: Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. No, it does not add a person. It doesn't
add a person and this is -- this is simply a contract services with a company to do the
data migration services one time. Are there any other questions?
De Weerd: No.
Dees: The last one is one that's shared with wastewater. This is the cost of -- doing the
cost of installing radio repeater system for actually everybody in the city, but primarily be
used by Public Works. Parks Department also uses the same radio system. What it
does, it allows us to communicate with our folks in the field efficiently and effectively and
even makes it possible. There are places inside the city where our radios can't talk to
each other, nor can they talk to home base. So, the way to fix that is to put a radio
repeater system in. The other half of that situation is you have a hand held radio, which
we have in emergency situations, it's impossible, actually, to go more than a quarter
mile before they stop working. So, what this does is allows us to talk citywide, even on
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 43 of 106
our hand helds. It also provides a link to the 700 megahertz system that the police
department has and the fire department has, so if we get into trouble or have a
contingency situation, we can splice the systems together and work as a team on out in
the field whenever there is something going on. So, what this buys is half a radio
repeater. You will see it again in wastewater, the same -- the same enhancement. Or
same half of enhancement. Are there any questions with that?
De Weerd: So, Rich, what are you doing now?
Dees: Right now we are using the radios and if we are out of range we just -- we just
get in range.
De Weerd: Well, how about cell phones?
Dees: We -- not everybody has a cell phone. I know everybody thinks everybody has a
cell phone, but not everybody has a cell phone, so what we do is we either wait or try to
hop scotch, you know, will you, please, call the water division and it will be a relay
system that goes through to try to communicate. With the hand held radios and the
contingency, we just don't and that's one of the biggest problems we have. We assume
during contingency the cell phones don't work. I can give you lots of examples of what
happens when it blows up and cell phones get all jammed up and you don't talk and the
only thing that works is a radio.
Hoaglun: And Madam Mayor. Rich, this would cover the city by getting this piece of
equipment, we pretty much got coverage, then, for the whole at this time?
Dees: Yes, Councilman Hoaglun, that's exactly correct. The entire city.
Hoaglun: Okay.
Dees: Any other questions I can entertain with that? Mr. Kyle is up next.
Radek: Madam Mayor, Council Members, I will be taking the next few enhancements.
As you know I am the flood plain administrator, but I am also the assistant city engineer
for water, so I'm taking the water enhancements and I would encourage you to consider
the surface water program administrator, because it would make my job a lot easier.
De Weerd: That is our goal, Kyle.
Radek: Thank you, ma'am. Flood water master planning. This enhancement includes
work in several areas. Water rights and supply planning, groundwater master planning,
and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality regulatory compliance and
monitoring aquifer testing, statutory development and review. These efforts are forward
looking and will benefit us in the future by helping us protect what is currently our only
source of potable water from contamination and protect us from challenges to our rights
to use our water source due to claims arising from conjunctive management. Most of
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 44 of 106
these efforts are directed at long concerns and it's difficult to see or quantify potential
benefits right now. However, when -- in the future we discovery the imminent need for
the date to defend our rights, then, it will be too late to start gathering it. Most recent
experience I had with House Bill 556 and the Comprehensive Aquifer Management or
the CAM process, indicates to me that in the absence of good data decisions will be
made based on or may be made based on assumptions and feelings and they will not
necessarily be in the best interest of the city. Any questions about this enhancement?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor. Kyle, you know, this is sounding familiar to me and I
remember we had the discussion some time ago about the groundwater master plan --
in fact, on the sheet they put the FY-10 enhancement number eight for 458,000 dollars.
So, that was a groundwater master. plan. This is the source water master planning. So,
we are doing something similar, although it's looking at it different.
Radek: Actually, I just looked at that, Councilman Hoaglun. I actually just looked at that
last and I think groundwater master planning still -- in last year's enhancement was still
just a component of that -- that one big enhancement. It was a 50,000 dollar
component and I can't remember exactly what that enhancement was called, but I think
the best -- I mean it's really a semantics kind of thing, but I think the best title for this
enhancement is -- is what we have it now, source water master planning. It's all about
the source of our potable water, making sure we have access to it in the future, for both
-- you know, in terms of keeping it -- keeping the quality and keeping our rights to
access it.
Hoaglun: I remember that discussion last year. I'm just trying to remember did -- Todd
or Stacy, did we fund that?
Radek: We did fund that enhancement last year, Councilman Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: We did, so --
Radek: Yeah.
Hoaglun: We are going to be getting new information from this that we didn't get from
the other --
Radek: We actually -- these are really -- these are some continuing efforts and there is
some that are new to this enhancement. Monitoring aquifer testing is something that we
do every year. Groundwater master planning is something new that we started last
year, but we are going to continue to do. Water rights supply planning, we really put a
good effort in last year. These are -- these are efforts that will kind of spike probably in
the next year or two and, then, drop down and we are going to -- we are planning to
spend, you know, a lot more money now and, then, you know, get our ducks in a row
and, then, it should taper off. In .one way we are catching up the water rights and supply
planning. We had a task order we just did regarding water rights and flood planning for
water rights housekeeping where we are really catching up with a bunch of stuff we
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 45 of 106
should have been doing five, seven, ten years ago. We have had some really big
successes lately securing the highest level of water rights for some of our -- some of our
points of diversion and -- and, really, actually had some cost savings. We were
expecting to need some attorney help there and we didn't have to have it. We have
been working with IDWR. But -- so, I guess to answer your question, you're seeing the
same titles year to year and they are continuing efforts and they are going to have more
money put to them in the front end and they will taper off.
Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor, to follow up on that. You know, doing master plan and
source water planning, I mean that's absolutely critical, because we have got to know
what our capacity is looking out ahead 20, 30, 40 years as the area continues to grow,
what we can count on, what we have to be aware of, definitely have to do that. I guess
from a budget perspective the Enterprise Fund is, okay, how much more money, how
many more years, where do we say, okay, now we have got enough information to say,
okay, we have got a handle on this, we can go another ten; twenty years before having
to take another look at this. So, any idea how -- what we are looking at down the road?
Radek: Madam Mayor, Council Members, Council Member Hoaglun, really, it's a series
of events that we need to do. First, we need to sew up our current water rights. Then,
we need to accomplish -- then we are done with the big work there and the time table is
kind of tough. I have never been here before, you know. These are -- in fact, most
people have never been here before. You know, you could argue that nobody's ever
been where the City of Meridian is and the Treasure Valley is right now, nobody has
ever been here before. So, to determine how long it's going to take us to accomplish
these things, it's hard to say. I think -- I think most of these efforts over the next year or
two years -- we have almost completed our hydrologic framework task order, which --
which maps the aquifers. The next step is modeling in the aquifers and, then, we have
-- the groundwater portion of this -- groundwater master planning, okay, now we have
got a map of the aquifers. We know what the water quality is in different areas. We
have -- we can model it, we can say, okay, where is the best place to sink our next well.
What's going to happen is we sink a well over there or can we sink the well -- you know,
we have to sink a well here, how deep do we need to go or what kind of quality can we
get? Can we blend it. So, with the water rights I guess I kind of answered your
question on the water rights. Ground water master planning is going to be ongoing.
Regulatory compliance is always ongoing and the statutory development review is
something we will do and we will be done with, because we will have a source water
protection ordinance, which will include a well drilling ordinance -- well drilling rules. So
-- so, those efforts I see as a year or two years. Some of these efforts will continue for a
long time, but at significantly less cost than we are spending now.
Hoaglun: Well, I'm glad we are doing it, it just makes me nervous when you're kind of
basically saying keep the check book handy.
Radek: Yeah. If you look at the CIP plan that we gave you, we do have a time frame
for accomplishing these things and we are spending a few hundred thousand dollars --
two hundred thousand, then, it goes down to a hundred thousand dollars and, then, it
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 46 of 106
goes down to 75 and, then, goes down to 60. So, you know, there is a plan there. I just
-- I don't have it all on the top of my head. There is a lot of efforts going on, but --
Hoaglun: It's good stuff. It's just --
Radek: I would say the CIP sheets would really help you out with --
Hoaglun: I'll have to look at that again. Yeah. That helps. Thanks.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Is there a component to this or -- well, maybe there is an earlier question.
But I don't know whether we need to do it or there is a water board somewhere, but is
there anybody that's identifying threats to the water source, how do they get
contaminated, how do they get dried out?
Radek: Of the -- I would say threats to the water sources, to answer that question, one
of the components of this, the regulatory compliance, includes development of a source
water inspection plan and that is where we identify threats to our water sources and,
then, hopefully, you know, if we can identify a threat, we can figure out how to avoid that
threat. I don't even know where to begin to tell you how difficult that work is, because
the modeling that has been done by the state is -- I'm on record here, I guess. We need
to do our own modeling to be -- to get -- to get the facts, so -- your question, again,
please? I may have strayed from answering.
Zaremba: I think you answered it. We are taking a look at what could be the threats.
Radek: We absolutely are.
Zaremba: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: So, Kyle, can't we leverage those dollars with the state? I mean we may
not think they do as comprehensive of a job -- maybe that's what you meant -- but, you
know, you would hate to see duplication regardless of how poor someone might do it or
maybe not up to the kind of detail that we need. But can that be a joint venture to where
they're financially responsible for a piece and we, then, say we want to go to that next
level, we are willing to fund the difference.
Radek: Madam Mayor, Council Members,. we -- we have considered that and fully hope
and -- I don't know if I can -- I can quite expect, but we hope that these efforts, like the
CAM, will produce the -- a -- kind of a unified effort at developing this data when that, in
fact, the Corps of Engineers was trying to develop something -- I can't remember what
their effort was called recently, but we said,. hey, we are in kind -- you know, in kind
work that we are doing that we can -- we can continue to this effort and so it will payoff,
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 47 of 106
believe, in a partnering kind of -- kind of effort at some point. There is no guarantee of
that. But I think it's highly likely that it will.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Radek: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thanks for the questions. I hope my next one can
go a little faster. Well reconstruction. This year we exceeded our goal of assessing and
reconstructing, if necessary, two wells through pump upgrade, well redevelopment, and
other minor reconstruction, we increase pumping capacity of three wells this year and
insured their longevity until the next assessment, comes with minimal cost. With the
aging of our wells, assessment and reconstruction is becoming more and more
beneficial to us for cost savings and service delivery. Any questions on this
enhancement?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: What three wells are you doing?
Radek: We have done, Councilman Bird --
Bird: What is this?
De Weerd: You need to get closer to you mike.
Bird: Which one -- which three is for this 110,000?
Radek: Oh. Well, our goal is to do two, first of all, Mr. Bird. And this -- this next
enhancement will be for -- we have a base budget of 40,000 for assessments and the
well reconstruction enhancement is our best guess of what it might take to get these
wells back up to snuff and our next wells are Well 22 and Well 19.
Bird: Thank you.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I understand this is an enhancement, but just thinking off the top of my head,
as the city gets more and more wells, it would seem like there ought to be a program
that every year we are doing something and is there -- is there a goal to raise the base
budget amount and have fewer of them be enhancements?
Radek: Councilman Zaremba, I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 48 of 106
Kilchenmann: Madam Mayor, this is a capital item. We don't do capital items as a base
budget, we only do operating. So, that's why it's rebudgeted.
Zaremba: Well, isn't it part of our operations to --
Kilchenmann: It's a government accounting standard that we do it, so we -- we don't
just do capital as a base, we -- that's reappropriated every year. So, they can ask for it
every year as a standard enhancement, like the radio read, but we do handle it different
than we do the operating base.
Zaremba: I'm not understanding. Isn't maintenance and repair operation?
Kilchenmann: No. This is --
Zaremba: And in all cases what we maintain and repair is a capital investment -- I told
you before I'm not a finance person.
Hoaglun: To help you out, yes, you make a logical point, but this is a government
standard accounting requirement and so it won't make sense. Does that help?
Zaremba: Is that what you're saying?
Kilchenmann: Yeah.
Hoaglun: You're right. It's the requirement that financial -- finance has on their
accounting on how they are supposed to lay it out for the purpose and that's the
standard and that's how they have to follow it and -- even if it doesn't make sense.
Zaremba: I stand down.
Kilchenmann: Debit-credit thing.
Radek: Questions on that enhancement?
De Weerd: No.
Radek: Water main replacement. We are excited about this enhancement, because
even though we have been requesting water main replacement lines for several years,
we now have completed a preliminary assessment of our aging infrastructure and have
several projects in design and one opening bid for construction next week. The
exploration of these old facilities and design for replacement is a big learning curve and
we need to stay on it to be able to reinvest at an appropriate rate. We will be employing
traditional construction methods, as well as pipe bursting to accomplish replacements.
We estimate that there is about 350,000 feet of water main in the city that's over 20
years old and we don't know how long that water main will last, but just to give you the
big picture, to replace that over the next 50 years that would be an average of 7,000
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 49 of 106
feet a year and we need to at least be on the curve to know what it's going to take to
replace that. We are by no means starting out at 7,000 feet a year, but we are getting
going on the low hanging fruit to places where we have substandard pipe materials and
sizes that is going to benefit everybody to replace.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Kyle, how many miles or feet or however you want to do it for 480,000?
Radek: Councilman Bird, right now we have design for about -- help out me, Clint,
about 2,000 feet? And that's going to cost us about we think 260,000 dollars. So, we
are -- and with the enhancement of 480 --
Bird: That other 220.
Radek: Well, that's for this current fiscal year. For next fiscal year we intend to spend
the 480. I'm talking about in the next -- what it gets bid out a week from now. But that's
not this enhancement.
Bird: How far -- how much of this 480 -- we are not talking about 2010, we are talking
about 2011.
Radek: We are talking about 2011 and we think we have two projects that we will
spend 480,000 dollars. I don't know off the top of my head how many feet that is, but,
like I said, that's part of the learning curve is -- 2,000 feet on Franklin Avenue is not the
same as 2,000 feet to Carlton and 4th and Washington.
Bird: I don't disagree at all. Got to have some kind of an idea of cost.
Radek: Like I said, Mr. Bird, we have two projects and we intend to -- we have
estimated that those projects will cost 480,000 dollars.
Bird: And this is -- this is what fund balance was put in for was for replacements. I have
no problem with it.
Radek: So, there is no question that reinvesting in our infrastructure is something we
have to do, so -- we will likely have to do it at a faster rate in the future.
Hoaglun: And Madam Mayor and Kyle, how much of that work is dictated by ACHD in
terms of what areas they are going into and you know that it's a need? I mean do you
have any control over that whatsoever, but do you have an idea at least where they are
headed and what they have got planned?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 50 of 106
Radek: Councilman Hoaglun, we -- we can coordinate with ACHD on these types of
projects as well. Of course, as you know, we have our water main extensions that are
new water mains with ACHD projects that I'm going to talk about in a minute or two, but,
for example, split corridor phase two, significant work involving water and sewer and
that and that comes from this -- this type of project, this accounting code. So, we have
an opportunity, we are going to -- we are, of course, going where the -- where the road
construction goes and, then, we will probably branch off and a little further to make sure
we are doing enough just to leave the new road construction alone. The other -- the
other issue we have is chip seals comes up in three to four years, so we have to kind of
lay off the stuff after chip seal, because we don't want to be wrecking the -- the new
roads, so --
Hoaglun: Thanks.
De Weerd: Okay. If there is no further questions, you can move to the next.
Radek: Okay. And that's appropriate to bring us to the water line extensions now. We
just -- we just spoke about that. This year this enhancement is solely for improvements
in conjunction with roadway projects. As you know, we are challenged to accurately
predict not only what we will need to build, due to unknown from the scope of roadway
projects, but also when we will build it due to unknowns and changes in the scheduling
of roadway projects. Our relationship with the road building entities is evolving as we
are challenging exiting paradigms about who pays for what and develop mutual respect
for utility construction, as well as road construction demands. We still believe very
strongly that the cooperative projects that this money is dedicated to is the best way --
orthe best for rate payers and for the traveling public.
De Weerd: Okay. Any questions on this?
Hoaglun: Just a comment, Madam Mayor. This -- it seems like it's -- it's getting closer
to that -- where you need to have the just in time type of funding -- instead of obligating
-- you're obligating, but at the same time you're keeping the funding and you're just
using it as needed when these projects come available.
Radek: Actually, Councilman Hoaglun, we have specific projects that this is intended
for that have been identified.
Hoaglun: Right. But --
Radek: For both these enhancements.
Hoaglun: But when you're tied into ACRD and the project gets delayed or something
like that, you have got the money, you know, it's just one of those things when you're
working with another agency and, okay, now where can we go with that funding and try
to -- try to maximize our resources to the best we can.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 51 of 106
Radek: Absolutely. It's hard not to throw extra money at that and just say, well, just in
case I might need a couple hundred thousand. But this is based on, you know, what --
what their five year work plan is and what they tell us they are going to build this next
year.
De Weerd: But they always do provide a couple of surprises, don't they?
Radek: That is correct. Not only in delaying and advancing projects, but in, well, we
are going to include this intersection now, so we have got to jump and -- any questions
on this?
Bird: Madam Mayor, let me ask Kyle one -- it's probably a stupid question, Kyle, but this
enhancement is -- is new water lines or just improving existing distributions?
Radek: Councilman Bird, it could be for adjusting, as well as new, but if we have a
project we -- if we have a project that's just adjusting we might not be able to capitalize
it, but, generally, it's new -- it's new water line extensions and we might have to -- you
know, they might be putting a storm sewer over and we might have to adjust it. That's
one of the things that we are challenging the paradigm on is if they are putting the storm
sewer over our water line, who should be paying for that water line lowering. So,
obviously, we have our opinion on that.
Bird: We have got two entities that don't want to pay.
Radek: Uh-huh. Exactly. So, next enhancement is flush line construction. This
enhancement is intended to maintain our ability to provide quality water to customers as
our system grows. Included in the construction of Kleiner Park will be a special
interpretive flush line into one of the ponds that will not only help make sure of water
quality in the park, it will provide a unique opportunity for outreach to the public,
because this flush line goes beyond what would normally be required of the developer,
Public Works will partner to provide funding for this flush line. So, this enhancement is
intended for a specific flush line in Kleiner Park.
Hoaglun: Okay. I'm talking a lot here, but I have to ask this question. Mollie gave a
presentation where we are talking about water quality, we are talking about the biggest
threat to our waterways is sediment and, then, I read here: Remove sediment from the
system, provides for the best possible water quality and we are flushing water out of the
systems into the creeks or canals to remove sediment, yet the number one threat to our
creeks and waterways is sediment. So, explain that to me.
Radek: I think -- I think there is a question of what sediment means when you're talking
about storm water pollution prevention and when you're talking about water distribution
lines and we are talking about manganese and iron and they are talking about the
suspended solids of dirt and -- and I guess you're -- you know, to some degree
sediment is sediment, but -- but the way we do it we -- you know, we don't -- we flush
and we -- we build a flush line and we -- we build an appropriate control so that we don't
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 52 of 106
stir up anymore ground when we flush into canals or creeks and this one, actually, will
flush into a pond, which is probably the best way to avoid, you know, putting sediment
into creeks, it will settle in the pond, so --
Hoaglun: It's just one of those things the average citizen scratches their head over and
go I just don't get it. Kind of like government accounting standards.
Radek: PRV vault upgrades. We learn new things all the time. One of these things is
that -- a vault flooding sensor that cost less than a thousand dollars to install can save
you several thousand dollars worth of damaged electronics. Also, we provide a bypass
for our pressure reducing valve to keep some water circulating all the time, but have
found that the existing bypass designs are prone to leakage and need to be upgraded.
So, those are the major upgrades that this enhancement's intended for. We have
approximately 20 PRV vaults and we want to install flooding sensors, we want to
improve the bypasses and there is probably a few miscellaneous things like -- I know
one radio cabinet needs to be moved.
Bird: Twenty vaults did you say?
Radek: Twenty PRV vaults.
Bird: Twenty? Okay.
Radek: Any questions. Ground well reservoir number two. A rule of thumb for storage
capacity from the American Waterworks Association is that a system should have a
storage -- storage of about 25 percent of the maximum daily demand. Meridian has a
maximum daily demand of about 20 million gallons. We currently have 2.5 million
gallons of storage, which is about 12.5 percent. So far we have been blessed with an
aquifer system that can be tapped anywhere in the city to provide quality water at
quantities to satisfy the peaking and fire flow. However, we can't see that this trend will
continue for ever, especially in outlying areas to the north and south. A storage
reservoir, however, doesn't just provide for peaking and emergency and fire flows, it
provides flexibility to pump from the aquifer at preferred rates, times, and intervals. It
also provides an opportunity to improve water quality through mixing. On top of all this
a reservoir will provide these benefits to the city at a lower cost than all well scenario to
provide for future demands. This analysis was completed in the 2006 water master plan
update, which called for the construction of a reservoir by 2010. In light of recent
growth, trends in budget constraints, the reservoir design and construction has been
delayed, but the cost of the reservoir property and the recent capital projects that have
been bid out, indicate that there may be no better time for this investment than fiscal
year 2011. Any questions?
De Weerd: No. But I think that you should include the cost of a mural to be placed on
this.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 53 of 106
Radek: Actually, Madam Mayor, I was considering advertising space. We could
actually make the reservoir pay for itself.
Bird: We might approve it if you have got the advertising.
Hoaglun: And there is -- will be room for a walkway, a pathway along this property?
Radek: That's another important point. Thank you, Mr. Hoaglun. I'd like to make this
point. It's not for any specific enhancement, but for all the projects that Public Works
does now, we have kind of stepped up our standards. When we do a well project that
well project goes through Planning and Zoning, just like a development project. It needs
landscaping, it needs CDC approval, it needs to be a quality project, that a developer
can't sit across the street and go, hey, how come you got away with that. So, to answer
your question in a little bit of a round about way, planning -- master planning calls for a
multi-use path there, so we will put amulti-use path there. There will be landscaping.
There will be -- this particular site needs a flood study done. So, we will do things the
right way.
De Weerd: It needs a mural, too.
Kilchenmann: It will be a city project. We will all take turns painting on it.
Radek: SCADA base station upgrades. We have and will continue to discuss our
SCADA system master. To any user of our SCADA system it's fairly obvious that
equipment could use updating. On the one hand we want to complete a master plan to
insure that we are taking a holistic view of our system, with the future in mind in order to
make the right system and equipment choices. But on the other hand, we are fairly
certain that the master plan will call for upgrades and this enhancement is so that we
will be ready to make at least some of those upgrades immediately after we get that
master plan done.
De Weerd: Okay.
Radek: Well 10. Well 10 was shut down after testing positive for uranium above the
EPA maximum contaminant level. We are currently undergoing preliminary design
efforts to determine the best course of action for this well. This enhancement is to the
like event that the current well will need to be abandoned. Well 29. This enhancement
is in advance with the discovery that the city must operate a well on the Well 10 site
consistently in order to retain ownership of the site. The total project cost compared to
a new well has also been reduced, because we believe that the preferred design
alternative will use the existing pump house and associated infrastructure. So, this is a
new well on the Well 10.
Bird: Where is this located?
Radek: Jericho and -- just north of Fairview.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 54 of 106
Bird: Yeah. I know where Jericho is.
Radek: Here are the upgrades. Our new wells are fenced and security provided to
deter vandalism and other undesirable activities. Our older well sites are just as critical
and need to be upgraded as well. And my last one, chlorine analyzers. Maintaining
adequate chlorine residual insures that we deliver safe water to our customers.
Overdoes in chlorine causes undesirable taste and causes manganese and iron, which
requires more flushing and wastes water and money. Chlorine analyzers will help us
insure that we are optimizing our chlorine dosing.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Kyle, explain to me -- this system, is it put on each well or how is it done?
Radek: We estimate the installation of a chlorine analyzer at about 6,000 dollars, so
this will by no means cover all our wells, but we want to get some strategic locations
and it will go -- it will go at the well site, preferably as far away as you can get from the
well without getting too far, so that you can't put it back into the SCADA system. So, the
chlorine analyzer will tell you how much -- how much chlorine residual is going out of
that well, going to the SCADA system and feed back to the SCADA base that we can --
we can monitor that that well is -- after its mixing has got three milligrams per liter and
that's probably too much. We probably want it to be more like two or 1.5 when it goes
out of the well. And, then, we can have a PRV site, which is out in the distribution
system and at a PRV site, that's where we are going to find out, oh, gee, whiz, our
chlorine residual is gone, so, then, what do we do, so -- and we will get real-time data
on that from all kinds of sites and I think it's really going to -- it's going to help optimize
our dosing and it's really going to help us stay out of trouble I think.
Bird: In other words, this 50,000 is going to do about eight -- eight well sites?
Radek: Yes.
Bird: Okay. Have we got this on some of the well sites already?
Radek: We don't have it anywhere.
Bird: This is a new --
Radek: Yes.
Bird: Anew setup for us.
Radek: It's the right thing to do.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 55 of 106
Bird: Yeah. I don't --
Radek: And with that I will turn it over to Warren.
Stewart: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, the first enhancement that I will be
talking about is the SCADA system master plan. You heard already discussed today a
couple of SCADA projects and think it might be educational to take a quick minute and
talk about the SCADA system general. I think it's sometimes easy to misinterpret what
the SCADA system really is and, really, for us as, you know, the Public Works and
engineering group that manages these systems or looked at these systems, it's sort of
like the distribution system of our water system. You have wells, you have PRV's. You
have the main headquarters. You have reservoirs. You have pipes. We don't create
an -- sort of an enhancement that covers all those. We tackle each one of them as
individual components of the system. The SCADA system is much the same. We have
various components throughout the city. Some of them are radio transmitters that
transmit information back to our base station. We have servers which you heard Rich
Dees talk about. Kyle talking about other components of that system. So, you will see
throughout this whole presentation several things associated with SCADA. When I
started with the city approximately a year ago one of the first things that I noticed is we
had two or three projects where we brought on new facilities where we discovered after
we brought on the facilities that with regards to the radio systems they either turned out
to be somewhat incompatible or provided interference with existing systems that we
already had and Rich Dees and I kind of got together and talked about this and said,
hey, we need to have a consistent approach to what we are doing with regards to our
SCADA system. What they do in water should be consistent with what they are doing in
wastewater, so that we don't have these interference problems and that we don't have
these issues with incompatible equipment. So, we thought about doing a master plan.
Actually hiring a consultant to do a master plan for the SCADA system to, you know,
help us establish what we should have and how we should move forward in the future.
So, what you are seeing here is one half of that SCADA system master plan. We
actually had a consultant provide us with a cost estimate of what it would take to
accomplish that effort. This is the water division portion of that. You will see an
identical SCADA system master plan enhancement and we are hoping that we can --
with enhancement with your approval that we could be able to hire a consultant, do a
SCADA system master plan and tackle many of these issues that have been arising,
come up with a consistent approach to where we want to go in the future. Any
questions?
De Weerd: No.
Stewart: Next is well assessment or investigation. I know you have -- you have seen --
there is another enhancement called the well assessments. This is slightly different.
This is not meant to be equated with our standard two a year well assessments. The
Bitter Creek Meadows Well was a developer donated well and as such it met water
quality standards by the EPA, but it would have been, in our estimation, a substandard
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 56 of 106
well, although it strictly meets those requirements. It is high in sulfur, which gives it a
very rotten egg smell and we have had numerous complaints from the residents down
there. I know that the water staff has spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to
operate that system in a fashion that would satisfy them and keep them happy. We also
recognize that the long term plan for this well was to pump this water back this direction
into our system and to utilize it -- you know, to use it to replenish our system. Well,
obviously, we don't want this water coming back into the rest of our system, which has
good quality water. This enhancement would be to hire a consultant to, basically, give
us some alternatives as to what we might be able to do to improve the water quality of
this well and allow us to, you know, functionally use it in a more beneficial way in the
future. This could be treatment. This could be drilling the well deeper. This could be
drilling another well. We don't know what that alternative will be. This is just to hire the
consultant and identifying what our options are for improving that water quality. Excuse
me. Question.
Zaremba: Of your list of possibilities I would add another and that would be just
bypassing it and supplying the water from somewhere else.
Stewart: Currently this is the only source of water for that area. We don't have a
connection as -- I hate to bring up other issues, but we have a project that will
eventually connect this to the rest of the --
Zaremba: That's what I mean. Some day.
Stewart: Yeah. Some day it should be connected, but currently there is no other option
for those individuals out there. And even if we were to connect them and, then, shut the
well off, we would still have a problem in that we would have a very long -- I can't
remember how many miles it is. Two miles long, 16 inch pipeline going all the way out
there. That pipe in and of itself and the volume within that pipe, there is not enough
homes on the end of that to move that water quickly enough to keep the water quality in
that pipe good. We are faced with --
Bird: You start getting stagnant water.
Stewart: Yes. Exactly. So, we have got kind of a darned if you do, darned if you don't
kind of a situation here.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further? All comments mumbled under their breath, uh?
Stewart: Next one is SCADA remote terminal upgrades. As you heard me speak a
moment ago about the SCADA system, one of the issues that we know we currently
have within this system is many of the radio transmitters or data transmitters at our well
sites and PRV's are antiquated and not only is that antiquation causing us -- well, it
causes us difficulties in a number of ways. One, we cannot transmit enough data back
-- in other words there are several different variables that we would like to be monitoring
at a well site, it simply doesn't have the capacity to transmit all that data. Secondly, they
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 57 of 106
are very slow, because the radio systems are so slow we are only getting data back
from some of those about every minute and a half. If we were to have a particular
event, say a water hammer condition or something else that might cause a failure or a
breakage in the line, we wouldn't even know it. It wouldn't even show up on the SCADA
data, because that event would take place so quickly that unless it happened to be
within that instantaneous moment we wouldn't see it. We know this is a problem. We
haven't replaced these radios yet, because we want the master plan to identify what
radio we should be putting in. However, we are going to make sure that in the scope of
the master plan this issue was addressed and we expect to be able to move quickly
once the SCADA master plan identifies which radios are required, we would like the
funding to go out and have those replaced. That's what this enhancement is for. Any
questions?
De Weerd: Okay.
Stewart: And the last one that I have is the water system improvement and upgrades.
In our water system throughout the year there are many opportunities that we find that
we operate the system for improvements. Many of those opportunities come in the way
of valves that we need to add, either, you know, control valves reducing -- mean
reducing valves, sustaining valves, pressure release valves, or flush valves, as well as
some flow meters and water quality analyzers. These are all projects that as we
historically have operated the system we become aware of and we would like to be able
to tackle. They allow us to provide efficiencies and in some cases even enhance the
security of the safety of the system. I know Kyle was mentioning to me that not very
long ago they discovered that in one of the pressure zones they didn't have a pressure
release valve. Well, if they did have a power failure and it was well running and it
instantaneous shut off, that could create a severe water hammer, which can damage
equipment and actually break line. Without a pressure relief valve that's what can
happen. If you have one of those when that instantaneous pressure hits it pops open
and allows the pressure to be released in a safe way. This enhancement is designed to
give up the flexibility to tackle those kind of issues on a timely basis and get that done.
It's not a significant enhancement in the overall budget of the water department, but it
does provide us with the flexibility to quickly address some of those kind of issues. And
I think that is the one, so I will stand for any questions.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Warren, I got a question, I don't know which one of -- which one of you guys want
to answer this, but seeing how the state of our economy and stuff is and seeing how this
department is, basically, seven million over budget, of all these enhancements I have to
tell you that as of 480,000 I think is a fund balance on the water line replacement, how
many of these enhancements, if we don't approve them this year, is going to
compromise the safety of our workers and the product that we put out to our taxpayers,
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 58 of 106
our customers? How many of these things are actually something that has to be done
fiscal year'11 to keep up the quality of the service and the product?
Stewart: Wow, that's a difficult question to answer.
Bird: I realize that, but -- you know.
Stewart: Yeah. You know, to be fair, I think we would have to sit down and take a --
take alittle bit more time than we can right here on the spot to analyze that. Certainly
some of these could be postponed. There is consequences to that. Certainly some of
them we feel more strongly about, but we would need to sit down, I think, as a -- you
know, because it's one thing for me as an engineer to say, well, I don't think that's
necessary and I have an operator back here that may say what in the world are you
talking about. So, I think we would like to have -- before we could answer that question
honestly, maybe --
Bird: Well, I'd a lot sooner you guys tell me than me go through here and tell you what
don't -- and I do have a question for Chip regarding your --
Radek: I'd like to reiterate what I mentioned about the reservoir is, you know, if you
delay the reservoir ayear -- delay the construction of the reservoir a year, it may cost
you more money.
Bird: And it may cost us less. Last year bids were a little higher than they are this year.
It depends on the economy. But, in the same token, if the economy goes and it costs
us a little more, we might have some growth out there that helps pay for it. Kyle or
Chip. You have got a request for 80,000 for a dump truck. Do you guys know what
equipment -- what's wrong with the dump truck we got in place and how often is it used
and all that?
Hudson: Well, we don't use it very often right now, because it's totally unsafe. We use
contract work. It's a 1975 dump truck. It came from agravel -- local gravel pit when we
got it. Probably in the '80s.
Bird: But it's unsafe.
Hudson: Honestly, you have to go in reverse and slam on the brakes to make it dump..
The hydraulics are that bad.
Bird: How often do you use it? How often do you need a dump truck?
Hudson: Kind of like I said before, we contract the work out. There is probably three
leaks a month we contract and, then, we would use it more often for just basic
maintenance work if we had one.
Bird: Thanks, Chip.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 59 of 106
De Weerd: Anything further from Council?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Back on the enhancement. I think it was number 23, about things that would
help improve the system for the operators. This is kind of a sideways question. Much
of the infrastructure is put in by developers and we require them to make certain
standards. If we are finding things that would be good to have in our system, are we
adding them to a list of things that developers have to do, so that in the future we are
not retrofitting?
Crane: Certainly if we have the opportunity to, you know, have a developer project,
make system improvements, that we are aware of, we would take advantage of that.
But we have an infrastructure that's vast as its existing and --
Zaremba: Well, I'm thinking specifically if somebody is going to put a 50 house
development in a corn field and when we give them the specifications for the water
pipes --
Crane: Oh, you're talking about the Bitter Creek Well?
Zaremba: Well, no. I think it was 23, water system improvements and upgrades, things
that the operators have found that they -- would make their life easier and safer. I'm just
saying are we incorporating these into new projects?
Radek: Yeah. Councilman Zaremba, I think the best examples of that that I can think
of are -- are the PRV upgrades that we are making. We are making them part of our
new standard detail and when a developer needs to do a PRV now, it's going to have
that stuff in it.
Zaremba: Good.
Radek: Same with flush lines. We -- historically we have done flush lines by our self as
the system has grown, but -- but we have made it a part of the development services
checklist to say, hey, is this a place where we can put a flush line and have them do it.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Rountree: Yes.
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 60 of 106
Rountree: Councilman Bird kind of alluded to the problem I'm having and it's not
necessarily a question for you all, it's probably one for Tom and one for Finance, is we
just have heard a request for just short of five million dollars worth of enhancements.
We are going to hear shortly another seven million dollars request for enhancements.
When you run all the numbers, the numbers we have is that the Public Works budget is
1.7 million dollars in a stated over budget. Having said that, if you simply look at the
enhancements alone and try to balance that, that leaves about five million dollars that
could be allotted to enhancements to make the budget balance. Now, I think my math
is close to a hundred thousand dollars anyway, so help me understand how we are
going to make this work, because this councilman will not approve a budget that's that
far over budget and where is the money coming from? I'm sorry. You know, that's what
we are charged to do is prepare a balanced budget and fiscal constraint and restraint. I
don't believe in Santa Clause, but I do believe in miracles.
Barry: Well, I'm not sure we can produce either one of those for you, Mr. Rountree, but
you're asking great questions and, in all honesty, this was predicted, like we said, when
we did the modeling. There were choices that -- there was a choice that the Council
made that you will recall. When we went through the rate modeling exercise and we
had the focus group and we had a lot of input about how would we best reconcile our
revenue situation to meet the upcoming needs for the utilities, both water and
wastewater, and three different proposals were presented. One do a one time massive
adjustment to rates. Another one was do a two year adjustment. Another was a three
year adjustment. And in the two year adjustment and the three year adjustment what
was made clear by that is that those periods would have to catch up with us before our
revenues and our expenses would either -- would flip flop, essentially. So, it's kind of
like I started this afternoon by saying that we did predict that we would have to eat into
the ending fund balance and one thing that we can, on the one hand, be somewhat
satisfied with is that the prediction is that we wouldn't eat into the ending fund balance
by more than about 7.2 million, which is the case with this budget. On the other hand, it
is troubling that we are eating into the budget at all period. I mean I would prefer to
have a budget that didn't have to eat any fund balance in order for it to be, you know --
to bring that forward to you. So, it's like I had mentioned to you at the start. We know
that we are going to have deficit spending this year, we had deficit spending last year,
and we will have deficit spending next year. There is no way to get around that,
because we chose a rate implementation period that was over a long term, which
means that the correction is going to occur over the long term as well. While we do
what we can to try to minimize costs, we are up against a couple things here. We are
off a period where we have had enormous growth, much of which we are still catching
up with. We are also at a period where pricing for the purchase of both equipment,
materials, supplies, property, construction is at really all time lows for at least the recent
history and we want to take advantage of some of that and both of those are included in
this budget. We would like to not be deficit spending at all and that is -- that is the intent
we have long term, but it will take us two years under the current projection for us to get
there.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 61 of 106
Rountree: So, any response from Finance in terms of deficit spending and how this can
be made to work? I know we have funds from the rate increase.
Kilchenmann: Councilman Rountree, we -- this can be covered by fund balance. The
only concern is how many years we can keep -- we can keep going at the same level.
And with the operating -- this is the operating income that we project for this year and
five point something million in the hole. That does .include 4.2 million in depreciation,
because part of the whole understanding of the rate increases that we were going to
start literally making that into a fund until we get to whatever level Public Works is
comfortable with. So, that 4.2 million is in there, so what we would literally do is we
would start setting that aside on the financial statements. So, if we didn't do that it
would be one point something million in the hole. But I guess it's just -- I'm always
talking about philosophical choices, but it's -- it's what we see our revenue doing
downstream. Do we see going ahead with the rate increase, you know, what -- where
we are looking at in future for revenue and, of course, there is growth assessment
revenue will pick up and that will take the burden off the operating income. So, I don't
know if that answered your questions.
De Weerd: I guess I would just like to throw out there one of the reasons you have a
CIP is you -- you show where the city's priorities are, where some of the reserves are
being dedicated towards -- much of this is in the modeling that has been in front of us
the last several years and where you do deficit spending, I -- or I guess you have to tap
to your reserves, are these replacements, the repairs and things, we have said isn't this,
basic O and M, but it's -- there is no exact science that you can say this is a policy here
and this is a policy there until we really fine tune that capital improvement and identify
this pot and this pot and I don't think we are quite there yet, although we have made
tremendous movement in that right direction of getting there. So, it is going to be,
Council, in what you're comfortable. This has been a topic of discussion from Tom in
his presentations that we will be doing deficit spending as we try and catch up on our
rates and they are trying to balance that with tightening the belt, so we don't have to do
the third -- third year of that rate increase, which I appreciate. So, if this -- this is
something that you will have to feel comfortable with and --
Bird: Madam Mayor, my biggest fear is when is the fund balance going to run out? And
in the first place, that fund balance is to do replacements and as Kyle stated up here,
we have got some 20 year old lines -- well, I can tell you right now I live in 45 year old
lines. I -- and that's what that fund balance is -- the way it was explained to me when
come on here by some very sharp individuals, the fund balance was to do replacements
and emergencies and that included water department and wastewater treatment plant
when you needed it. Fees covered your wages and operational and that's what we
raised the fees for, which we probably didn't need to raise them this year, but we did.
look at this deal -- and don't take any of it personal. I see where in the private world
when we -- when we get tight and our budgets are tight, we -- we don't increase our --
our overhead, which is employees and stuff like that. Water and wastewater has not,
they have stayed pretty -- our administration in Public Works has went through from 14
employees in 2004 to 28 employees in 2010. I know there has been some changes, but
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 62 of 106
think we have asked the General Fund people to tighten their belts and Ithink -- I think
we need to -- in this Enterprise Fund, we need to see if we can't. Maybe the Council
needs to do like we did on a building that we built. We had a director and some people
that thought we needed to build the Taj Mahal. You know what, we give them a dollar
amount, they built the building, and it turned out to be a very very nice building. Still
being used today. Big enough -- our city has grown from 35,000 to 65,000, it's still
sufficient. I don't know. I hate to turn any of these things down, because I know you
guys worked hard on it and I respect every employee in this city and I don't think there is
a person up there that don't say that I don't fight for every employee in this city. But I'll
tell you, guys, those fund balances were for a reason and it's -- if we have a major
problem -- and we could -- we almost did out at the wastewater plant -- where are we
going to get the money? This city has never had to bond. As long as I sit on the
Council it never will. That's my feeling.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would first say that I agree with everything that has been said. What
would discuss is how much we need to reserve. It comes as no surprise to me that we
are eating into the nondesignated fund balance. There are a couple of other things that
have happened. Some of the things that have just been in here nebulously assuming
that this fund would cover emergencies, are now being predicted and are part of the CIP
and we have funds to cover some of the things that were undesignated period. It's
uncomfortable for me to have an oversize, nondesignated fund balance and, yes, if this
is our contingency fund, then, that's fine with me. But we are building contingencies
because of the CIP and because of the work that's being done by all of you to discover
where are our deficiencies and at what rate do we need to be fixing them. We are
putting those monies into the program other places and so it's difficult for me to defend
having 14 million dollars sitting in an undesignated fund. So, I -- to be honest, I don't
have a problem eating this fund down. We knew it was going to happen, because of the
projections that we have seen over the last couple of years. The contingencies that we
worried about are actually being addressed other ways and other places and I guess my
question is what's the alternative? We leave too much money as nondesignated and try
and cover that budget some other way? I'm perfectly happy with what's being
proposed. Personal opinion.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor. I just wanted to ask Tom when you did a presentation earlier
and that slide was up you said you were going to analyze, you guys were making cuts
to see maybe we can avoid the third year -- the increase in the third year, but yet as a
look at it I'm not optimistic that we can. Do you see something different? Can you give
me any ray of sunshine there?
Barry: I'm not sure how bright I can make your day on that subject, Councilman
Hoaglun. We -- we are going to have to see. I can't say with certainty that we will be
able to avoid it. We may be able to lessen it. When we did the modeling earlier this
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 63 of 106
year there was some signs that we are posting better than predicted revenue and that
we had purposely delayed projects, which had helped at that short period of time make
the numbers look good, but until we get year end close out of 2010 and we update the
CIP and we identify the carry forward and we develop and revise the next model run, we
won't really know until then. So, in all honesty we probably won't have a very good idea
about that until probably November or December of this year, possibly January. But
that doesn't mean that we are not working behind the scenes to try to avoid that.
Certainly that's important for us. Now -- I mean there is a lot of good points that are
being discussed here and Mr. Bird made some very very good points. It may be
appropriate, however, to remind the Council historically of what the fund balance did
over time. If you go back to 2002 -- actually, it might be in your -- do you have that in
the budget book? Ending fund balances over time? Okay. So, as I recall when we
were doing the modeling, the ending fund balance over time grew from around 2002 up
to around 2005 or 2006 and has swelled to over 40 million. Those were ending fund
balance numbers and in talking with the staff who there in the department at that point
in time there was enormous pressure both from a development community standpoint
and the City Council for carrying such large balances. Certainly the staff didn't go out to
look at the project to just spend money down, but we -- what we -- what I'm told is that
we looked at projects that were required in order to continue that kind of growth and to
respond to that kind of growth and so since about the 2006 period we have been deficit
spending, like it or not. The fund balance has continued to go down year after year
since about 2007 or so. And so that's where you get from 40 million dollar ending fund
balance to what's projected here -- now, this is undesignated at 13 million and that's
important, too, because this undesignated or nondesignated balance that's on your
screens here represents a portion of the entire Enterprise Fund. So, the Enterprise
Fund, in addition to these dollars, has another approximately 15 million dollars -- well, I
shouldn't say that. That's, actually, at the end of the period. So, in 2015 that 3.9 million
-- because, remember, we are building -- we have an operational reserve, which is not
included in here, so you can add that, that's the five million or so, if I remember
correctly. So, if you add that, plus the depreciation reserve and the regulatory reserve,
which are over a five year period equating to about 15 million dollars, your fund
balances are larger than what they show here. This is just nondesignating, meaning
sort of available fund balances, because you set aside those -- or earmark those three
areas. I think that's important to keep in mind, too, is that we had a surge as
development came up, took a lot of money in over a period of time, we are responding
to a lot of those growth related needs and also doing a better job at responding to
replacement and repair of existing infrastructure and I will add one other point, we have
a 2,500 -- over 2,500 lots out in our community right now that are -- have water and
sewer services extended to them, but do not have any buildings on them. If you apply
our normal assessments for water and sewer, the water assessment revenue that's
sitting in the ground is four and a half million, wastewater revenue is about 6.9 million,
so we still have 11.4 million dollars that we don't have to spend a dime on putting
infrastructure in, that all we need to do is wait for development to come and pay those
assessments. Now, who knows when that's going to happen? But that has a bearing
also on, you know, what we have experienced financially with this big growth and this
big drop off of growth. So, there is a lot of things at play here. There are not surprises
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 64 of 106
to us in the presentation of this budget. We are uncomfortable like you that it is an over
budget, it's a deficit spending budget. If the Council should desire to send Public Works
back and cut a certain amount, we will carry forward that request, but with what's been
presented today it is in alignment with what the models have predicted and so we felt
that it was reasonable and responsible, because it did also include the highest priorities
as outlined earlier.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Rountree: Tom, I don't disagree. I ask the question in terms of the deficit spending,
knowing full well that fund balance would take -- not take care of it, but that's where the
funding would come from. I asked a number of months ago what is -- what is the value
that we should assign or that you recommend that we assign to those fund balances.
have not gotten an answer to that question, so I'm in a situation of, okay, I have a sense
of what the fund balance is. The first thing I would like is what's the actual fund balance
as it exists now -- and you can slice it and dice it however many ways you want,
whether it's dedicated, nondesignated, whatever, and give me a total what's going to be
projected by the end of the year, so if we are going to deficit spend we will know within
the parameters we are going to do that. Right now I don't know and that's what
concerns me.
