A, Utility Rates - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

�� EN HILL5 MEMORANDUM DATE: February 27, 2012 TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council FROM: Sue Iverson, Director of Finance and Administrative Services SUBJECT: Water Rates and Meter Charge Discussion Background: At the August worksession, Council asked staff to look at reducing the cost for the users of minimum gallons included in the Water Meter/Rates. Staff presented a revised rate structure at the November worksession which lowered the minimum from 10,000 gallons to 5,000 gallons. This proposed change required a 40% increase in the highest tier and a$16.40 per quarter increase to everyone who used more than 10,000 gallons. The Council directed staff to go back and do more analysis and to present more options to the Council in early 2012 so that they could be implemented by 2"d quarter of 2012. One option was to possibly provide a discount for those who used less than 10,000; another option was to charge for all water usage. Discussion: Staff has done a number of iterations to determine how to achieve this result, while still maintaining the require conservation rate structure without a complete overhaul of the current rate structure. This has been quite challenging. The meter charges cover the City's "iixed costs" to run the system, while the usage charges cover the "variable costs." I have attached the analysis from the last worksession for your information. Providin,g a Discount to those using less than 10, 000 Staff evaluated this option and found that it is very labor intensive. Using the data from the December 21, 2011 billing, staff estimates that manually placing a rebate/credit on accounts that fall under 10,000 would take approximately 2 full days and add to the time it takes to process the utility bills. When we just look at the December 31, 2011 billing we have to remember that we have a lot of "snow birds" who are gone for the winter and consumption is at its lowest during this time as there is no watering or gardening. Following is a summary of the accounts in each from December 3 l, 2011: