##VIDEO ID:https://vimeo.com/1051741478## Okay, good to go. All right, thanks everyone for joining. We'll begin the board of water commission meeting. Um, first item on the agenda is discussion and vote on water rate increase. So let me share my screen. So I sent this to you all earlier. Uh, I actually sent it to you last night and then you guys had some follow up questions, so I figured we could go over those questions first. Um, Joe, you had wanted to see the shortfall from 24. So what I did was the first tab for FY 24 revenue expenses. The first column is revenue 23. So FY 24 budget is based off of the revenues we took in for FY 23. So for FY 23 we collected a little over $7 million. And then in FY 24 we spent 8.7. Additionally, we added $800,000 from undesignated from we spent that. So if I subtract that, ideally what we spent outside of undesignated was 7.9. So we spent over $800,000 outside of what the revenue was collected. So I wrote here the city approved a budget for 8.3 for 24, but according to FY three revenue we only collected 7 million. So we were approved for a budget of 8.3, but the revenues for that year could not support it. We only could support 7 million. And then your other question, go Ahead. Can we pause there? So yeah, what's the difference between total expenses and the budget? Just over budget line items? Yes. Yeah. So we went over budget, over revenue budget, $800,000. 'cause even though we had 8.3, we couldn't spend that because we didn't bring in the revenue. So ideally, regardless of the 8.3, what we spent was 7.9. But the revenue, revenue can only support seven. And is, does an un designated typically account for a shortfall in revenues or is that like an emergency condition? Like I'm trying to appreciate if we were, if we were really off by 1.7 million or truly off by 873 million and we just happen to have 800 in and designated to kind of bridge the gap. Correct. If we had over $800,000 in undesignated, we would be able to cover that shortfall. But we didn't, which is why we're in the negative for this current fiscal year because our undesignated wasn't healthy enough to support this. So FY 24 undesignated, I think was a little over a million and we had already taken out 800,000. So ideally if we had not taken out this 800,000, we would've been able to support the overspending of the budget. But because we took 800,000, it only left a couple hundred thousand dollars. It wasn't able to cover this, which then I totally un-designated into a negative. I totally get that. Yeah. What I'm trying to, maybe I'm not asking the right question or maybe I'm just not financially savvy. What I'm trying to understand is, are we on an annual basis, is the the department typically needing to use undesignated or is that a fund that builds over time and in, in this instance, this is why it's there? Historically, we have used undesignated to support the budget. Um, I personally am not looking to do that. I would like to change how we budget, um, so that we wouldn't have to rely on our undesignated. So we can use undesignated for what it truly is for which is capital improvement projects. Okay. And that's kind of where I'm going. You know, the undesignated balance hides the fact that, you know, the, and I, correct me if I'm wrong, but really we were over budget by one point, almost 1.7 million. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Okay. Um, so this was 24. And then if we look at 25, so Ffy 25 budget is built off of the revenues from FY 24. So in FY 24 we brought in $6.8 million. As of dec, Jan or December, we have spent 3.5 million, which includes our personnel service, um, expenses, general expenses, and the debt service with what we have remaining for debt service. And to pay personnel, we still need to pay a little over 3 million. And so the difference of the expense we've already spent, plus what we are required to pay, we're left with this for the remainder of the fiscal year, which will again put us in another the same position that it was in for FY 24. So realistically, $235,000 is supposed to get us through the next six months, which is not ideal. Was this spreadsheet updated since we we received it earlier today? So, Yes. I'm sorry. So I noticed that when I sent you earlier, I did not include the debt. We did pay in December. I didn't think we did, but we did pay some debt. So I think what you guys originally saw was 800,000. We paid $600,000 of debt in December. So I did update it, so, Okay. Yep. So this is the true number. This is what's left for the rest of the fiscal year. So In, in December alone, we paid $635,000 in debt service. Yes. Is that only loans or bonds? There was some bonds. There's the water trust that we pay once, uh, twice a year. Um, December and June are usually our highest because there's a couple, um, semi-annual, um, payments that we have to make. Okay. Say exactly what they're, I don't know what they're off the top of my head. Well, I was just looking, so December of the prior year was zero. Is that accurate? I did double check that. 'cause I also thought the same thing. I thought that was odd that we didn't have any debt service. I think the way that the, um, amortization chart is, I think the payments were distributed elsewhere. And then for fiscal 25, we had some due in December. Opposed to last year I did double check. 'cause I thought that was odd too, that we paid 600,000 this year and nothing last year. But I checked and there we didn't pay anything in December. Thank you. And Ron or John, I don't mean to, to be over overly bearing in the meeting. So if you have questions to chime in on as I'm just gonna keep going. Why are the why Go Ahead. I, I had some general questions. I mean, yeah. As, as we go through this, I mean, I, I took some time to go back and look at the, um, rate evaluation, the modeling that was done last year before the last rate change. And um, I'm just curious because in the modeling, the projected revenues that were modeled kind of match what we have. Uh, at, at least if I'm reading this correctly and FY 24, we had, uh, projected revenues of like 6.7 million for the model. And our actual came out at around 6.9. And for FY 25, uh, similarly, uh, projected revenues with the model of like 7.2. And I think you're showing here we're gonna come out around 7.8 with the rate change. So I'm just scratching my head to figure out what, you know, that seems to match pretty good with the last increase. Um, it, I'm just having a hard time understanding where the over expenditures are coming from. John, kind of coupled with that, I looked at, I looked at what consumption, I looked at the total gallons. 24 was the lowest year we had from a consumption standpoint point in, in range. It, it was, it was the lowest. It was ba it's basically 12% off of the average, which is what, 1 billion, 309 million gallons? Um, 24 was 1,000,114 or 1 billion, 114 million. These are big numbers I know, but the, the closest that we had was fiscal year 20 at 1 million 1, 150 8,000 gallons. So I, we've definitely got a consumption problem and I don't know how that ties to revenue, but I do, I mean it's obviously at, you know, 5.3 or five 30 per thousand. But when I, when I looked at the, and that was under the water consumption increase chart. Uh, clearly we've had some down years and even this year, if you forecast out this year at what we have for July through December actuals, and then if we use January through June prior year, we'd still be below what kind of that average is. So I think that's part of our problem is we are just not, you know, we are not selling as much water as either our budget plans to get to that revenue number. So that's, I mean, I think that's part of the problem that I see. And again, I didn't look at what the revenue numbers were, John. I was just looking at what the, the Sure. The, the gallons pump numbers or, or build numbers are and Yep. I do see, uh, you know, I do see a decline in, in what we're, what we're getting from a revenue stand or from a, from a volume standpoint. I'll just call it volume. 