Kilchenmann: Councilman Rountree, the actual fund balance right now in cash is -- or
cash and investment is 29 million, but let us check and see how much of that has
already, you know, been budgeted for capital projects.
Rountree: Now, that's total -- total Enterprise?
Kilchenmann: It's 29 million right now today if we were to cash out and sell the
Enterprise Fund and leave the city, but if you took out what we have already budgeted --
we have already budgeted, the projects that are ongoing and that they are going to do,
it's 13 million.
Bird: Thirteen million is in there?
Kilchenmann: Yes.
Bird: That's not dedicated?
Kilchenmann: That's nondesignated --
Barry: That's when you take projects out and the reserves out, so that's what we were
talking about earlier.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 65 of 106
Kilchenmann: It's 2.6 that we have. That doesn't include the -- you know, the operating
reserve and --
Hoaglun: Yeah. That's what -- I want to be clear about that. That does not -- you have
like reserve -- the operational reserve. It does not include those?
Kilchenmann: Yeah. That's what it looks like.
Bird: Right now if we pull out -- we got 13,198,992 dollars.
Kilchenmann: Yes.
Bird: If all of our funds are worth that. You don't take some hits. But --
Kilchenmann: That's if we spent every dollar that we have budgeted. That's if we
spend every dollar that we have budgeted.
Barry: That's the intent, except you have seen the chart earlier where that's not the
case, so --
Rountree: Half. Only spent about half.
Barry: Traditionally, although, usually, we are trying to improve that number.
Rountree: Yeah.
Barry: So, it sounds to me that approach that might be contemplated by the Council --
or maybe it's not the Council, but one approach that has been chosen years ago when
we decided to modify the rates so that we could cover overall operating and capital
needs, so I guess I'm a bit unclear on if there is a directive from the Council on this or if
we are still just in dialogue about it?
Kilchenmann: One thing I can add to the historical is that it he is correct. I know from
the operating side -- I think almost every year I have been here they have been in a
deficit. Would you say that's correct? Well, except for last year when we increased the
rates. But like what was the fuel that drove the fire were the -- was the assessment
revenue.
Rountree: That gets back to the question I asked several months ago is what's the level
in that fund balance that addresses risk and where are we willing to let that go? We are
looking at -- if we were to approve this budget and fund balance doesn't change,
though, I know it will, at something less seven million dollars, remaining in that balance
at the start of the next fiscal year based on what's budgeted. I'm not sure that's a good
number. I need some help be either comfortable or -- uncomfortable. Right now I'm
uncomfortable.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 66 of 106
Barry: Oh, yeah.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Again, I'm not the finance expert, but it's my understanding that we have pre-
identified some of those risks and set up a different fund than this to hold them. Isn't
that what the six -- or four month operating fund and the --
Kilchenmann: We just have a four month operating fund at 2.1 million dollars and that's
to cover personnel and operating. Other than that we have not -- we talked about
needing to have the reserve and Tom can address exactly what it is. Initially we had
budgeted to set aside some for depreciation, but right now we have the 2.1 million and
the 13 million. That's it. Nothing else has been designated.
Barry: Other than the depreciation.
Kilchenmann: Yeah. In the 2011 budget.
Barry: Uh-huh.
Zaremba: So, we have talked about them favorably, but they haven't actually
happened.
Kilchenmann: Correct. And they were one factor in the rate model, it would be fair to
say.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: I guess what I would propose -- it's 15 to 5:00 and we have still wastewater.
If we can get through that and maybe give a break to Council to have pizza and
whatever other needs they need to do as well. Maybe, then, Tom, you and your team
can huddle and look at -- I think the bottom line question here is what is the minimum
contingency you need in all funds that you should always have in reserve and that's
what we don't want to dip into, because if we have a catastrophic emergency what
would we do and, you know, that's what we want to protect ourselves toward. Then, we
can look at what you're proposing at this time and see what the differences are. But I
guess the bottom line question that I hear is what is that minimum contingency that we
need to have in this fund to protect ourselves in the case of an emergency. Is that fair?
Bird: I agree a hundred percent with you, Mayor.
Rountree: It's the answer to that question I asked. I mean --
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 67 of 106
Hoaglun: And just to give you a perspective, Tom, it's -- I mean whether it's the
Enterprise Fund or General Fund, I mean I think we share a nervousness about the
economy. I mean it's -- every year the revenues are going down, it's more difficult, and
there is no certainty going forward. We hear talk about growth. It's been talked about
for a couple of years now and now there is talk, you know, do we do a double dip or is
there another recession. We don't know. We don't have that crystal ball. But there is
just that reluctance to overextend and put ourselves in a position we don't want to be in
and that's -- we are just trying to be prudent. Don't want to pick on you, but it's just -- we
are just trying to find that comfort level and it's -- it's difficult right now, so --
Barry: Fair enough. So, with that I can meet with water staff while we go through the
wastewater enhancements, if that would be your preference. We can multi-task here, if
you're okay with that.
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Barry: Great.
Bird: That would be great.
2:50 - 3:55 - Wastewater Department
Barry: So, with that we will go ahead and kick off the wastewater component, the
budget discussion.
De Weerd: Don't be nervous. It is your first budget.
Barry: As you know, Tracy is our new wastewater superintendent.
De Weerd: Congratulations, Tracy.
Crane: Start out by saying we just built a couple of reclaimed water reservoirs that
could probably use some murals as well.
Rountree: So, to add a little levity to it, you need to read the Delbert cartoon behind
you. It's very appropriate for a discussion of --
Bird: Have you seen it? Come here. You might like to read that.
Crane: Thank you. Okay. How do you following that. My pleasure to be here today
speaking in front of you. We are going to do a similar tag team. I will take the first
couple and Clint and Rich are going to help me as well. So, moving along here.
Enhancement number one is for a new grit classifier for our treatment facility. The
existing one was put in '96. It's been modified a couple times. There is a little picture
there you can see where we have got to put some flexible pipe, because the piping
shakes and has broken a couple times, so we finally put some flexible pipe in between
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 68 of 106
there. It's a little undersized. They build a second grit chamber and dump into it. It
tends to overflow. There is a drain, so water doesn't go on the ground, it overflows into
a concrete drain, but it puts water all over the bearings and things like that. Our
maintenance staff has said, you know, the motor and gear box, because of all the water
that's come on the top of it is really close to the end of its life and there is a little bit of
concrete work that's starting to rot after 30 years up there as well. So, this
enhancement is not just in time, this is a single enhancement, so these funds would
cover the purchase of the equipment and the construction and installation of the
equipment.
Bird: Madam Mayor -- or Mr. President?
Zaremba: Yes.
Bird: And, Trace, how -- how much more capacity will this handle before we will have to
either add or -- is it four, five, six years? The way growth's going, you know -- you don't
know.
Crane: I think possibly even longer than that, Councilman Bird. This is a classifier, so
the grit chambers actually provide the class and they bump the grit into where it's
washed and it, basically, separates the grits from the organics and the piping is fairly
small that feeds is why it plugs. So, we will definitely look to put in a big enough one for
the foreseeable future. Now, if growth turns and we do something -- I hesitate to give
you a year, because you don't know --
Bird: Don't know.
Crane: But I think for the foreseeable future I think ten or 15 years is -- for as long as
this one has been in there it's certainly something that we should --
Bird: It would -- it will handle some more expansion to the plant --
Crane: Yes.
Bird: -- is what I'm getting at. Okay. Thanks.
Crane: Any other questions?
Zaremba: Thank you.
Crane: Enhancement two here is secondary clarifier upgrades and I will try to be brief
in the explanation, but number three clarifier was built in '88 and it was built as a draft
two clarifier, which has a very flat bottom and it has a suction header that travels the
radius and it would go along and it would literally remove solids from the entire radius of
the clarifier all the way around. Somebody in '96 -- we are going to use the term
upgrade very loosely -- decided they were going to upgrade this clarifier and they turned
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 69 of 106
it into a spiral. They took that suction header out of there and made it a spiral
mechanism clarifier. The problem is is the spiral clarifier needs a very sloped bottom
floor and they didn't do anything to the floor and they also turn faster than drafts do and
they didn't change the drive. So, as a result when we used this clarifier, the solids just
settle way out on the edges. There is baffles in there that are designed to make the
solid travel the length of the tank, so you can use the whole thing for settling. They
don't get moved to the center where they are -- the only -- spiral scrapers scrape
everything to the center so the solids can come out. It can't move those solids from the
edge to the center, so those solids tend to sit there and, then, they want to -- through a
process of denitrification come out of the clarifier, which is a problem. So, funds for this
would, basically -- we have -- this is a two year enhancement. There is another half a
million that's scheduled in the CIP after this. However, we have asked the consultant to
do everything they can, look into ways to save money and we are hoping not to come
and ask for the second part, we are hoping that we can get everything done with the
first part of these -- these funds. This clarifier was sort of ignored in the upgrade. We
installed another big one and with -- with four and five -- this was number three, one of
the original ones. We don't necessarily have to operate this every day. The problem
comes is when something happens to four or five, we absolutely have to bring this thing
online and it's not very operator friendly. Number four it specifically has this reticulating
skimmer that ducks under atube -- every revolution goes under the water and comes
back up and about every three months the bolts fall out and we have to take the clarifier
down and pull the bolts out, so as part of that we are hoping to change that mechanism
to the newer style, like is on number five. It also -- the floor needs to be recoated
terribly bad, but I think a couple months and we are concerned with running three for
those couple of months while four was off line. So, the idea would be fix three and,
then, get in and bring it forward up to grade. I probably don't have to tell you secondary
clarification is sort of the lynch pin in the treatment process when the incoming
wastewater comes in and we mix it with activated sludge, this is our removal
mechanism to get that activated sludge back out of there, so if it fails it's sort of really
tough to do anything past that. On the micro switch, there is a picture of the filament on
there. That's a filament that grows and when it grows it causes the sludge to settle very
slowly and when it settles very slowly during peak flows it doesn't have time to get to the
bottom of the hydraulics that want to wash these solids out of the clarifier. And there is
several mechanisms that we can use to control it, either a chemical feed or some
selective type wasting method that they put in and so the funds for this would -- actually,
we have a consultant working on what to do as far as the micro surge control and give
us several options and we are hoping to evaluate that and get the best bang for our
buck and, hopefully, we won't have to ask for the second part of it -- wow, did I do that?
Oh. So -- and also I should point out as well these two clarifiers -- we have two guys
that have to get in these and literally put on waders and life jackets and scrub the algae
out of these weirs every week, especially in the summer when it's warm. And number
five has an automatic weir washer mechanism where to date no one's ever been in
there to clean it. So, my -- our work people folks would really appreciate it if the funds
get approved for this -- for this enhancement.
Bird: If they don't you can make the four of us come out and take turns.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 70 of 106
Dolsby: I have got the next enhancement. Get this to advance. This enhancement is
much the same as the water main replacement in Hansen that Cal brought forward from
the water side. It combines the urban renewal funding with some additional funding for
sewer main replacements. As you recall in fiscal year '09 we purchased the camera
truck and TV equipment. Been doing a very extensive effort to identify areas around the
city that are in need of sewer replacements. We also completed the downtown sewer
study this year that identified several deficiencies in the downtown area and also
incorporate it like future developments that might come into downtown, we wanted to
upgrade our sewer system to accommodate what the planning department sees coming
in the downtown area. For example, on this funding, I know you had the question on
the water shed, Mr. Bird, we have a project that's going next fiscal year for about 3,200
feet of sewer, estimated it will cost on the order of 400,000 dollars -- 410,000 dollars for
that project.
Bird: Replacement or new?
Dolsby: It's a replacement in the downtown area.
Bird: And that's what part of this is?
Dolsby: It is what part of this is.
Bird: And in my personal thinking that's what that fund balance is for. I can -- I can
fund balance on this item here.
Dolsby: And there is also several other smaller projects that we have identified through
that TV and camera. Any other questions on --
Zaremba: Okay.
Crane: This next enhancement is to -- let's see, can this podium go up any higher? If
can hide behind it. I'm going to ask for another person. This is asking for an FTE, a
new mechanic two. We have added a lot of infrastructure in the last couple of years, we
have added a couple of clarifiers, we have added some screens -- screen mechanisms
and we even added a new utility. The reclaimed water utility. Not only that, one of the
things that's happened to us as we have started looking at our equipment, before we
started really looking at things like we should have been looking, we were doing about
338 preventive maintenance actions per month. Well, now that we are looking at it with
fresh eyes and know what we are supposed to look at, we are well over 1,100. We are
1,155 PMs a month and we need staff to go do that, quite frankly. As the enhancement
shows, we have added 16.3 million dollars worth of equipment. We have gone from
about 48 pumps to 108 pumps and from about five valve and actuators to 32. So, we
have more than doubled our -- doubled our infrastructure we have to maintain and, quite
frankly, we need folks to do that. And so we need one new mechanic to -- to maintain
the equipment, keep it where it needs to be. Any questions about that one?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 71 of 106
Zaremba: Questions?
Bird: I have no problem with that.
Zaremba: Okay.
Dees: This is the second half of one that we talked about earlier in water, except this
one here is a little more serious. In wastewater we don't have any access control at all.
The buildings are locked by key at best and we have a fence around the place, just like
we do in water. We had a visit from Homeland Security and they said you got to get
access control someplace here, just to protect the place. So, what these funds buy are
the same kind of access system you have here in City Hall, it's 100,000 bucks to put
access control in the exterior doors of the buildings in the wastewater treatment facility.
Bird: Mr. President?
Zaremba: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Rich, how -- I have been concerned quite a bit, because, you know, you tear up
water or sewer plants it's pretty major catastrophe and what -- why are -- why are we --
ourgate not out there access control like the police departments or is this going to do it?
Dees: First of all, this is going to do that. You're talking about --
Bird: It's going to do the gate, too?
Dees: The one way out in front. Is that the -- yeah. The one out in front.
Bird: Okay.
Dees: Way out in front it's going to take care of that, but it's also the gates that are -- I
don't know if you have been out there recently, but there are gates that actually pertain
to our infrastructure that are closer into it --
Bird: Yes.
Dees: -- it's going to take care of those gates as well.
Bird: Okay. They are all going to be under access card --
Dees: Access control.
Bird: Okay.
Dees: Yes.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 72 of 106
Bird: Good.
Zaremba: However, knowing that the animal control facility is out there --
Dees: Yes. That's why we have a second set of gates. There is two sets of gates out
there, if you noticed.
Zaremba: Okay. They are outside of the second gate?
Dees: Yeah. Well, they are outside the near set of gates. The outer gate is still shut.
They will have to access through that to get in, but they can. We are going to give
those folks a card.
Bird: It's no different than they have to do at the police department.
Dees: Right. It's exactly the same.
Zaremba: Well, except that in -- at the police department no public needs to go back
into that space. With the animal control facility somebody that was coming to pick up on
impounded dog would need to get through the first gate.
Dees: Right.
Zaremba: Will there be a way for them to do that or will it be open during the day?
Dees: No. It will be open during business hours, certainly. There is also a buzzer
system with a little speaker thing sitting there, so they can say, hey, I'm here, can you
let me in to go get my dog or whatever.
Zaremba: Okay.
Bird: And that speaker system will be controlled for seven twenty-fours?
Dees: It will be active 24/7. It -- there won't be a person monitoring it, but --
Bird: But you can get access.
Dees: It will ring a buzzer, so somebody can come and answer the phone, basically.
Zaremba: So, you push the button and somebody says would you like fries with that?
Hoaglun: I don't think so.
Bird: Maybe a Big Mac.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 73 of 106
Dees: And the last one that I'm going to do is the other half of the repeater system. We
talked about it in water, it's exactly the same thing, but it's in wastewater. Wastewater is
paying for half, water is paying for half. It's the same thing we had in water, we just
need a repeater system, so we can communicate around town. Any questions I can
answer?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I'll ask you and you can answer for both of them. Is this something that has to be
done this fiscal year, in your opinion?
Dees: In my opinion.
Bird: I know you would like it.
Dees: We would like it. Do we have to do it? We have done without for awhile. We
would like to have it eventually, so if we don't get it this fiscal year we would like to be
able to bring it back to you next fiscal year.
Bird: Thank you.
De Weerd: Rich, is there an improvement that could be made at a lesser cost by
putting in some kind of booster on your current system that would enhance the
coverage or is there a less expensive solution there?
Dees: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, it's altitude. What you have to do is put a
repeater up on the highest thing you can find and that radio is probably going to be a
15-20 watt radio. We have 15-20 watt radios now, but they are down low. So, what this
does is buy a machine that's specifically made to repeat radio calls up in the air. And so
we just put a tower in at water, that would be one ideal location. Another possible
location is on top of the water tower where you stick a repeater, so it can reflect off of
that.
De Weerd: Maybe you give everyone a Cricket phone.
Dees: We could do that. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Dolsby: This next enhancement is much the same as the water line extension
enhancement that Kyle brought forward for the water system. It's for sewer line
extensions in conjunction with ACRD projects or the sewer line extensions around the
city we have got identified for next fiscal year.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 74 of 106
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: And your answer would be the same as Kyle's was on the -- some of it's new and
some of it's redo?
Dolsby: Yes. Correct. There can be some amount of infrastructure that we -- you
could say we replace if there is an ACRD project say running through an existing road.
Bird: Okay. Thank you.
Hoaglun: Clint, before we leave this one, Ithought --Ithought we had done reuse
infrastructure amendments, but that may have not been down at the -- Ten Mile
interchange. Did -- I know we came down Ten Mile, but did we get to Franklin and,
then, turn or -- this is additional?
Dolsby: This is some sewer infrastructure that went along with those. The reuse
infrastructure was in a separate budget, but this has provided some sewer infrastructure
on the interchange as well.
Hoaglun: Okay. I was just reading that last sentence. Ithought it was also paying for
reuse --
Dolsby: Oh, no, I'm sorry, that's -- that's misstated. Yeah.
Hoaglun: Okay. Ithought that was already taken care of.
Dolsby: Yes, it is.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thanks.
Dolsby: The next enhancement is build a fund for land acquisition around the
wastewater treatment plant. We are looking to acquire property while the economy is
down and property values might be a little lesser to provide some opportunities to
acquire land for -- around the wastewater plant for expansion, opportunities such as
reuse, wetlands, and bio-solids, composting.
De Weerd: Okay.
Dolsby: Next enhancement is for flow monitoring. We have done a more extensive
program over the last couple years to identify source of infiltration and in flow in the
collection system. Worked with Murray Smith and Associates. We have come up with
an estimate of upwards of 800,000 gallons of flow into the wastewater treatment plant
that is attributed to I and I. We think with this enhancement we will be able to purchase
and rent flow meters to monitor the collection system flows, kind of target areas that we
have identified on the collection system and narrow down on some pipes and some
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 75 of 106
man holes that we can fix to lessen the flow into the wastewater treatment plant, which
would equate to real dollars of savings on expansions at the plant.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Clint, a need or a want?
Dolsby: This one we would really like to have this enhancement, because it would
reduce influent flows at the wastewater treatment plant. We have a strong suspicion
that we have narrowed down to a couple of larger areas of the city that we can monitor
flows in those different areas and narrow down on forces of implication and in flow into
the system and if we can reduce that or reduce your flows at the wastewater plant so
we can push back expansions and things like that. Any questions? The next
enhancement is for the re-use pipeline that will run from Cherry to Ustick on Ten Mile
Road. It's sort of the last piece of the puzzle to connect our reuse infrastructure all the
way down to Ten Mile interchange. It will also provide some opportunities for reuse at
the Lake View golf course, see if we can continue discussions with them when that
comes to fruition. Next enhancement is for some additional work on the wastewater
treatment plant facility plan, which we are -- which we are working on right now. We
would really like to have more of a complete plan, identify and go into options such as
the tradings and wetland treatment for the city, go into some other energy and
sustainability, more detailed financial analysis and the admin and lab building
evaluation.
Hoaglun: I'm sorry, Clint. Can we -- Madam Mayor. Can we back up that one. I was
reading that again, just to -- to make sure I understood that. So, you would expand the
work being proposed by CH2M Hill.
Dolsby: They have been approved for work to complete a facility plan with the current
budget of 400,000.
Hoaglun: Right.
Dolsby: If we approve this we will expand their work that they are currently doing. With
that right now we will be able to get a plan. We would just like to add some other
components to it to make it more complete.
Hoaglun: So, as they were going the work they identified some other tasks that say --
Dolsby: Yeah. And we had identified some more tasks over the course of this fiscal
year as well.
Hoaglun: Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 76 of 106
Dolsby: Uh-huh. This is to finish the work on the turbo blowers and our aeration basin
air efficiency improvements. I wanted to note that the enhancement is for 215,000, but
up to 140,000 of that will be reimbursed by Idaho Power at the completion of the project
and this project has a potential to save the city upwards of 4,000 dollars a month in
energy, so it's just got a couple year pay back on it. With that I will turn it over to
Warren to do the SCADA master plan.
Stewart: I won't take up too much of your time. This enhancement, Enhancement No.
13, is the second half of the wastewater half of the SCADA master plan and would
certainly be happy to answer or entertain anymore questions that you might have, but
pretty much covered that I think in the water part, so --
De Weerd: Okay. I don't see any questions. Other than do you have to have it this
year?
Stewart: Well, here is the challenge. We have actually delayed some of the
replacements -- like I said, the radio transmitters and things that we have identified that
we already have problems with, we were going to replace those this year. We have
postponed those replacements until next year, because we wanted to have the master
plan identify what should we do, what's the most appropriate way to fix some of the
problems that we have. If we delayed the SCADA system master plan, then, we have
the situation where we have equipment and things that are deteriorating or being --
coming off the leak that we need to address. So, do we go ahead and purchase some
of that equipment and take our best guess and kind of do the same thing which we have
been doing in this sort of chasing our tail, buy the equipment and, then, discover, oh,
you know what, it doesn't -- it doesn't communicate well and we have to go out and
spend a little initial money to see if we can find a patch to make it work. Can we do
that? Certainly. We have been doing it. But is it the smart way to proceed? We feel
like it's not and this would allow us to, basically, come up with an intelligent way to
insure that what we are doing in the future is an appropriate solution.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Bird: Thank you.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I probably should have thought of this much earlier when this was being
discussed within the department, but I'm beginning to realize how many items have
SCADA attached to them and I guess my question is we seem to be patching an old
system and I understand you need to do the master plan to understand what the
problem is, but is it possible that if you added up all the money that we are spending on
this old system, could we buy a newer or better system instead?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 77 of 106
Stewart: Well, the system -- SCADA system is pretty bashed and so the answer is the
money that we have in here, would it replace the entire thing? No. I mean it's --
Zaremba: Small part of it.
Stewart: It's a small part. I mean we are taking some -- with the server over at the
water department and some of the other things, we are taking some good bites and --
you know, some significant bites in the issues and problems that we have, but would it,
you know, address the -- you know, replace the entire system? No.
Zaremba: On the whole it's a system that's worth salvaging.
Stewart: Yeah. We think that, you know, there is -- there is a lot of very -- because it's
grown over time, there is a lot of different ages of equipment, there is also. different
kinds of equipment. We would like to standardize that. We'd like to have a game plan
for how we proceed in the future, but we simply want to do it in a systematic approach
and not do it all at once.
Zaremba: Thanks.
Barry: Councilman Zaremba, I would add to that, that the platform that our system is
based on is considered standard of the industry. So, even though it's over years kind of
piece have been put together and we are talking about radios and vast pieces of
transmitters that the actual core of the system, the Allen-Bradley processors and the
system itself, is considered standard of the industry, so it's not like something that you
would throw out and start all over again.
Zaremba: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Crane: Council, the next on the enhancement list is a tertiary filter building. This -- as
you well know, we have invested considerable capital into our tertiary filter upgrades at
the facility over the past several years. About 3.9 million dollars. The picture there you
see is of the diamond filter, the first one that we put in, and we had to do an emergency
appropriation to put this cover over, because the snow gets on the rails, the wheels spin
and, then, it doesn't want to travel down to clean itself. All right. So, we put the cover
on and that held that, but even in the cold weather you can see in that picture there we
have to wrap the pipes with concrete blankets and things like that to keep it from
refreezing. We do have three additional filters that were just installed. They have not
been through the cold winter, so they are a little bit different style of what it does to the
-- what the extremes will do to those is a little bit unknown at this point. However, each
one of those filters has some pretty sophisticated equipment attached to it, some flow
meters and the trebit meters and things like that that are part of the reclaimed water or
process that we need to monitor it, that would be very difficult to run in the cold weather.
So, this would be the final step in the tertiary filters of upgrade to go ahead and put a
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 78 of 106
building over all of this. It would cover all of the filters and this is not a just in time
funded project, so the funds asked for here would be for design and construction for the
entire project.
Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor --
Bird: Go ahead.
Hoaglun: Oh. I was just going to say ongoing costs that this is going to be a heated
building, lights, goals, works.
Crane: I assume it will be heated to a certain extent. You know, that's probably not
going to be like at 80 degrees type. It would be heated in the wintertime just above the
freezing level, maybe say 35 or 40 degrees, something like that. Keep things from
freezing. But certainly, yes, there will be some heating costs. There will be some air
changer and the like. On the flip side, there will be some savings, because algae -- the
water at this point has nutrients in it, a little bit of nitrogen and phosphorus and has not
been disinfected at this point, so the sunlight causes the algae to grow and we kind of
bow to that all summer, so getting it if I could -- and I can't tell you what those things
were. There could be a minor amount of savings on the -- on the algae side.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Trace, this is -- why wasn't the building figured in when we did the whole project,
because we had to surely know that the filter --
Crane: Yeah.
Bird: --filters needed it. I mean this -- this is one of the reasons I don't like JIT.
Crane: Councilman Bird, I probably don't have to remind you that there was
considerable regulatory pressure at the time we got a filter that was adequate for
capacity up and running. So, this project was kind of done in three pieces. The first
piece was the original one. We needed to get a filter in the ground and get it going and,
then, the second piece were these other filters. And so not to make excuses. we would
have liked to have had the building in the second piece of it, but we didn't get it in there,
so this would be the final piece of it. But I do think there was some regulatory pressure
there to get the first filter on and, then, get some redundancy online as well.
Bird: Yeah. But in the same token, those aren't cheap.
Crane: No. No.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 79 of 106
Bird: Those aren't cheap items and, you know, one winter without them being covered
or something, you not being on your toes, we could have lost it.
Crane: There is near four million dollars in that structure in these filters right now. And
that was budgeted enough the construction of the four filters. And one more. So, the
next one is odor control. This enhancement was from design and part of the
construction. This is a two year capital in the CIP. The second part of it is a 1.17 million
dollar, which would construct building an odor control, things at the head works. We
have had two studies, one in 2004, one in 2009, that has identified the head works as
the largest odor causing portion of the plant. We are required as part of our new air
permit, there is a paragraph in there that says we are required to control odors. It's
there and nobody's come in and said that shalt, but it is a possibility that it's in a permit
now that says thou shalt control odors. Also, we have some freezing issues as well at
our headworks on our set screens in the wash presses and we do a similar kind of
thing, they cover them is blankets and sometimes heat lamps and other things in there if
it gets really cold trying to keep those wash presses from freezing and so this would
address that secondarily as part of the odor control.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Crane: With that I will turn it over to Mollie for the last one.
Mangerich: Thank you. I don't know what could be more dubious than following a
presentation on odors at the wastewater treatment plant, unless you're talking about
bio-solids composting and that's what I'm here to do. This enhancement is a one time
enhancement request to work with a vendor fora pilot program for bio-solids
composting. This is following up on Exhibit A here, our CH2M Hill study for bio-solids
and sludge management, which is described in and provided through the EPA. What
we are looking for is trying to save money down the road for the transport and landfill tip
fees that we are currently paying for our bio-solids disposal. Case in point. Just within
the last two months we have done over 45 trips over to the Simco Road regional landfill.
Now, in 2009 we were able to take our bio-solids to the Ada County Landfill, but they
have stopped taking this material, thus, we have had to about triple our mileage, pay a
contractor for that fuel and land and personnel. Plus we are also spending 900 dollars a
month for a rental and roll off trailer and we are loading that up with -- out on site. So,
we are budgeted -- we are going to approach near 150,000 dollars, probably, for that
disposal and transportation fees. I could imagine that that will be deescalating over time
and we could see that potentially go up. Within our strategic plan is we wanted to look
at how the best ways we could handle our bio-solids. One of these ways --
methodologies is through composting. We went ahead prior to me and did a request for
interest from different vendors. We looked through all the different vendors and we
arrived upon this particular provider. This is kind of a nice simple operation, it doesn't
cost a lot of capital improvements on our part, they bring down all the equipment to us,
they train our operators, they provide on-site technical assistance, they have air quality
benefits to the type of methodology and the covered windrow aspects of the bio-solids.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 80 of 106
We are planning to do this with your blessing in summer next year and, then, we could
came back to you with a report on that.
Bird: Sounds great. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Could I call Trace up again on a couple of his capital items? Look at loader.
Crane: Yes, sir.
Bird: Exterior replacement.
Crane: Excuse me?
Bird: I beg your pardon?
Crane: Well, on the loader -- when we first started looking at it we were thinking that it
was really small for what we were trying to do. We have grown our bio-solids -- or
solids processing side of the facility, it's doubled in size, so when Mr. McCormick and
sat down and started going through the analysis what we discovered was that this
loader that we bought is actually what they call gray market equipment, so it was never
designed to be sold in the United States and so for whatever reason we don't want to go
there, but the reason it's gray market equipment is because it lacks certain safety items,
including roll over protection. So, then, my huge concern becomes if I know this -- and
we are having to reach really high now to reach into the back of this diesel truck -- cheat
there a little bit, as it gets up full of weight, the fact that it lacks that -- some belt guards
and specifically roll over protection and we can't even get a -- the manufacturer here,
the sales people here to look at it to say, hey, what would it cost to add roll over
protection to this vehicle, because they say, well, it's not even supposed to be sold here
in this county. So, how we acquired it I'm really not sure how we went down the path to
getting that one, but I think that really is what led us to say we probably need to
consider a replacement. We do use it every day to move the cake pile from the
conveyor out to the pad and at least three times a week over the last two months I
believe we have moved in excess of 900 wet tons of solids out to the landfill and our
staff uses this loader daily to load that in the back of a truck.
Bird: But, Trace, I think Mollie just said that whoever we are partnering with is going to
bring the equipment for us to do this?
Crane: We would use that -- if we do that, obviously, the same piece of equipment
would be big enough that it would have a -- on that end as well.
Bird: Is the old loader salable?
Crane: This is -- I believe so. I mean we bought it.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 81 of 106
De Weerd: Do you want to sell an illegal piece of --
Crane: I can go on record to say it is not illegal to have in the United States. It was
illegal for adealer -- this is what the dealership told us, that it's not illegal to have, but it
just wasn't designed to be sold here, for whatever that's worth.
