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172 <br />it would be interesting to see how that directly impacted and hopefully reduced the <br />173 <br />City of Roseville's flow, since that was applied to Roseville's calculations. <br />174 <br />However, overall, Mr. Freihammer reiterated that the city had made significant <br />175 <br />gains in I & I to -date. <br />176 <br />177 <br />At the request of Member Seigler as to proportional percentages, Finance Director <br />178 <br />Miller advised that staff always built in a cushion in rates intended to protect utility <br />179 <br />customers; but admitted it was an imperfect science affected by customer usage and <br />180 <br />past history. Mr. Miller advised that staff assumptions were usually accurate, rates <br />181 <br />sometimes were purposely held off versus increasing those rates in favor of another <br />182 <br />utility if funding for that particular utility was falling behind another. Mr. Miller <br />183 <br />noted the healthy cash reserves in the Sewer Fund resulted in staff intentionally <br />184 <br />recommending that rates not increase as much in that fund. However, with the <br />185 <br />significant investments of late for the Water Fund (e.g. infrastructure improvements <br />186 <br />and water tower rehabilitation, and automatic read meters), Mr. Miller noted staff <br />187 <br />had applied some science and art in the overall rate structure to keep increases to <br />188 <br />homeowners and businesses somewhat stable, resulting in the recommended 5% <br />189 <br />overall increase for 2017. Mr. Miller noted this would balance some of the bigger <br />190 <br />increases and soften the blow and sequence timing to offset each other long-term. <br />191 <br />192 <br />At the request of Member Seigler, Finance Director Miller confirmed that the <br />193 <br />Metropolitan Council's fee would increase by 19% in 2017 and was based on <br />194 <br />estimated flows; but noted staff had built in a cushion in the fund in past years to <br />195 <br />provide some cushion for customers. Mr. Miller advised that staff uses historical <br />196 <br />and projected data from real and estimated flows to adjust City of Roseville rates <br />197 <br />accordingly; keeping in mind Metropolitan Council rates are always one year <br />198 <br />behind. Mr. Miller noted that, relative to 2015, even though City of Roseville flows <br />199 <br />have decreased, the other 100 communities collectively had decreased their flows <br />200 <br />even more. <br />201 <br />202 <br />Member Seigler questioned how many other companies could increase their rates <br />203 <br />by 19% and expect to stay in business. <br />204 <br />205 <br />Finance Director Miller advised that when viewed system -wide, the Metropolitan <br />206 <br />Council's rates didn't constitute that much in the big picture. <br />207 <br />208 <br />Public Works Director Freihammer concurred, noting that the Metropolitan <br />209 <br />Council continued to ramp up their infrastructure asset management and <br />210 <br />replacement rates based on the age of their infrastructure, similar to those steps <br />211 <br />being undertaken by the City of Roseville and other older communities in the <br />212 <br />metropolitan area. Mr. Freihammer referenced at least three of those recent <br />213 <br />improvements within the Roseville portion of their system as throughout the entire <br />214 <br />system. Mr. Freihammer noted just one of those projects had amounted to over $30 <br />215 <br />million. Mr. Freihammer noted upcoming Metropolitan Council projects affecting <br />216 <br />Roseville included Villa Park at Dale Street and County Road B; Southwest border <br />Page 5 of 20 <br />