'cause that's how I think about it. And that's kinda unusual too. 'cause following the meter replacement project, you would think that would go the other direction. But this is what we got. So Does the rate study forecast usage? I don't think it did Outside. It must, it must in the inner workings of it. Uh Right. I don't see that in the, uh, right. It this is all like dollars. Yeah. So yeah, I could, I I don't recall that being in the study. 'cause I remember asking that question to them Yeah. Was how do we know what the volume's gonna be and nobody even wanted to, and I get it. Correct. We don't, yeah. It's such a hard number to, to forecast. Right. That, but that, that to me, even this year, we would be, we'd still be pretty significantly short even if we got a rate increase right away at the five 30. So assuming that was billed at 90% of the current rate, it's essentially a $530,000 difference from fiscal year 23 to 24 in terms of revenue decline from Yeah, It was, I mean, Joe Water not being sold, It's almost 140 million gallons less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's part of our problem. 24 was a historical low since 19 in terms of gallons. Yeah, Yeah. By, by a lot, like you'd mentioned. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Double digit percent. Um, yeah, the concern certainly is, like we talked about our last meeting as well, it's gonna continue to trend in that direction, especially with the forthcoming drought mandated water restrictions. Yeah. If, if we have, if we ended up in a restriction, we're we're colossally messed up. So that, that in my opinion is part of the puzzle, um, as to why potentially there's the shortfall. And actually if you looked at which I, I hadn't done, I mean, if you look at from 22 to 23 and 23 to 24, it's a, it's a consistent decline in usage. Yep. So that probably is why we're at where we're at for fiscal year 24. Right. And then that's why we suspect fiscal year 25 will be the same. I just, Hannah and I don't, Hannah Fran something that's been around long enough. The only number on that chart that jumped out to me that looked completely screwed up was September of 22. That number, you know? Yeah, right. 590 million gallons was, So Go ahead. It could be the weather. It could also have been, so these numbers were the original numbers that were reported to the audit department for the bill run. So this easily could have been, um, a billing error. An account could have been charged in an astronomical amount of water on accident. Yeah. But because this is what was originally reported, this is what I gave you. So that's a good clarification though. This is from accounting, not from facilities water production. Correct. Okay. Well, Our, our water production numbers are tabulated for the annual statistical report, and they're tabulated on a calendar year basis. Okay. Um, but water consumption in terms of what is generating revenues and is billed is, uh, is there general? Right. I know it's a lot of water. Agreed. And it's a lot of water, but I didn't know if it was attributed to some kind of failure in the system, a prolonged failure in the system that may be the plant. Right. But if it's billed water, then it's not that. And Yeah. But I think, and this is still our best baseline to understand what, what current and future revenues should be based on what we think we're billing. And that was a question, is that fair? So Heather has been helping me out with this, and I updated, so Ron had asked the debt to, um, budget ratio. So I had shared, I had updated this, and I shared this with you earlier, um, but Heather provided some information. So over here, these are the rates, um, that we've done over the past six fiscal years. So in fiscal 2019, there was a 0%, 10% 0, 3, 5, 3, and 10%. This is the budget increase from the previous fiscal year. So as you can see, for fiscal year 23, the budget went up 13%, but we had only done a 5% increase. Mm-hmm. So I think that's really where this is kind of snowballing from, is that the budget at some point was increased substantially, but when we did our rate increase, we didn't do enough to support it. Are we thinking that's debt service related in terms of the treatment facilities, um, causing the spike? Um, It could be energy. Yeah. It could also energy just be energy. Yeah. You know, between the gas and electric and the chemicals, those prices, the contract language, the, you know, I think it's between five to 7% annually those rates increase. So When did Owen district go online? Owen district went online in 20, uh, let's see, it was 2020 because it was in the middle of the pandemic that the plant came online. Okay. And this, This 13 was percent was for fiscal year 23. Okay. I'm trying to correlate it to o and m costs associated with the facility that maybe weren't accounted for, like energy costs or chemical costs. Yep. Um, so yeah, I think that's really where, you know, we're in the position we kind of are in, because I think what we weren't really doing was looking at the overall increase of the budget opposed to the rate increase. And I, I played around with this page too. So if you look at the, if you look at column E, which is what the, the, the debt percentage of the budget is, it's gone up dramatically. I mean, in 2025 we're at 32%. And that if you look at the kind of the compounded annual growth of that, it's 20% Joe over the seven years. I mean that's, that's a significant part of our problem Is is there a, a business benchmark that you know that If there is, I don't know, but Okay. I didn't know if just from like financial side, if there was a goal. Okay. And Hannah, one question as I looked at this, when we look at 26 and 27, are those numbers, do you feel those numbers are correct or do we, have we not included, um, dry bridge and tanks within those? Oh, as of right now, so I just got the new amortization chart for fiscal 26. So these numbers are coming from the treasurer's office. We do, I don't think we've sold off a lot of one, one and two or the tanks yet. So these are just estimated numbers as of today. So if we end up selling off more bonds between now and next year, these numbers will change. Um, but as of right now what we owe, this is what we would owe in 26 and 27. So at an absolute minimum, they're significantly understated. Mm-hmm. Because the exposure on those incre, those other bonds are not in there. Yes. And I did check we don't have anything falling off anytime soon. Yeah. Can we forecast what that debt service will be based on previous debt service? Probably I could ask the treasurer to look at it a little bit further. Um, but he, you know, the amortization chart just tells us every year, whatever we've already currently have sold off, this is what you're gonna owe in that fiscal year, give or take whatever you end up paying off or adding to it. So we could roughly guess how much we're gonna, you know, sell off and have owed for one and two in the tanks. But I, I personally don't know what that numbers looks like. I'm just interested order of magnitude, you know, if it's thousands of dollars, you know, or tens of thousands of dollars, it won't be the bank breaker. But if it equates to hundreds of thousands of dollars, yeah. You know, we're gonna be right where we are now. It's easily gonna be that. I mean, what was the cost of dry bridge? 