2019_06-25_PWETCpacket - Laserfiche WebLink

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Attachment A Excerpt of Minutes from Tuesday, September 25, 2018 PWETC Meeting Tiered Water Rate Analysis Mr. Freihammer provided a brief review and update on projects and maintenance activities listed in the staff report dated September 25, 2018. Member Kors thought Mr. Culver mentioned that larger families use more water. Mr. Culver stated the City is trying to account for that by breaking this down per capita. The City is trying to estimate and get a glimpse of where the larger families would be at. That is why staff is recommending the motion based on feedback from the Commission and where staff felt the Commission was going towards. If that is the desire to try to encourage some water conservation particularly with the highest users, staff felt comfortable with setting that 50,000 -gallon tier and then going from there. Member Wozniak indicated the new tier would be used for summer months only and he thought the larger families would use the same amount of water year-round and not only in the summer months. Mr. Freihammer directed the Commission to look at the winter use graph per quarter. He reviewed the graph with the Commission and noted it was less than a percent that use that tier in the winter and that would be the same amount of people affected in the Summer months. He noted some of those may have leaky plumbing and City Staff tries to notify those people. Mr. Culver stated if the Council were to adopt this and staff was to implement this new tier, staff would make concerted efforts to notify and educate those customers over the 50,000 -gallon tier to let them know this is coming and to take a serious look at why the resident is using that much water, particularly in the winter months. Chair Cihacek stated if no changes are made and the City does get the money, to allow for conservation programs moving forward, the City can develop some sort of incentive program which would help the residents who are over the 50,000 -gallon tier to lower their rates and become educated. Commissioner Kors wondered how many households this would impact in the City. Mr. Freihammer stated it would impact 350 residences in the summer and 17 residences in the winter. He stated in the summer staff would target that group, even the 40,000 -gallon tier to educate them, if this were to be adopted. Chair Cihacek thought there would be opportunity with additional funding to have good outreach and communication and a potential rebate on some of the programs. Commissioner Kruse thought if this tier was adopted it would be higher than the commercial rate for that same amount of usage.