Hoaglun: And Madam Mayor and Trace, is -- is it possible that instead of buying new
there is a lot of used -- good used equipment out there, construction companies,
whatnot, have it, would you be looking at options like that as well?
Crane: Councilman Hoaglun, that's a great question. Actually, a new loader -- for what
our staff would like is about 200,000 dollars. So, this 100,000 is for used. We think that
with the economy and as many pieces of construction equipment that's sitting out there
right now that's fairly new. We would be looking to get a used piece of equipment and
not a brand new piece of equipment.
Bird: And you need it.
Crane: Thanks.
Bird: I can't hit you too hard on that one.
De Weerd: No, he can't argue with it shouldn't be sold in the U.S.
Bird: Now the tractor.
Crane: Okay. The tractor.
Bird: And I hope you -- I hope that you don't go out and tell the public that you're out
there using an illegal loader with our employees, because I don't like -- I think you ought
to go rent one until you get a new one. I don't -- I do not think that that is right that we
put an employee in that kind of danger.
Crane: Councilman Bird, that loader has been parked and a rental loader was delivered
last week.
Bird: Okay.
Crane: And so -- in fact, my staff all had to leave today at 3:00 o'clock to go to training
from the folks that rented us the loader, so they could -get trained on the new loader.
So, we wholeheartedly agree with you on that. The tractor -- this tractor is a -- what
year is it? '65 or something like that. Yeah. 1972 tractor. It was purchased in '96 when
got here and it was originally purchased to stir liquid sludge in beds. Now, this is pre-
centrifuge. When we didn't have centrifuges we would put liquid sludge out into drying
beds and you would go out there and you would stir them with a tractor trying to make
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 82 of 106
them dry. So, when we got the centrifuges and whole kind of operational thing has
changed out there, this tractor doesn't have a bucket or anything, it just has a PTO on
the back. It doesn't have that function anymore. However, in the bio-solids division
where it was purchased for we struggle with moving the cake piles all over the place
and dropping the bio-solids on the road and especially our storm water folks, they come
in and say, you know, you have got to sweep up all these roads and we really don't
have the kind of equipment that it takes when you're moving seven days a week driving
and hauling back and forth to get guys out there -- it's not really reasonable to give them
push brooms and say you got to go sweep that road every time. So, the thought was
that maybe we could do a replacement, turn this tractor in and get a tractor with a
broom attachment on it that could -- that could actually help them accomplish that.
Bird: Is 30,000 going to -- I mean that don't buy --
Crane: Again, we are looking at probably used equipment here. We are thinking we
would try to do bargain shoppers. I don't know --
Rountree: Talking about doing a skid loader.
Bird: Are you talking about --
Crane: Oh, we're talking about a bobcat.
talking about trading in as well.
And this is a fairly small Massey that we
Bird: Okay. That's fine.
Crane: So, we were thinking it would probably cover a small skid steer with a broom
attachment on it.
Bird: If you need it you need it. Thank you very much.
De Weerd: We will go ahead and give a 15 minute break. You can eat your pizza while
you talk or what's your pleasure, Council?
Bird: That would be fine with me.
De Weerd: Okay. Fifteen minutes. To 5:45.
RECESS: (5:27 p.m. to 5:55 p.m.)
De Weerd: Okay. We will go ahead and call this meeting to order again and give the
microphone over to Mr. Barry.
Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. You, before the break, left
us with a couple things to ponder and so we have some information, myself, my staff,
and the Finance staff has been working diligently on quite a number of things. I wanted
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 83 of 106
to first address a question that Councilman Rountree asked and that was in relation to
sort of what is the bottom limit that we might be comfortable with as it relates to getting
the ending fund balance down to and I wanted to walk through some logic that we have
to present to you and this is a matter of, you know, really, your decision, but I will give
you our recommendation at this point in time. We have worked together and calculated
that the operating reserve, which is a fourth month running reserve, is about four and a
half million currently based upon our current operational budget. Now, that number will
increase over time as operational budgets increase over time, but if we just take that
number for today and say it's four and a half million, that would be certainly a
component that we want to set aside and preserve in the ending fund balance. If we
move onto a depreciation reserve, we know that depreciation is critical in insuring that
we have much money available for the repair and replacement of infrastructure that
keeps our system functioning and the depreciation reserve that we are calculating at
this point in time is formulaic, it's straight line and that's based upon one percent of total
assets. That would be total water and wastewater utility assets. Now, there is some
disparity between what's on the books and what's actually in the ground, so this is more
of an estimate, really, from utility staff that we believe we have about 400 million dollars
or so of assets in the ground. Now, that valuation was done I think a year and a half or
so ago, so it wouldn't -- it's not updated, but if you just base it off of that number, you
take one percent of that and you say that's going to be your set aside for depreciation,
then, that sets up another four million dollars that you would set aside. So, together that
four and a half million from the operating reserve, plus the four million from the
depreciation reserve, equals eight and a half million. Council Member Rountree also
asked what about an emergency fund, what would we want to set up for an emergency
fund. This is really arbitrary. We have had the privilege in the past of having large fund
balances where we haven't had to ask that question, because the fund balance was so
enormous what difference does it make. But now we are getting to the point where it is
-- it is an important consideration and so with a recommendation proposed to you as
five million. We have large assets, very expensive assets, and so five million seems
reasonable after discussing it with the staff, for inclusion as an emergency sort of fund,
if you will. So, if you add that to the eight and a half million we have already discussed,
that sets you up for about 13 and a half million dollars, which would be the bottom line
and the recommendation at this point in time that we would not want the total -- whether
it be designated or nondesignated or otherwise, the total Enterprise ending fund
balance for water and wastewater combined should not fall below 13.5 million. So, I
don't know if you have comments on that with regard to at least the assumptions and
some of the approaches used to get at that number. If you do it would be great to
discuss those now, because Todd's going to take the second part of this discussion,
based on whatever number this is, and walk you through a financial analysis, which will
lead us to some other dialogue on the budget.
Rountree: Madam Mayor. My response is, Tom, I'm fine with that. I'm comfortable with
that, if you're comfortable with it. It's the answer to my question and it's somewhat
straight forward, but I agree with your logic, I agree with what we have done in the past,
and if you're comfortable with that five million emergency piece from your and your
staffs familiarity with your operation, then, let's move forward. My perspective.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 84 of 106
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Just for my clarity, some of those funds are already designated in -- in an
account somewhere, so we haven't built those up yet.
Bird: No.
Barry: They are not specifically earmarked. At this point in time they are all kind of
consolidated into the balance and we sort of internally -- well, we haven't really talked
about an emergency fund, so to speak, but we have just relied heavily or wholly on the
ending fund balance as the reserve.
Zaremba: Okay. So, there are --
Kilchenmann: Todd will kind of go through where we are actually right now today and
then -- if that helps.
Zaremba: Okay.
Barry: So, before we get into Todd's dialogue, is there any other question or concern or
is there general agreement that that number seems reasonable and that it's reasonable
enough to, then, include in some analysis which will get us moving forward with regard
to the rest of the budget?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird.
Bird: I'm like Charlie, it's a starting point for me.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, to go along with what Tom was
discussing, the current -- well, the beginning fund balance for fiscal year 2010, the
current fiscal year that we are currently in is a little over 29 million dollars. What you
have on the screen now is a fund balance projection worksheet that we complete every
month. What this shows is we start off with 29 million dollars as available funds in the
Enterprise Fund and, then, what we do is we take out all your personnel expenses, your
operating expenses, and your capital expenses and if we spend one hundred percent of
all those funds that will get us to what we call a projected ending fund balance. So, if
we do all that work, at the end of this fiscal year we are projecting that this Enterprise
Fund will have about 15.8 million dollars available in the fund balance. Now, that's our
available cash in our pocket at that day at that time. Now, what Tom explained was
some reserves. So, what we have to do is we have to take those out of the fund
balance, because we want to make sure we don't spend those dollars out of the fund
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 85 of 106
balance, so what I did below that is I listed the 13.5 million dollars in reserves, which we
just discussed, and if -- and when we do -- you know, if we decide to go with those
numbers, your available fund balance would be 2.3 million dollars undesignated. So,
that's, basically, your discretionary funds to go ahead and spend on whatnot. So, you
would be sitting at 2.3 million dollars as the Enterprise Fund balance undesignated.
Kilchenmann: I was just going to -- to continue the analysis. So, if we look at the current
year budget where there is 7.16 million in the deficit, we have budgeted 4.2 million
actually out of there, which is depreciation. So, we are literally creating that four million
dollars depreciation reserve out of the 2010 budget. So, for the Enterprise Fund to get
to a break even budget and not go into a fund balance, if they can cut out 2.9 million
dollars, you know, that they are asking for they would, basically, be at a break even
budget. I kind of jumped in there if you had questions for Todd.
Barry: And to continue off of that, we have all discussed this and are aware of that
particular number. I have taken that number and discussed it with my staff and looked
at the budget hard and we have some recommendations for you to consider to reduce
our budget at least by that amount. Actually, a little bit more so than that. So, if you
indulge me I will walk you through those, unless you have questions up to what's been
discussed so far.
De Weerd: No.
Rountree: No.
Bird: We don't.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: This isn't really discussion, but just as a housekeeping and how we record
things. If we are going to designate depreciation reserve, emergency reserve, and
operating reserve, those will come out of the undesignated category; right?
Kilchenmann: Correct.
Zaremba: And become designated somewhere --
Kilchenmann: Yes. And this year -- but it actually kind of works out well, because this
year there is a new GASB requirement that we do these fund designations in a different
manner. It's a lot more formal, it involves approval from you. So, this time when you
say now we really have it and we will say, yes, we really have it and it we will literally set
it aside.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 86 of 106
Barry: And I think that, in part, is what jolted the budget just a bit this year and that's
okay, because, you know, we want that reserve to actually be held aside. So,
continuing off of what -- Mrs. Kilchenmann's discussion and Mr. Lavoie's discussion are,
we know that ideally we'd like to close the gap, it's about 2.9 million, so we have the
falling recommendations for you to consider. Before, however, I do want to point out
that in our analysis, double-checking our numbers, we once again came up very very
closely with what the model predicted and so what we have presented to you, again, is
in alignment with the model, but we do understand if we can lessen, without significant
compromise or problem, the overall budget, that just benefits everybody. So, we have
the following for consideration. While we feel it is very important for us to consider
expansion of our wastewater treatment plant and we know that the treatment facility
itself cannot be relocated, the only option, essentially, would be to build another
treatment plant someplace else and redirect flows to it. We feel that the -- sort of mind
set that now is a great time, which is true, will still apply next year and possibly the year
following. We know that the economic climate that we have been in as we have moved
through this, both in our region, as well as watching national trends, are such that we
don't feel that the market's going to do us a huge up turn anytime soon and so,
therefore, values -- or property values will still probably remain where they are, maybe a
little higher, maybe a little lower. So, we would move to strike for this year the 1.6
million dollar land acquisition request. We know at some point we will have to expand,
but because development is down those pressures are no longer on and because of the
market it seems prudent that that's -- that we could -- we could remove that one with
very little impact. We will be working, however, on a wastewater -- if you approve the
funding, of course -- and some of that has been approved in this fiscal year's budget,
but the wastewater facility plan will identify for us the size and location of some of these
areas that we may want to consider expansion on. So, that will be something that will
help support that in another request sometime in the future. So, we would move to
withdraw that 1.6 million dollar request. Additionally, although we are supportive of
increasing our reservoir capacity as a municipality, there is another philosophy that can
be applied, which, hopefully, tempers in the short term our concern. Although that
concern is very valid and that is you could make the conclusion or draw the conclusion
that the reservoir itself is the ground water reservoir and while we do want to increase
above ground storage of those underground reservoirs or capacity, we feel at this point
in time, based upon where we are in the budget and based upon the need to close this
gap, that it seems prudent to postpone the well reservoir construction project. I'd like to
request that we not deny the enhancement entirely, but instead change the dollar
amount from two million to 1.9 million and the reason behind that is because we have
begun -- as you know we have already acquired the property and we have begun some
design and that one hundred thousand will help us finish out the design and put us at a
good stopping point in the project where we can shelve and come back to that particular
project at some point in the future. So, with your approval we would request a reduction
of that particular request from two million to 1.9 million. Or, excuse me, to one hundred
thousand dollars. Did I say that wrong the first time? Sorry about that. Thank you.
Yeah. So, to clarify -- I apologize. To cut from two million to 100,000 to finish design on
a well reservoir. One other project -- although we have closed the gap with those two
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 87 of 106
projects, that it makes sense at this point in time to consider postponing and maybe
will couch this particular project, because it's a big one, by asking, respectfully, that you
consider our capital outlay request for the backhoe, the dump truck, and the other sorts
of things which are a lesser amount than what we are going to reduce here, because
those operationally are needed greatly by the staff and I know that we have come to you
in many times in the past and asked for that backhoe and a dump truck and it has been
a struggle with regard to acquisition or replacement of those existing components in our
arsenal of resources. I would like to maybe just push one last time before you
deliberate on favorably considering those requests. And with that I'll offer, with the
staffs approval, for us to postpone the odor control project. This is -- we deliberated on
this one quite a bit. Odor control is an important issue for us at the treatment plant. It's
been something we study -- been studying, it's something we are sensitive to, but it's
something we don't get a lot of complaints on at this point in time. We get, essentially,
maybe one, possibly two different persons complaining about it. But what's important
about this particular project is that if we bite it off now, at 425,000, which is what's
requested in the fiscal year 2011 budget, we will have to continue the project into the
following year and that budget request is 1.17 for fiscal year 2012. Based upon our
approach that we don't want to have to increase the rates any further than we already
have, if we can postpone this project until we reconcile the financial condition of the
utility, then, over the next two years with these recommendations I have proposed to
you, we will be able to reduce our overall requests by 4.725 million dollars, which is
significant. And just so you know, the rate increase at the amount we have scheduled is
equivalent to about 2.9 to 3.0 million in each year. So, that would buy us a little bit more
time to allow us the correction, which we feel is prudent and responsible, as well as
reasonable. So, those are the requests or recommendations, Ishould say, for your
consideration and I will stand for any questions you might have.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Tom, I will agree with the -- leaving in the capital -- but, please, Tracy, don't buy
an unsafe thing again. And let's look for a used dump truck, too. As the Mayor said,
think with the construction industry and the shape it is, I'll bet you we can find a pretty
good dump truck out there at a reasonable price. I think there is some of the things that
we have got in there that it's definitely fund balance -- should be paid for from fund
balance. I don't have no problem with it. I come up in the wastewater treatment with
about 2.8 million that's -- in my opinion is fund balance projects. I -- I don't know
whether -- I mean I know we are backed into the building. We are back into that corner
that if we have to do that 1.2, the odor control -- I do have a concern with that. While we
have had no complaints or anything, Tom, you know -- and. to me that is -- that is
definitely a fund balance expense.
Kilchenmann: Excuse me, Councilman Bird. The only fund balance we have is 2.6
million.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 88 of 106
Bird: I know -- that's what I told you. I just -- I have enough to cover it.
Kilchenmann: Oh. Okay. But, then, we --okay. We wouldn't have any fund balance.
Bird: And I -- and my -- my biggest concern, Tom, is can we take out some of these
studies and stuff within the three -- I consider Public Works, water, and wastewater all
the same, you know. Is there some of those we can drop out and the actual hands-on
stuff, you know -- the radio repeater we need. Do we need -- as somebody asked, do
we need the SCADA -- that stuff right now. I mean is it something that we have to have
this year? Warren says he thinks it's something that we do need. It will make us more
efficient. So, I think you guys have done a good job, but I don't want to get something
that we don't need and throw something out that we absolutely do need.