12 million. 12 million. So it was, it was 14 something, but there's also principle forgiveness, um, in with that number as well as, because it was through SRF, there is the 0%, um, financing through SRF. So I'm, I'm not savvy when it comes to bonding and debt service and all of that stuff, but, um, the, the money that we owe on that is going to be the cheapest that we can get it, but it's still money that we owe. Mm-hmm. What's the term? Is it 30 years? Is it a 30 year loan? I believe all SRF is a 20 To 20. 20. Okay. So Ron, it would just be, 'cause since there's no interest, right? The amortization schedule is just an even payback over time, right? Yep. Yeah. And then the tank think, So 50 grand a month? Yeah. And then the tank was another 5 million I think. And vin I think that's likes like $335,000 a year payment on that. Yep. Okay. Yeah, you're looking it's substantial. Yeah, it's a, that's not, I can't be right. One too many zeros. 75 grand a year. Yeah. Yeah. Ballpark. Okay. So yeah, so that's kind of where we're at. Um, so I, as you can see on the water consumption tabs, um, I gave a breakdown of what consumption would look like for a single person, an average size home, and any, you know, families of four, um, what the average consumption is and the current rate, this is what they would be ideally spending per quarter. And then the three suggested new rates, what their bills would look like. Um, if that's for just consumption. Just for consumption, Sorry, you said that's per quarter or per year? Per quarter. Per quarter. So on average, a single person household is spending 32 89 a quarter on their water with the current rate that we have. But if we increased it, it would change, it would be a difference of 2 99 to 5 58 per month. Okay. And then, you know, because we're looking to have the rate set for January of this year, um, I gave some estimated numbers down here, um, based off of the increase, what kind of money would look like for the remaining of the six months. So if we did a dollar 45 increase, we were looking at $200,000 added to the budget or to the revenues 613,000 and then 865. Again, these are estimated because we don't know what people are gonna spend for their consumption, um, for the next six months, but this is just based off of last year's consumption numbers. So I know something that we had asked, and I, and I think you included here, was adjusting the base fees as a more stable form of revenue for the department. Yeah. Especially with what we're clearly seeing in the consumption data Yeah. That it's variable and declining. Yeah. So how, how does that play into this? And go ahead. So for water base, um, I gave a couple different options. The 30%, which has originally been discussed, the 32% or 35% again, um, currently, uh, per meter per household is $25 and 13 cents per quarter. If we were to do a 30% increase, it would go up to $32 and 67 cents, which is a difference of $7 and 54 30 2% is a $33 and 17 cents, and 35 is $33 and 93 cents. Now these numbers are specifically off of the five eighth inch meter because these are the residential meters. All the houses have this size meter. Um, and I think that was a point that, um, some of the, at the last meeting counselors had suggested that each consideration of the residence, this is specifically for the residents just because the rate table varies on the size of the, the inch of the meter. So I'm specifically only looking at the five eights. Um, so again, the difference between 30 and 35%, it's 224 to 254,000 for the year, the remainder of the year, the six months. So you, so the department were to cover around $500,000 annually by going with the 35% increase on the base charge? Correct. Yeah. And that would go ahead, sorry, if, If we did 35%, you're looking at annually 1.6 million just for the base fees, for the um, for all the meters And, okay. And that's okay. Sorry, I'm trying to do math as we're talking here. So really it's a $35 increase to that size meter annually? Yes. Okay. Uh, Meter fee is monthly or quarterly. Quarterly. Okay. And what, sorry to be bouncing around. So going back to the water consumption increase, associatively going up those percentages, well, I guess the numbers are, and I lost track of what those are at the bottom and maybe the spreadsheet's different. It's row at the bottom. Yeah, It's row 17 or 18. Joe, I can't change. What are those? Yeah, what are those below the 1 45, 2 20 and two 70, what increases do those equate to 25? In terms of percentage? Yeah, in terms of percentage. So a dollar 45 is between like 27, 20 8%. Yep. $2 and 20 was about a little less than 35%. And the $2 and 70 I think was maybe 40%. I can't quite remember. Yeah, it looks pretty close to 50. That one. Five 30 I did, I did the math, Joe. It was 27, 4 41 5 and just about 51. Okay. The, the reason Thank you. And thank you. The reason I ask is because those percent increases don't match. So what was the goal behind, like what was the thought process behind bumping up the meter charges, the per those percentages and then these charges, those percentages. 'cause the budget differences, it's pretty significant. $865,000 in six months. Right. For the 50% bump. Yep. And then to the base, you know, the highest percentage we show would get us, you know, 254,000. So was was there, what was the thought behind choosing those percentages? I think we were just looking to make sure that if we're going to budget, um, was it, you know, for fiscal 25 we budgeted 8.5 million. So it was suggested if we need to get somewhere around here, we need to really be in the 30% range to be able to cover any future expenses because this number is just gonna continue to go up. And I think because of the shortfall of the previous fiscal years not doing a larger increase over three or 5%, we're kind of in the position we are. So I think between somewhere between 30% was going to give us what we needed to cover the shortfall and then to make sure we have enough money for the next fiscal year. So when, when coming up with the, yeah. Okay. I guess I'm trying, okay. Trying to figure out what, just the balance between the two. I will Get the, to get that desired output. When we met last meeting you guys had interested in, because we have discussed that this is our, you know, the water base is our fixed income, this is what's going to be the same every single month opposed to water consumption. And I think we've all agreed tonight that this is gonna continue to go down. I think from what I took from the last conversation we had was that there was an interest in increasing the water consumption more than 30%, just because we know that water consumption is controlled by the resident. If they choose to not wanna spend that much money, they don't have to, they can control their water usage where, so we know that this one is, it's a variable, we don't know what it's gonna look like. Whereas the water base fee, I think we were comfortable with doing a 30%, um, just because we know that's what it's going to be every single quarter. So I gave you guys a couple different options because I think there was an interest in keeping the base fee at one percentage opposed to the water consumption at a higher percentage. We, I had, I I know I had asked something like that, Joe. What I was I agree. Yeah. What I was surprised about when I, when I started playing with this is that the base consumption only represents like 16% of our revenue. Yeah. It's so small. I mean, uhhuh, even if we, even if we hammer against that, it's not, it's not like we can get that, you know what I mean? Unless we com completely change the rate structure, which I'm not advocating by the way. Um, I I don't think we can get there through material moves on, on the base. I don't, I'm not saying we shouldn't go 30 on the base by the way, but what I am saying is even with that, it doesn't give us, it doesn't give us much runway to get, to get dollars in revenue in, I was thinking, and I hope this isn't totally outta line, even go higher on the base based on going up 35%, it would affect the five eighths meter $35 a year, and that's guaranteed revenue for an extra $35 a year a consumer. And that would get you $500,000 a year. Now before any subsequent increases, that's at 35%. So if you pump that up to 50%, I don't know what the, you know, the, the numbers would come to, well, I guess I can quickly do it. I guess my, I don't know if that's more like I agree. I think raising the, the usage is important because it does certainly reward the low consuming customer, you know, it's in their control. Yeah. But those guaranteed revenues I think are so important because, Yeah, I'll play double advocate on that, is that for the, for the folks that don't consume, they're getting hit hard by base rate increases. They're, you know what I mean? So if I'm, I do, if I'm a 15,000 gallon a year customer, you're really impacting me that through that base charge. But that's, so your point a good point. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, that, but that's a good point, Ron. But that base charge, okay, they're, they don't, um, use a lot of water, but yet we still need to provide all that piping and pumping and electricity. All of that is factored in for you to get, you know, no matter how little water you use, it comes at a cost, um, to everybody to get it to you. Those are sunk costs though in, in most cases that the variable comes with the water production, you know, that's really what drives your cost. But in terms of the hit that the consumer takes, we just said it's 16% right? Is the base cost. So if you raise the base cost by 50%, you're really only raising the total cost to the consumer by, I dunno if it works this simply 8%. Yeah. Is that fair? And adversely too, if you raise the the water rate by that much, you're going to, it's just gonna, it's gonna shoot the overall cost to the consumer higher. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, it Does. It Also generate a lot more revenue for the department if you increase. So there's a, there's a balance to be struck, right? Yeah, yeah. We get a lot more of our revenues from consumption than we do from the base fee. So certainly, you know, making sure that we have an appropriate baseline that's guaranteed coming in is important, but that consumption is also where the majority of the money is going to come in. And so if we don't raise that appropriately, then we're never going to get to the number that we need to. We can't, um, we can't raise the water base fee enough to cover our expenses to the point that our water consumption does. If that makes sense. Makes complete sense. We can't, we can't base our way to prosperity, Right? Correct. But you'll at least assure yourself of that guaranteed revenue in times of drought or honestly in times of wet weather. So I agree there's a balance to be had. I'm just, I guess what I was trying to get to is, and again, if, if people don't agree, I'm totally fine with it, but I am almost not opposed to raising the base fee more drastically, and it might seem drastic in terms of a 50% increase, but in the grand scheme of things, it's guaranteed revenue and it's not as large of a hit to consumers as spiking the usage. Yeah. Um, People can certainly disagree, by the way, if I'm in right field on this. That's fine. I did wanna pull up that link that, uh, Heather shared with you guys earlier, just so We can talk About that. Um, so I don't know if you were able to look at the dashboard, is that, I shared that, um, it was in the email if you, okay. Um, so the, the dashboard for, um, the water rate comparisons that was done by, um, UNC and tie and bond for the entire state of Massachusetts. Um, I did a pretty deep dive into that this morning, just looking at all of the different factors and playing around with, okay, where does a 30% increase in our rate put us in comparison to the rest of the state or in comparison to communities within 25 miles or 50 miles. And what I found is that they improperly input the data for our base rate. So right now, um, what's in that model for Westfield has a base rate that we bill quarterly that they're attributing to monthly. So the base rate that's in there, if you, um, if you can see the, the screen that Hannah brought up where it says bill comparison water bail at 5,000 gallons, it says it's a $51 and 63 cents bill. That's actually off by $16 and 75 cents because it's showing the base rate that we charge quarterly being monthly. Sorry to interrupt Ron or John, are you seeing that or are you just seeing the Excel spreadsheet? Oh, hold on. I'm just seeing the Excel, John or, okay, Thank you. Can you see it now? Yes. Yeah, thank you. Sorry. Okay, so if you look at the, the bill comparison, um, dashboard where it says $51 and 63 cents, um, so if you, if you play around with it, you can see what greater consumption or lesser consumption does. But if you go to the slider bar, Hannah, um, here above the no, above the map. Yep. Bring that all the way to zero. What that shows is what they're showing for our base rate, the $25 and 13 cents, which is our base rate, but that's what we bill quarterly. So it's three times as high as it should be in this model. So if you go back to like a $6,000 water bill, that would be what we showed for consumption for a single person household, um, 6,000. Yep. Yeah. So a six around 6,000 gallon consumption for a quarterly water bill for a single person household would be around that 56 93 level, but that's for three months, not one. So if you and what those, um, what those dials are showing is where we are in comparison to the rest of the state. So, um, for the bill comparison one, it shows us right in the middle of the green that, that says we're right in the middle of where everyone else in the state is in terms of water bills. But this is actually showing a water bill for three months, not one. So we're actually way low in comparison. 30 a third of that is what you're saying? Yes. So, um, for a, for a, the average size household, um, the monthly consumption was in the neighborhood of 5,000 gallons. It was, um, it was on your spreadsheet. Yeah, it was 15,000 something. So around, if we, if we slide it to 5,000 gallons, um, what you'll see is it says that the, the bill would be 51 63. But, um, I dug into the data, I actually called, um, Peter Gallant who's, um, working with UNC to develop this model to say, Hey, am I looking at this data right? Am I interpreting this correct? And, and his conclusion was the same as mine. Um, this number is overshot by $16 and 75 cents. So if you look at that number that says 51 63, it's right in the middle of the green. If you take $16 and 75 cents off it, all of a sudden we're looking way low, we're down at $35. Is that just true for Westfield? Did they check any other, any other communities around us to confirm that those are applied correctly? And it's not just a typo on the text. Yeah. So our quarterly billing is not typical around the state. They, they do have it specifically, um, based on the types of billing that they do. Ours just wasn't input