Barry: If I may respond, Councilman Bird. I'm grateful for your comments. I think Mrs.
Kilchenmann just said -- and in case it got lost, there is no fund balance now that's
being -- having to be used, which is good, if the recommendations as I have made them
do stand. I wholeheartedly agree that we want to make sure that we get, you know, as
many tangibles and important projects as we can. It's easy, I think, during these times
of economic times for us to consider studies as, you know, kind of unnecessary, but
would argue on the contrary, because it is these times where those kinds of things,
which identify millions of dollars worth of projects and upgrades and enhancements and
optimization and those kinds of things -- now is really a very good time for us to get as
much information about our system while development pressures are off, while pricing
is good and while we have the time to look forward to the future with the identification
and incorporation of these kinds of projects that will come out of these studies. We
certainly wouldn't want to study to sacrifice a tangible work product or capital
improvement or those kinds of things, but when we balance -- I guess when I balance
the benefit of a study and what that study might tell -- and some of these studies are
critical for helping us to shore up our long-term water right, for example, future needs
assessments and things like that, which are fundamentally way more important than
odor control, in my personal opinion. SCADA, as an example -- SCADA is a system of
infrastructure that gives us data that helps us make better management decisions about
how we utilize control and optimize both our water and wastewater systems and we see
huge benefits by the use and expanded use of those SCADA systems. Odor control is
important. You know, we are faced right now at a time which considering cutting things
and it's like I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, we -- we think all of this is
important, but as we prioritize, my staff and I, moments ago on this, we do feel that the
projects that we have recommended to you are probably among the best to consider
postponing at this point in time and so the recommendation would be to consider
moving forward with that recommendation and allowing us to do those studies that will
ultimately result in perhaps even stronger more robust improvements than say odor
control at this point.
Zaremba: Madam Mayorf?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 89 of 106
Zaremba: I would like to say I appreciate the thought that has gone into the
adjustments that you're offering and all of you have put your best thought into it. I think
that's great. Just by way of explanation, I would say that in my business we use radios
all the time. When I set up a transportation system in a city we must be able to
communicate with each other. My management staff -- we don't necessarily at all points
communicate directly with the bus drivers, but among our management staff we have to.
We have to have repeater radios. We normally have them with a simplex channel as
well, which is -- we consider it to be just line of site. If you can't see the person there --
your radio -- the simplex radio isn't going to be that useful. So, we depend on the
repeater systems to be able to send my signal to the repeater and have it come off the
repeater and go to the person I need to talk to where ever they are -- you know, as long
as there is not an intervening mountain they could be 20 miles away. But there has
been various questions asked about that and I fully support that.
De Weerd: Any other comments from Council?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, I just wanted to comment. I appreciate the effort you guys
went into, especially on short notice to go in there, brain storm, and, then, come out with
a number, guys and gals, and let's us know. So, I think you did a good job. I think it
allows you to move forward on some priority projects and get some things done and put
some things off that just -- it's the way things are right now and it allows the fund
balance to continue moving forward and get us in a better position and, hopefully, takes
us down the road and we will find that things are -- are even better. But that certainly
raises my comfort level quite a bit.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Charlie.
Rountree: One of the principal reasons for pursuing rate increases -- several reasons.
One, identify the operating and get an operating reserve to address depreciation and a
depreciation reserve and it has some kind of emergency funding. We didn't address
that last year. We had money in the account, but we didn't address those as items. We
are into the second rate increase and up until this evening we hadn't addressed those
specifically. Now we have and I'm comfortable with that and we have established some
minimums and maybe we need to take a look at those minimums with a finer point. It
might be that we can reduce those. I don't know. Or maybe we need to increase them
in future rate increases or rate structures. But now we have them and we have
identified them and I think that was our responsibility to -- having the numbers, then,
and manipulations that you and your staff went through. I can't question them. You
have -- you have bought it in line with what we want in terms of reserve and what we
have in terms of balance and what you have identified your future fiscal year needs are
going to be. So, I'm okay with it. I'd like to see it whacked back a little bit more, but,
you know, there is probably things that you could live without. But for now as we move
this budget through the budgetary process, I think it's okay -- I can -- I won't necessarily
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 90 of 106
be in a position to have to defend it, but if I have to explain it I can and I can explain it
with some degree of comfort. So, I appreciate what you have done. Sorry that it took to
the last minute to do it, but, yeah, it's -- it's good that we have got those accounts
identified, amounts identified, and we can move forward. So, thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Tom and your staff, I have been a hard head, but I thank you guys for everything
you do. I appreciate it. And we all -- we all look at it as, you know, we all have to pay
our -- we are citizens of the city and we pay the taxes and the fees and everything else.
So, you got to watch for that. I think you guys have done a good job cutting down and
thank you for that. I'm like Mr. Rountree, I wish we could be a little better, but I have no
-- I will have no trouble defending it. As all you guys know, I'm not afraid to defend
something that I believe in.
De Weerd: Well, thank you.
Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council. I can't tell you how delighted I am for your
support and for the challenges that you presented to us today. We are grateful. We
know it only strengthens what we do and makes us better as a community and I'm
proud to call myself a resident of this community and I appreciate the fiscal stewardship
by which we go through these processes and we are just grateful and also I'd like to
thank my staff. I'm delighted to work for them and appreciate everything they do to help
this city thrive and get better each and every day. So, thank you, again, for your
support.
Bird: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Zaremba: Thank you.
De Weerd: Well, thank you for hanging in there.
Bird: Are you going to put the capital -- the capital fund up -- spreadsheet like this so
we can go through it? We got to get Anna.
Kilchenmann: I offered for Tom to stay around and defend the General Fund budget,
but he wants to go home.
Bird: Oh, he wants to go home? Come one. Stay for the fun. We just don't pick on
you, Tom.
Barry: Yeah. I know.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 91 of 106
3:55 - 5:00 - Council budget decisions and discussion
Zaremba: Everybody is entitled to stay. Our deadline is 11:00 o'clock. Brad has to
leave for the airport.
Bird: Yeah. We are good until 10:30.
De Weerd: He's picking up people.
Kilchenmann: Do you want -- is there anything in the capital replacement you want to
look at or do you just want to start with enhancements?
Bird: I'm fine with the capital replacements. I don't see anything in there that --
De Weerd: I think from finance and policies that have tried to make some kind of sense
out of replacement -- what replacements are requested have been vetted through those
policies.
Hoaglun: On capital replacements, I guess the GMC one ton utility truck, that was a lot
of discussion there.
Bird: That's down in parks.
Hoaglun: Okay. I was going off the capital replacements list here. I was just looking at
all of that. So, it was in parks. My thought on that was where we left it was we'd defer
that this year and maybe look at next year and maybe Steve can get a two for one if the
trailer works and plus get another vehicle out of it that can be used for other things
and --
Rountree: The calculation I did it's costing them two dollars a mile right now, based on
-- based on what their expenses are. If amortized out ten years for 36,000 dollars, it's
going to cost them three dollars a mile if you buy a new one, so -- I think if you have got
time and money to look at another option.
Bird: The pickup they do need, in my opinion. And I think you can probably get it
cheaper than that right now. Your Kawasaki mule, Steve, what -- is that the old mule
that they had in Storey Park or where have you got that one? The '99.
Siddoway: Councilman Bird, that's the old mule that we have in Tully Park and it needs
to be replaced.
Bird: In Tully?
Siddoway: Yeah.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 92 of 106
Bird: Is it -- is it something we will trade in on a new one or do we sell it outright?
Siddoway: I think it would just be surplused and sent to auction, if it's worth anything. It
won't be much, I guarantee it.
Bird: It's worth something.
Siddoway: Oh, yeah. I don't know that it would be able to be traded in, though.
Bird: That would be my opinion -- I think you would probably be better off trading the
stupid thing in and get it out of our hair.
Siddoway: If it's an option I will do it.
Kilchenmann: We can look at both options. Usually old things we auction, but --
Bird: You wouldn't get enough out of that to pay the auctioneer.
Rountree: It seems like that would go pretty well at auction.
Bird: Well, sometimes, yeah.
de Weerd: Fifty bucks.
Bird: If it's the one I think it is you better do a lot of fix up to make it look good.
De Weerd: So, you want to go to the enhancements?
Rountree: Streetlights.
Bird: I'm for holding that back a year.
Rountree: That would be my preference. I don't know what the rest of the Council
wants to do. Hold back on the streetlights for another year until we get a more robust
plan in place.
Hoaglun: I'd be more comfortable with holding that until we have better planning.
Bird: I would, too.
Zaremba: I would like to see it eventually, but I agree there needs to be a plan.
Bird: Refresh my memory. I guess -- I don't know if it's Robert or who. On the
comprehensive storm water program, we have got -- we have got it -- we have got a
35,474 with a half employee in capital funds -- general funds and we just approved quite
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 93 of 106
a bit for Public Works. Are we duplicating? Are we helping or -- and why do we need a
half employee?
Kilchenmann: Councilman Bird, it's actually one employee split between the Enterprise
Fund and the General Fund. So, it's one position and it's -- the cost is split between the
two funds.
Bird: Oh, that's right. Thank you.
Kilchenmann: They would work under Mollie, but they --
Bird: Yeah. I remember. For half. Yeah. Okay. I guess if we approved it there we got
to approve it here. Don't get no choice.
Kilchenmann: Of course, you only get half a person.
Bird: I got one more question to the other three councilmen. Any survey. Do you think
we need to spend 25,000 at this point for a city survey?
Rountree: I support it. I think if we are going to look at the performance measures and
we are going to have measures in place, we need the survey to see if we are
accomplishing those measures. I would like to see the measures developed and in
place before we pursue getting the survey in place, so if we can get that accomplished
this year, great. I would not like to see us undertake a survey without some kind of a
goal or measure in mind.
Bird: And that has been my -- that's my thinking.
Rountree: But for now I would say let's leave it in, because I think it's very doable to get
the measures identified. Some folks already have them. And, then, you can develop
your questions around those and I guess my thinking on the 25,000 is it's not enough,
but it's a good place to start. Surveys tend to be fairly expensive if they are designed
properly.
Zaremba: My comment would be I appreciate that effort that my fellow Councilmen and
Mayor put into imagining not only what we as citizens would like, but what other citizens
would like, but it would be nice to have either some validation or some correction, if
necessary. I think it's worth 25,000 dollars to ask, you know, what do you want.
Hoaglun: Yeah. I don't want to spend anymore, but Councilman Rountree makes a
point that it's kind of -- you get what you pay for and, hopefully, this is a quality one for
the amount of money we are spending, because if you spend 50,000 you get top notch,
you get some really good stuff. So, hopefully, 25,000 we still get some good -- good
information and something that's very useful, which I think we can use it.
Rountree: Head them out. Move them on.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 94 of 106
Bird: Ithink the fire department is not over asking.
Rountree: Fine.
Bird: Ithink they are asking for everything they need.
Hoaglun: Down the road, just to -- putting in a division chief, are we going to be seeing
another request for another one down the road?
Bird: If I have my way we will have one each year for the next two years.
Zaremba: And it sounded like that's what he may request.
Bird: This is a good trial, Brad, depending on how it works. And, then, Ithink --Ithink
that's what Mark's got in mind when --
Hoaglun: That's what I was thinking he had in mind, but --
Bird: If it works out we go ahead. If it don't we have only screwed up one guy.
Zaremba: Well -- and Ithink --Ithink this has been a request from the troops, as well
as from the administration.
Bird: Well -- and this is something Ron's been planning for years and just, you know,
with the economy going to pot the last couple of years -- and wanted to get some -- get
some more boots on the ground, which now we have, we have got three more people,
so --
Hoaglun: Yeah. I'm good with the fire department.
Bird: I don't see anything in the parks that didn't -- I don't know that they haven't already
resolved. I think we made Steve tighten up his belt a little.
Hoaglun: What was -- I just want to be certain, what was the outcome of the city
arborist?
Bird: Well, that -- what are we going to do?
Zaremba: I have stated that I'm strongly in favor of it. I would leave it in. Ithink it's a --
it's one whose time has come or certainly will in the middle of fiscal year'11.
Rountree: And I'd say that I'm uncertain about it, but it's not anything I want to break a
pick over.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 95 of 106
Bird: I can go either way. I do believe that new operator for Kleiner Park needs -- as I
told Steve yesterday after the meeting, he needs to take notice of how on October 1st
he should have somebody online. Hired October 1st. The more that guy can be out
there during the construction of it the better prepared he is to take care of it.
De Weerd: Well -- and you may want to do that with the arborist and a thousand trees,
too.
Bird: And I don't disagree. I don't disagree. If you're going to bring on one, bring him
on October 1st so he gets his feet wet out there and don't get surprises.
De Weerd: Or when they start planting trees.
Bird: Well, they should -- they'd probably be planting trees, but he's going to take more
than just that -- care of that park, so --
Hoaglun: And as the parks liaison I suppose I should support everything, but -- and I'm
fine with the arborist, I just am concerned that -- that they are so proactive that they are
going to be needing -- when you look at Nampa and other places right away he's going
to need more staff and that's -- I'm just a little leery of that, because I don't think we can
keep that pace. So, he really is going to have to do both, run the program and be boots
on the ground and doing the spraying and there will be some contract work, of course,
but that's my only concern is I don't think we are ready for that financially to get -- to get
-- we will some day, but not right now.
De Weerd: Or someone will owe him a lunch
Hoaglun: Yeah.
De Weerd: Is that Mr. Bird? That it stays at one person.
Hoaglun: Yeah. It's --
Rountree: And Steve my suggestion -- and I agree with Keith, you get the Kleiner
people on as soon as you can. Same with the arborist. But as you finalize the design
for the landscape -- and I got you in some folks are part of your team in identifying the
species, I would recommend to you to take that species list, to the city forester in Boise
and I run it by them if -- you may have already thought of doing that -- to the tree
forester for city of Boise. The architects and they read all about some of these things,
but a lot of times they haven't grown them and, as I say, the guys in Boise have grown
every kind of tree you can imagine and they know the ones that work and they know the
ones that don't work and they know the ones they have problems, so if you haven't
thought about doing that, that subject's here, I'd just recommend you do it.
Bird: I agree. Are you for getting an arborist?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 96 of 106
Rountree: I'm okay with it. I just --
Bird: I can go either way.
Rountree: I just want to make sure that they are busy and they don't get confused with,
well, I'm an administrator and I'm not going to go out and prune that tree or all I want to
do is go prune the trees and the heck with the paperwork. I have problems with that.
Siddoway: Yeah. And regarding the species, we are closely looking at those. We are,
actually, looking at getting a wide variety of trees in that park, because of what it is and
not just having a few species --
Rountree: Right.
Siddoway: -- and there is a contracted way between the trust and the Carnahans at
Jayker's wholesale nursery to help us get quality stock, so -- and also solicit donations.
Rountree: I want to get the right stock as well.
Siddoway: Yes. Thank you.
Rountree: Police, I suggest that we only look at one animal control officer this year.
Bird: Second.
Hoaglun: I could have supported two. I just want to make sure our officers are doing
police work as opposed to animal control, but I can certainly live with adding one. That
helps them, that gets them further down the road and helps out the officers from having
to provide that service. And this is someone who is out looking for his dog at 11:30 last
night, because of some yea hoo in the neighborhood firing off fireworks and my wife put
it outside and -- but I found it. Sorry to throw that in there. It still ticks me off.
De Weerd: Experience.
Hoaglun: Didn't want to bail them out. Of course, it's still cheaper now; right?
Bird: Wait a minute. How do you half 162,000 and come up with 108? The ongoing
should half, too.