properly. Okay. Um, so if you, one of the other neat tools on this is it says effects of raising the rights by, so if you go and slide that bar to let's say 30%, like we had talked about, um, doing that 30% range is gonna, yeah, I'm so sorry. That's good. 29% where again, okay, so what it shows now is it shows us, you know, going toward the higher end of, um, comparison around the state at $66 and 60 cents. But if you look at it, if you take that 1675 off of that, now we're right back in the middle. So by raising our rates by 29 30%, that brings us in line with actually most of the state. And we're still low when it comes to the, you know, conservation thing because we don't have a tiered rate. Our rate doesn't increase once you get above 10,000 gallons. So that's, you know, that's just based on the structure of our water bills. But if you look at the bill comparison, it looks like a 30% increase makes us, you know, pretty high compared to the rest of the state. But in actuality it brings us right into the middle of where everyone else is and you can, um, alter the comparison group. So if instead of comparing to all utilities in Massachusetts, we went to, um, cities within 50 miles, um, you'll, you'll notice something similar. So that 66 60 number, again, you have to take that 1675 off, that brings us down to a little less than 50 that brings us right into the middle of where the communities within 50 miles of us are. And you can do the same thing for specific communities. If you wanted to see what North Hampton does or if we wanted to see what Chicopee does or Springfield, you can do the same thing. So it, it was very interesting to me to see, um, how low we were compared to the other communities, um, considering, you know, the way it looked at first it looked like we were right in the, in the pocket right in the middle of where everyone was. Right. That was only because they had overshot our base rate by so much. And Then that affordability number is gonna go down as well. Right? Or Yeah. So the, if You took the 16 off of that, that's gonna be drop down further drop down into The Yes. The, the annual water bills is a percent of mean or median household income will go even lower. Which, um, which is just comparing it to what the mm-hmm. The census numbers are for medium median household income for the city of Westfield. I think that's all that we had. I don't know if you guys had any questions or any other concerns you wanted to. Let me, I have one more. So, um, if you go back to the spreadsheet, Hannah mm-hmm. And you go to FY 25 projected budget. So I'm assuming that this is what we submitted to the mayor and this is what we're this is what we're holding. Yes. Now if our revenue comes in below this number mm-hmm. Clearly we don't have a deficit, but what are we gonna be able to budget? As I remember, we can only budget based on what we actually gathered for revenue in the prior fiscal year. Correct. Is that correct? So in FY 26, this is what we have brought in so far for 25. So the current fiscal year, the monthly bills, this is what we have collect. We've already collected 4 million. Anticipating that with the current rate, the $5 and 30 cents per thousand gallons and the $25 and 13 cents per meter, we would bring in another 3.7. So realistically only what we're allowed to budget for FY 26 is 7.7 million. But unfortunately for FY 25, we had budgeted 8.5, which we know we won't be able to support with the 24 revenues. And where do we stand right now on the spend against this number? So as of right now, the department's on a spending freeze. We are not spending any money unless it's an emergency. Um, or contractually there are some contracts that we are, you know, required to pay. But, um, as of right now, the department has been told they're not allowed to spend unless it's an emergency. And you had that 200,000 number. Yeah. So on. So right here, so this is what like again, we've already spent 3.5 Yep. Of the 6.8 that we brought in, I anticipate we needed to spend another 3 million to cover our debt in the personnel expenses. That doesn't include the other purchase of services of other supplies, gas, electric and chemicals. This is what we have left to keep us out of a negative number to keep us within the 6.8 that we brought in last year. This revenue? Correct. And what remains in the undesignated balance? Undesignated has negative $70,000. So we don't have any undesignated to help us out in this situation. So when we have 200,000, that's what we have. I knew mom was going out for dinner, so I figured Sorry about the background noise. That's okay. I think you answered so, and I'm just looking forward to what we're probably gonna be able to budget. It's going to be below that 8.5 number that we've got right now. It has to be correct. Yeah. I I I'm still working on 26 budget, but it, it won't be 8.5, it's going to be closer to the $7 million. 'cause that's what we're comfortably taking in. So we're gonna have to cut back on some of our expenses. So maybe, did I miss something? How, how did we budget for 8.5 million? Yes, we did. We did, right? We did. So How though, if you can only budget for revenues from the previous year? So I think, so Ffy 25 budget was built kind of by, it was built by Joanna and I tweaked it because it was right when she was retiring and I was coming on board. Um, we had submitted a budget, I can't remember what we had submitted, um, but I think it was more than 8.5 and our audit department reviewed it and said that according to their calculations, the budget we had submitted would not be supported with the revenues. And she had suggested the 10%, which is what we did last year. She had assumed that if we did a 10% rate increase on historical numbers, that the revenues would be able to support 8.5. But we have to remember that when we do the budgets, so I'm doing budgets right now, this is what I have to know for the budget for 26. So assuming that you could bring another $4 million, you could support $8 million. But now that I'm really digging into the budget, we won't be able to support eight point million, $8 million budget with histor. No. The revenues that we've taken in historically, I personally don't know how Vicki was able to come up with a, a number that was appropriate for 8.5. I haven't been able to really sit her down with her and really figure out, 'cause she has her own spreadsheet and how she calculates revenues and information. I'm not quite sure how she does it. Um, but with the 10% we did last year, it was the budget was approved at 8.5. How often are we typically reviewing financials with the auditor? Daily? Almost really? She's seen all the numbers Come in. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah. She's got her hands in the pot, you know, very frequently. Um, I'm doing a better job now knowing that this was an issue and I'm keeping it a monthly, a monthly and a weekly eye on the budget I take in revenues. I look at what we're spending. Um, I'm keeping a better eye on this. I think last year I was unaware that, you know, this was happening, so I didn't catch it. Um, I think it was the state that actually caught that we were in the negative for an un-designated. Um, but yeah, I mean, anytime we submit the bills for the bill run, those numbers go to the audit department. So audit and the treasurer's office have all that information. So between me, the treasurer and the audit department, um, we all keep an eye on the, on the revenues and the budget. I mean, John and Joe, I'm gonna ask something here and you guys tell me if you agree, but I think at an absolute minimum going forward, we should get an update from Hannah at least quarterly. I was gonna recommend the same thing On where we stand relative to both budget and spend against budget or I'm sorry, you know, revenue Yeah. Spending and where that stands relative to budget. Yeah. Yeah, I can actually do that. That's not a problem. And it, it doesn't need to be every meeting, but I think if we were appraised quarterly, what on whatever quarterly cycle you think is appropriate, you know, that we would get the best, um, visibility. But though that's something like that, I think we need to have better, a better understanding of, and I'm just looking at what we're gonna be able to spend for next year and it's gonna be pretty grim looking at what we've got in that 25 budget and being, call it three quarters of a million short of that from a revenue standpoint. All right. That, that was my, that was my only other question. I I just wanted to understand how this was gonna potentially relate to 26 budget And what's our recourse currently. Uh, I know we've had some, um, you know, fairly significant breaks and those are gonna continue to happen. How, how are we funding that? I mean, typically I thought some of that would come out of undesignated as needed, but obviously there's nothing there. So, So currently, so we budget $700,000 in our construction account. Okay. Like I said, the department is on the spending freeze. I'm not allowed to increase open purchase orders, do anything without audit and purchasing's approval. So we do have money available in the construction account for those emergencies. So, um, again, only if it's dire need that we need to have something repaired, are we taking money from that? Um, I know we had, um, a purchase order encumbered with some money for a project that we're gonna push off that gave us about $200,000, um, for a little cushion as well. So, you know, we're, we're looking at our finances and seeing where we can find money so that we're not in the same position again as last year. So that question asked a different way. If we had a, if we had a water main break that we had to bring Rainmaker in or Crestview Yep. That would, that would have to be repaired. Yes. That would be classified emergency? Correct. Okay. Yeah, I've, I, because the, you know, auditing and purchasing have come back and said we can't spend, but I have stressed to them that there are going to be circumstances where we have no choice but to spend, and it really comes down to the emergency water repairs. It, it's really all that we're gonna be paying for, for the next five months. So, And, and that's budgeted under construction and not purchase of services. So, uh, it usually is paid enough purchase of services, but I have more money in construction right now. Okay. So what I've been doing is anytime there's a break, I've been taking the money from construction and putting it into purchase of services. Got it. Okay. I did, um, and I don't know, I'm not absolutely confident that the numbers all the way to Bright. I did, I did quick math on what 40% on base would represent, and Hannah, you're gonna, you're gonna have to check my math because I backed into how many services I think we have for that. I basically used the num, I basically divided out what the 35% increase was by that rate to get to a number, you know, call it a meter number. But anyway, using that at a 40% increase, the, the total number on base would be 2.28 million, which would be basically almost a million would be a million over FY 24 because 35 was 1.628, right? Yes. So if I do 40, it goes up to 2.279. So that's, that's the number, Joe, if you wanted to increase base a little more, that would give you call it another, I would hedge it. I would say it's more like two, one or two. Oh. But at the same, you know, it'd give you another 400, 400,000 in revenue out of base plus whatever you would get in meter Annually or for the next six months. Annually. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I, yeah, yeah. I don't know if I'd want to go much more than 40, but I mean it, this is a quorum. What are the numbers? Oh, annually, I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah. Well, no, I'm not, I'm not following, sorry. The numbers below there in rows 28, 29 and 30, those are percent increases on all the meters. Right. For six months. For six months, yes. Correct. So, but a 40% increase would be more than $500,000. I'm saying, I'm saying it'd be almost 1 million. Almost 1 million for a year. Yes, Yes, yes. Is that, that's, that can't be accurate though. 'cause this is 250,000 for six months. So if you go up another 5%, that doesn't get you another 500,000. Right? Am I misinterpreting the numbers here? No, that's right. You're, you're probably looking at more two hundred sixty, two hundred and sixty 5,000 more, right? For six For six months. Yeah. A Little over half a million, you know. Exactly. Per year. Yeah. Yes. I was using the water two that you're charged. Alright, so Joe, look at column G. The number at the bottom of column G. Yeah. 1, 1, 2. That's what we are today at the, whatever the base rate is, 5 25 13. Those numbers in column J, column K, column L are what the full year numbers would be at the right respective at the top of the column. You got 30, 32, 35, those would be the full year numbers at those respective base rate increases. So for 30% increase, you would have an additional half million dollars a year for a 32% increase. You'd have call it additional almost 600 for 35 you'd have, you see what I'm saying? It's one, the 1 1 2 0 is what we're getting today. For base rate total annually, all the way over to column L, it'd be 1 6, 2 8. I, I don't think that's, I don't think that's right. It would just be a, it would, right, it would just be a multiplication of 0.5. If you wanted to get your 50% bump, it would just be 50% more revenue. So it's 500 and you know, if you, if that's your total revenue out of meter charges, the 1.1 million mm-hmm. Which is 5.5, it's just $550,000 if you increase it by 50%. Right. One would, I tried doing the math to back out those numbers on the right. I I did too. I couldn't, I couldn't figure it out. Yeah, I'm agree. I don't know how a 35% increase totals to 1 6 2 8. Correct. And I, so Hannah, can you speak to that, what those numbers to the right are? Yeah, so it's the total per the, the total for the whole fiscal year. If but how, Go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry. Sorry. Lemme, uh, lemme See. That's based on usage though. No, that's a fat, that's a flat rate, John. Yeah, they're on the other tab. Yeah. So these are all, so to keep in mind, even though I broke it down here just by the residential, this includes all of the base fees that we offer on the rate table. I see. So for July 30%, uh, across All base fees. Correct. We'll give, give me $121,000. Okay. So what I did, I don't have it on this spreadsheet, it's on a different one. I, so if I've got 11,000 meters that are categorized as five eights, I times that by the 32 67. And I did the same thing for this, the threequarter inch and the inch and those numbers added all together, plus the 30% gave me the 121,000. Yep. It's okay. It's not linear. It's, it's not a linear calculation because No, yeah. Different Because it's Correct. There's so many different, just Each base fee is a little different. Yep. Offered. Yes. Correct. I mean, if you're comfortable, Hannah, that those numbers at the bottom, you know, in that row 17, I guess it is, if you're comfortable that that's what those rate increases would total to based on the, the call it the portfolio of meter size. Yep. Yep. We could extrapolate, Joe, that going to 40% would be another, call it another 5% on top of that 1 6 2 8. That's why I wasn't comfortable, I was spitballing this on my end and it it didn't, it didn't tie out. So I honestly, if you took it up another five, um, look at the difference between 30 and and 35. That's about, uh, doing quick math in my head. You know, that's whatever that difference is, you just add, add that to it, it's probably like 35,000. Yeah. 60,000 between 30 and 35, Right? Yep. Another 60,000. Yeah. So I mean, if you went to 40, You are looking at about 120,000 more. Yeah. Does that make sense, Joe? It does. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree. So I mean, if you went, if you went to that, it'd be You'd recover an extra Yeah. Another 500, 560 8,000. Yeah. So I think the, the question is what, what do we wanna propose? Well, can I, I don't mean to belabor this, but can I take one step back? So what is that number in column E row 30? What's that? 254,700. 4,007. Oh, I see. I already take it back. I already take it back. Sorry. Piecing it together. We're good. Yeah, we're good. We're good. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. So 40 thou, a 40% increase would be a guaranteed guaranteed revenue increase of almost $570,000. Okay. In the impact. So I guess Probably be like $10 a quarter or so. Yeah. Because if 35% is $8 80 cents Yeah. You're hovering closer to $10 more per quarter. Just 40 Bucks a year. Yeah. Yep. It's 40 bucks a year. I, what I was trying to quickly play out in my head, which it'll just be a bit more math, is how does it impact a larger meter sizes in comparison to bumping up their usage? I'd almost, I gotta think that having a higher increase in base rate, even though it's disproportional right, would still be a better outcome for the high water use businesses that have no way around of using that much water. Yeah, I would agree. But this is a good way to go. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you were to, if you were to do like $8 per thousand gallons, yes. The commercial and industrial properties are going to be spending a substantial amount of more money on their usage opposed to just increasing their base fee by another 50, $60. So my other question is, it seems we're trying to raise rates to combat the shortfall once the shortfall is encumbered. And we're, we've, we've paid it off. The rate structure will support the current budget, or will we be a little high at that point in the sense that we can start to rebuild un designated for emergency situations? It would support the budget and allow us to rebuild un designated again? Yes. Okay. I think the rate's gonna have to be looked at every year anyways, just with the, you know, the increase in, um, electric services and chemicals, you know, but I don't anticipate coming to do another 30% next year. This 30 percent's gonna help. I won't come to you guys in July asking for another a rate increase. So 30% will help us through the next fiscal year. So for fiscal year 27th, I will probably come back and ask for maybe like another 10% or so. But again, after we look at these new numbers and anticipated costs for the future, I'll have a better idea of, um, of rate that's appropriate. Yeah. And the quarterly check-ins will help keep everyone on the, on the ball. So something like this doesn't speak up on us. Yeah. Okay. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Um, Ron, I'm on board with the 40%. I agree. You know, I, I, I think that's a, a palatable increase and it's important for the department to have guaranteed revenue because there's still that unknown of what's gonna happen with the drought mandate, water usage. And if it continues to decline, you know, we're gonna be in the same position where even if we raise the rate, like what are you forecasting that usage to be, to support the budget and obviously can't, it can't continue to decline, right? It's not gonna go from whatever it was, 1.1 billion to 800 million. You know, that's a, that's a significant drop, but when does it plateau? You know, So I guess my question is, so if we, if we go to the rate consumption page now, Hannah? Yep. So if you and everybody, um, I wanna make sure I'm, I'm reading this correctly. So, column K, it's showing a, it's showing a consumption revenue of $8.837 million. Is that correct? Correct. If we were to charge the water at $6 75 cents per thousand gallons based off of historical consumption used, we would bring in 8.8 for a full year. For a full year. So that's, and that's average over the last four years? Five years. What's the, what's the, the base consumption that you're using, or average consumption? Yeah, so the average consumption here was the ba the average consumption over six years. So between 19 and 24, the average use for month of July is 131 million gallons of water. Yep, I see that now. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't realize the formulas were all linked, But that may not be realistic based on the trending data we're seeing. Correct. Yeah. But this number probably would go down based off of the last three years. How the consumption's going down. Yeah. That, that number wouldn't be that high. Yeah. I wonder what the numbers is. Go ahead Ron. I'm sorry. Go Ahead. Even if you use FY 24, that's, That's what exactly that was gonna, yeah. Do you use FY 24? And I'm playing with the spreadsheet now. We speak if we use FY 24, assuming that's what, what our new normal is, which is a historically low year. Alright. Other than FY 20, that was the lowest consumption we've ever had. Or at least in, in, in measurement on this, that would be 7.7 million of, call it consumption, plus the 1.6 that I calculated for base, that would be a total of 9 4 3 0. And that dollar 45 is a 30% increase. Right? 27.0 27. That's right. I'm sorry, 27. Yeah. Less Than 30%. Yeah. So go ahead. You Hear, you hear what I'm asking is, yeah, Do we want to be setting rate? And I understand what we're trying, we're trying to do two things here. We're trying to close the gap and I don't think we can do it realistically by just going after rate. We can't, even if we got the, and I said this in the last meeting, even if we got this in play right now, what we would realize through the rate increase for balance of fiscal year, it isn't gonna cover what we, what, what, what we need. So I mean, here's, and here's kind of why I'm saying it, that we know that we're not gonna be able to budget the full number next year anyway because we're only gonna be able to budget what we actually get for revenue. Do we really want to put ourselves, I did some math on 20%, even with 20% plus that base rate increase. It would be, um, sorry, I'm trying to, the, the number plus the plus the, uh, 40% base increase would be 8.938. That's kind of my question is what do we want to use for the consumption rate increase? Again, knowing that, and I know what we're trying to do, um, What total number did you just get through Ron? If I took 20%? Yeah. If I a 20% increase on, I wanna make sure I calculate it off the same column, I'll do the same thing. Yes, I did. I calculated off column GFY 24. If I use a 20% increase, which would be a, a rate of 6 36 per thousand, that would total 7.294 million plus the base of 1 6 8, 1 6 8 8 would be 8.93, 8.983. You see what I'm saying? That which is above what our full year 25 projected budget is. It gets us to that point. And that's all I'm really trying to get to is if you see what I'm, you see what I'm saying? Yeah, Yeah. Yep, yep. I do. Yeah. And I'd like to hope that, again, going back to what the trending that what the trend is for consumption, you know, it doesn't dip significantly. 