Rountree: Not necessarily.
Kilchenmann: It doesn't quite work -- well, go ahead, Todd.
Lavoie: Councilman Bird, I'm going to have to work with police just to verify some of the
items they have on their operating. In that training and supplies, I just want to double-
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 97 of 106
check before I start cutting everything 50 percent, so that I'm doing that correctly. But
salary is --
Bird: No problem. No problem.
Hoaglun: As long as you know we just want one.
Bird: Okay. We can't let Anna get away free. What can we get her for?
Kilchenmann: Please -- she begged please don't take her chair.
Hoaglun: I was going to say, we could take her chair.
Bird: Yeah. We got some desks we need to move. That looks okay. Council, I'd like to
public verify one thing. I'm not for a merit raise, I'm for straight across the board raise,
the same as the firemen, and get -- you guys can vote me out, but that's the way I --
everybody gets three percent.
Hoaglun: Well, I -- Councilman Bird, Ijust -- the state controllers office when I was
managing folks, I found the merit increase to be very helpful, especially people who
deserved it got the full and we had employee reviews and everything and we had
employees that needed some incentive to change some of their ways and that was one
of the tools that allowed us to be able to get them to be going in the right direction, but
it's something I see as a tool I want to leave with the directors and managers when it
comes to employees that if they meet certain -- if they are a problem at doing things the
right way, they can have that as one of their tools to -- as an incentive to -- if they meet
certain goals, different things, then, they get a one percent or what have you and I found
that to be a useful tool and something I would like to leave our managers with that tool
in the toolbox, if we could.
De Weerd: And I can tell you that's the sentiment of the directors as well. We do have
our HR department working on a 360 type of thing to kind of maybe address, Mr. Bird,
some of your concerns on the favoritism or, you know, that scoring system is not fair to
a certain degree and we want to make sure that we do have a well rounded system for
our evaluations, so meritorious performance is actually recognized and rewarded.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would like to add that I have value -- I have found value in the merit system
and allowing the directors to make the choice of how that's distributed, but I would also
like to say that I appreciate the loyalty and the effort that all of our employees put in. I'm
sure sometimes it's a challenge to determine which ones are the top one, because they
are all top people and I say that in preparation for in some future year, maybe three
years from now when the economy has improved, the suggestion that we do both a cost
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 98 of 106
of living adjustment and merit pay in some future year. Not this year, but I think we
should do both at some time.
De Weerd: Okay.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, my only comment is if somebody can create and find a pay
system that seems to reflect everybody's opinion on pay raises, come talk to me, we will
get it patented and we will make a lot of money.
De Weerd: Amen.
Rountree: I have dealt with pay systems from merit systems, to across the boards, to
longevity, to step programs, to you name it and now even union contracts and there isn't
one that I have ever run across that across the board is accepted by a unanimous
representation of the population that it affects. So, merit is -- in my opinion is as good
as you can get. I know where Keith's coming from, that if an employee has worked here
he gets a -- basically gets a COLA and if they haven't worked well enough to get a
COLA, then, they are out the door. But we don't work in an environment that allows that
necessarily to happen. So, I'm okay with the merit. It's -- it's as good or it's as bad as
any other symptom I have ever worked with. I do think, though, that we continue -- and
HR's done a pretty good job of keeping pay in line with market, but I think there has
been some concern about the step pay in the police department keeping up with market
and how rules are applied in that step program. So, we may want to explore that a little
bit as well.
De Weerd: And we did have some people in the police department that were part of the
adjustment this year, so --
Rountree: Okay. Good.
De Weerd: -- some of that disparity was addressed.
Bird: Madam Mayor, as long as we are on that subject, they -- they are going to get
their raises on the step system, plus, then, they are going to get the merit raise on top.
Nary: No.
Bird: Yes.
Nary: No.
Bird: Why not?
Nary: Because the police don't have a merit system for the uniformed officers, Mr. Bird.
They don't want a merit system.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 99 of 106
Bird: Okay. They are going to get the three percent on top
Nary: They get -- they get three percent -- every level of the pay grade will move three
percent. So, when they move to the next level, then, it will be up three percent higher
than what it is now.
Bird: Okay. Right now I move from one dollar to a dollar and a half in step; right?
Nary: No.
Bird: Listen out, Bill.
Nary: Okay.
Bird: We might be saying the same thing, I've just got a different formula
Nary: Okay.
Bird: We move the buck fifty. Okay? Then, I get my three percent for this year. I have
already got the fifty cent step rate, because I went up. And, then, I get my three percent
on top of that; is that not right?
Nary: No, that's not right. The way the system works, as you recall, we have police
officers one, two, three, four at the five year mark they don't get another increase,
except for the specialty pays until we reach year nine. At year nine they get -- they get
increases that -- every year from that point, unless they get promoted and, remember,
we have corporal one, two, three, sergeant one, two, three, lieutenant one, two, three.
Every one of those levels would be increased three percent. So, if they are in the level
they will get a three percent raise. If they move to the next level it's three percent higher
than it is today, but they don't move by years. They get a longevity pay on top of that.
Bird: I know, but if they -- if they get their step increase, they get that raise regardless of
whether we have given a one percent, two percent, three percent, ten percent, they get
that raise.
Nary: No, sir. They don't have a -- they don't have ayearly --
Bird: They have a step raise.
Nary: No, they don't. We changed the program two years ago. They don't get a yearly
step raise anymore. That was the system they designed.
Bird: But when you go to grade -- when you -- when you come from grade one to
grade two you get a raise.
Nary: Yes.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 100 of 106
Bird: Okay. And, then, if you get a three percent raise for that year, that should go on
top of that other raise.
Nary: No. That level will be three percent higher, so --
Bird: Okay. Well, they are still getting it.
Nary: They are still getting it. Right. But they get it --
Bird: I told you we just have different a formula.
Nary: They don't get ayearly --
Bird: But a lot of the police officers don't understand that, they are just as thick headed
as I am.
Nary: That could be. I don't know, but --
Rountree: We won't tell them that.
Nary: The program was designed with them as to how they get increases, but it's not
based on the old system where each year --
Bird: I know that, Bill. We -- it's grade. I call it grade.
Nary: Yes.
Bird: Okay. I understand that now.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Have we gone through the numbers and are we talking philosophy at this
point?
Rountree: Yes.
De Weerd: Yes.
Zaremba: Okay. I would just like to comment that although !didn't think it was legal in
Idaho, I learned a little while ago that Boise is doing two year budgets and that I wonder
about discussing that. Putting a budget together every year consumes a great deal of
staff time and certainly finance time.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 101 of 106
Kilchenmann: I have a strong opinion --
Zaremba: I believe Boise thinks it's working well to do two year budgets and I think they
do an interim year adjustment of some sort. The biggest challenge would be to Stacy to
do projects out that far.
Kilchenmann: Councilman Zaremba, Rita might be able to add to that. She's talked to
some people from Boise, but --
Zaremba: I'm not advocating it, I'm just wondering if we ought to discuss it.
Kilchenmann: I would not be in favor of that at this time. You know, I think we have
enough trouble making it through one year without amendments and I don't know if you
have any other reasons for why we wouldn't do it, but people --
Bird: Just amendments the second year.
Zaremba: Yeah. That's all they do is amendments the second year.
Kilchenmann: I mean if we wanted to do it -- try to do performance budgeting, which is
what the Mayor is moving into and --
Cunningham: When I talked to the Boise people they have just said they spend quit a
bit of time, you know, building a two year budget, but, then, doing that little -- and do a
lot of amendments the next year in order balance and so they are spending quite a bit of
time doing a second. But also it seems to me you wouldn't want to look at doing a two
year budget until our amendments are very minimal. So, they are emergency grant
only. Because right now we are still doing amendments, you know, that really don't
relate to an emergency.
Bird: Council, Igot a -- I got a deal. I see where that's two million six over -- or under
budget I mean?
Rountree: Under.
Bird: What are we under? For the final. I didn't think it was that big. I was going to go
holy cow. Two hundred forty-two thousand. I would recommend that we take that and
put it inside -- in a line item under the Council, because we have got some unknown
expenditures looking at us in the face big time and --
Zaremba: Under Council or under legal?
Bird: Under Council right now.
De Weerd: Yeah. You guys cost us a lot of money.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 102 of 106
Bird: No. I just -- this is -- we used to do this with the excess money and, then, when --
as people needed it it wasn't -- you know, how is building maintenance going to go ask
legal for funds. You see what I mean? And I'll guarantee you poor old Bill is going to
have to ask for some funds. We don't have enough money in his budget to even again
what I think we are going to cost. So that would be my recommendation on the under
budget money that is left over.
Kilchenmann: Wouldn't we just be creating a what if fund again that we are trying to get
away from?
Bird: No.
Rountree: Well --
Kilchenmann: Or is this for legal expense? Okay. Don't answer.
De Weerd: Is there anything else from Council?
Rountree: Yes. I guess my question -- are we done with the General Fund and if we
are under budget, based on projected revenues, where do we account for that money?
It just goes into the fund balance? Which we would -- you're right, we could control
anyway through budget amendments. We would control it anyway through budget
amendments and budget requests. So, to me from an accounting perspective it's easy
to track there than it is trying to create a bunch of different funds in that direction.
Kilchenmann: I'm sorry, I didn't hear the first part.
Lavoie: Well, Councilman Rountree, this particular amount -- if you wanted to designate
it for a particular purpose, then, you would take that position, but if we just wanted to
leave in the fund balance as undesignated, we don't have to do anything from an
accounts perspective or a finance perspective. On the financials we will just leave it as
undesignated. The only time we need Council and Mayor's direction is if we want to
designate it or commit it to a certain position.
Rountree: Okay. That's fine.
Zaremba: Undesignated works forme.
Bird: Yeah.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, I want to comment real quick for you and Robert. I mean
Council makes the decision, but when you have to deal with the press and if they look
real deep and say, well, you have added 12 employees -- new employees to the city
and just -- you're going to have to deal with that. You're going to have to -- it's just one
of those things that -- and we are giving employees a three percent increase -- it's good
things, they deserve it, we are still a growing city. I gave you that USA Today article
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 103 of 106
when I was traveling through the airport and Meridian is still considered a boom town in
the nation and we can certainly justify this budget and explain. I feel comfortable with it.
But you guys bear the brunt of those calls from the press and citizens who may want to
complaint or ask questions. So, it's just something that we will have to be ready for.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I want to thank all you guys for everything you do. At least Tom and his staff and
everybody else. This is a nice budget. Tammy, I know that you led the charge here. I
appreciate it. Very much so. And I know the other Councilmen do, too. We -- it's -- this
has been one of the toughest budgets to balance that we have had. But, you know
what, it's been done and I appreciate all -- everybody's help and thank you for your time
and effort and as Brad said, we probably will get some questions, but I absolutely have
no problem defending the three percent raise for our employees, because we as a city
in the hard tough growing times we didn't bloat ourselves up, we stayed lean and mean
and it's paying off now. Thank you, guys. And thank all your staff for everything.
Rountree: Todd, if you'd run through the Enterprise Fund one more time, so we can see
the final numbers there.
Kilchenmann: And, then, if we take this -- you know, the depreciation it's the one --
Rountree: Now, didn't we take some of the capital equipment out? Or we are talking
about that or --
Bird: No.
Rountree: We are leaving it in for the loader and the --
Bird: The dump truck.
Rountree: -- dump truck.
Zaremba: I thought we left those in.
Rountree: And the tractor. Okay.
Bird: We had to.
Kilchenmann: Uh-huh.
Bird: Because they were safety.
Rountree: Okay.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 104 of 106
De Weerd: They are safety in wastewater.
Bird: And I'm -- we are lucky OSHA didn't show up out there at that plant. Todd, would
you -- would you print out these two spreadsheets for me? And maybe the rest of the
Council if they want it. I want these two spreadsheets.
Lavoie: Well, Councilman Bird, tomorrow first thing I'll do is I'll take all of our changes
out, get all of our updates in there, and, then, hopefully by mid afternoon tomorrow I will
be able to a-mail and print out all the latest and greatest up to date with all of our notes
and changes that we have talked about.
Bird: You don't have to a-mail, just print it out and --
Lavoie: Put it in your box?
Bird: Yeah.
Lavoie: I can do that for all four of you.
Rountree: That would be great.
Zaremba: I'd love it. A hard copy in the box.
Lavoie: I can do -- I can print out five copies.
Hoaglun: Councilman Rountree, I want to take another look and there might be some
things I could live without still, but, you know, we are awfully close, so --
Bird: I know there is some things we can live without, but they don't think they can.
Nary: Well, Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Hoaglun, you have one
-- you have another opportunity, because the only -- the only thing you're setting today
is the limit of your budget. So, if we -- between now and your budget hearing the
decision is you want to eliminate something else, we have the ability to do that.
Zaremba: We just can't raise it.
Bird: Put the max on it today.
Zaremba: flo we need a motion to that effect?
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 105 of 106
Kilchenmann: Uh-huh.
Zaremba: Tentative adoption of the budget.
Bird: We have to have a motion to set this -- publish this, don't we? Or do we do that
after the public hearing?
Rountree: After the public hearing, don't we?
De Weerd: No. You have to set the --
Kilchenmann: Bill, how do we start noticing it?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, what normally you have done in the past
is Finance can bring -- and I can't remember the specific date, but Finance normally -- it
takes a little bit to round up for all of these numbers, so they want to bring you back a
tentative budget. That's the -- that's the motion that you will, then, make, that's the one
we publish. And I believe that can be done on the 27th to be noticed in August, but I'm
not certain, it may have to be done on the 13th.
Bird: I was going to say we do that on the 13th.
De Weerd: Typically the third week in July and since we don't meet --
Nary: Oh, you're right. So, yeah, we have to have a tentative number by Tuesday,
unless you can do it right now. But you wanted to check with police.
Lavoie: So, the 27th meeting got canceled?
Nary: No. But I don't know if that's adequate time to publish.
Bird: No.
De Weerd: Yeah. I thought you had to let the --
Rountree: You have to let the county know when you're doing that stuff.
De Weerd: Have to let the county know. .
Bird: It's the end of this month when you let the county know.
Lavoie: On the calendar I have July 27th as the date that we will -- the Council will
tentatively adopt the fiscal year 2011 budget and the fiscal year 2010 amended budget
on July 27th.
De Weerd: Oh. Okay.
Meridian City Council -Budget
July 7, 2010
Page 106 of 106
Rountree: Okay.
Lavoie: And, then, the public hearing will be August 24th, because that will give public
four weeks to talk to us if they had concerns and, then, on the 24th is when -- you know,
that we can listen to the public hearing, so that gives them four weeks of notice. August
24th we listen to their notice -- concerns and, then, on 8/31 I tentatively have scheduled
that's when you will approve the numbers that you have on hearing date on August
24th.
Nary: Isn't -- is the last -- we will verify. I can't remember if the last day to report it to
the county is the end of August or the first week of September.
Lavoie: Last day is -- September 3rd is the last day we need to certify --
Nary: Okay.
Lavoie: So, August 31st is the last. That's what we have it set for.
Bird: That's when we have to get it to county.
Lavoie: That's when you guys will adopt it and approve it and by ordinance --
Nary: Right.
Lavoie: -- and, then, we can make official notifications.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, good. If there is nothing further, I would entertain a motion to
adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:05 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
~~`~
MAYOR MY De W~e~`,~ Oi ~''~% DATE APPROVED
~`~ ~ ~=.
r
TEST• `~
sE~~ ~'~
~~ ~~~~ o ,
0,9
~oUNT~ ~ ,~~~~
HOLMAN, CITY CLERK