'cause what if you just, you know, multiply that by 90%. I know, I know. And honestly, That's, I think that's the kind of, you can't, we can only speculate so much, right? It is trending down. So I don't think it's unfair to say it's gonna continue to trend down again to some plateau. Hopefully. Uh, I mean, uh, the next item on our agenda, which we've yet to discuss is what, what the impact of that is gonna be on this. So, yeah, but I, I don't know. I it's, it's what, what's the shock andwe of what this is gonna be from when rate payer sees it and not in a good way. Yeah. So that's why I gave you guys that last tab, which broke down how you could play around with it. So for the average household family, if you wanted to do the dollar 45 increase, and let's say 35%, the difference per quarter is $31 and 20 cents. And if you broke that down by month, it's $10 and 40 cents per month additional. So currently an average bill for just water. So the con the utility bill they receive has all their charges, but this is just water alone. If they look at their consumption and their base, they're spending $107. If we were to do the dollar 45 and the 35% with this, their now average bill is $138 and 22 cents. So it's a difference of $30 per quarter and $10 per month. And I'm sorry, you're talk Gotcha. What you've been talking about, it's, you're, you're probably gonna be around that same total no matter how you get there. You know, combination of base and consumption. Yeah. If you decided let's go 20% on consumption, but 40% on base, it's probably gonna work out to be about the same. Yeah. So if you just reverse, if you decide to do the $8 and the 30% is, you know, again, because that's the consumption changing higher than the base, you're looking at 115 per quarter and that's $30 per month, which Yeah, I'm not saying we do that, but it's uh Right. You may raise the base fee like another eight bucks a quarter, but you don't raise the consumption rate as much. I mean, that's kind of what we're talking about. Yep. So even if you were to do the 40%, you're still looking at only a couple dollars more on top of the $10. It's still like, Joe, it's gonna be a shock. I mean, nobody wants to see this. And then based on our current situation, I'm not sure we're in a position where we can just throw this out there. I imagine others are gonna have to review this, um, before anything moves forward. So I don't Yeah, That's, that's not actually the case according to Case, But according to the law department, I just verified today you are the rate setting body for these. There is no one, no one else who has the authority to set the rates for water for the city. Right? It doesn't need to be approved. We are, we're it? Yep. I mean, we vote on this tonight. It can go and play on the next billing. Yeah. So we haven't sent out January bills yet. We're still working on collecting reads and stuff like that, but I, you know, we are looking to have the rate, uh, increase tonight so we can start having the January bills, have the new rate so we can make sure we have new revenues coming in for the next six months to help us with next year's budget. So let ask one more question. If we come in low, and I think this happened in the past, if we come in low revenue wise, but we have instituted a increase, will auditing take that into account when we go to budget setting for 2026? That's what happened last year, was that we had submitted that 8.5 budget with anticipation of a 10% increase. And that not working out for us right now is the 10% we did in July is not going to help us with the budget we have. So, 'cause that's what, you know, this is the 10% increase. We've only brought in 4 million and we anticipate the next six months it's gonna be low because we already went through our high spending or high collection months. Right. So again, if anticipated based off historical value, we're only going to collectively for the whole fiscal year bringing 7.7. So I guess my question, Hannah, is with that said, we've now instituted a, we will have now instituted another increase of both base and consumption, which is 20%. I'm assuming that would be con taken into consideration at the, at the revenue, uh, the expected revenue target for 2026. Yes, it would. I have a better understanding of the revenue in the budget now, so I probably wouldn't go over this number. Um, but yes, when we go to budget meetings with the mayor and audit department, they would, you know, take into consideration whatever you do for tonight to be in support of the budget, Which at least puts us in a little, I'm not gonna say it's gonna be comfortable, but the, the point I'm trying to make. Yeah, Yeah. Well, the department can't operate trying to shoot, and I know you're not saying this, but the department can't operate shooting for a perfect budget annually. You know, and you can't be in a deficit. No. When is your budget due to, uh, the mayor in auditing for the next fiscal year, Um, on seventh. And then, so I have to submit them to the mayor's office for the seventh, and then they'll schedule the budget meetings to go over the, um, individual budgets. I'm still, I haven't finished them. I haven't, um, I've been working on them. Um, but this meeting really helps me finish the rest of the budget to determine, okay, this is what I'm comfortable setting up, or I know I can go a little bit more 'cause we're anticipating more money, but knowing what we're already bringing in with the 10% from July, this is probably where I'm gonna stay close to because the, the rate increase we do now is only gonna help us for budget 27. This sounds like that's the way that fiscal year work, It really isn't 2027, it's 2026, but, or at least half of 2026. Half of 26. Yes. So just so I can, um, point out to you guys on, In June, every year of the fiscal year, our personal expenses are drastically higher because as a revenue generating department, we pay back the city health insurance that is paid to, um, the employees pay for their health insurance. So every year I budget a certain amount of money for health insurance, retirement, all kinds of benefits. And at the end of the fiscal year, the audit department sends me a bill that says, Hey, the city has paid X amount of money for your health and retirement. You owe us that money now. So each month it looks like we spend, you know, a hundred thousand, 200,000, but at the last month of the fiscal year, every year we, we have to pay back health and retirement benefits. So this number is always going to be high because we owe money, um, for the benefits. So that's, go back to that, Hannah. Yeah. So that should line up with the budget. So that number 2 5 2 5 1 1. Where, what is that? So that total is, So that is for hourly employees, salaried employees, overtime accounts, um, out of grade, um, and all of the benefits that we pay. Okay. So that, so basically it's full-time salary, full-time, hourly, part-time, hourly, yep. Um, comp, health insurance, retirement. Yes. So all of these here. Yep. Yeah. So you'll see right here for retirement, I budget 475,000 in June, I get a bill from retirement saying you owe us this because this is what employees paid into. Got it. Okay. So we just do it one time a year. We don't do it monthly or every paycheck. We just saddle up at the end of year. Yeah, It's a catch up all. Sorry. Yes. When does inter, when does intergovernmental get paid? Intergovernmental is, um, in lieu of taxes. So that's usually once a year from Montgomery Brandville. Those we get, um, we just get one bill a year. That's usually sometime in the middle of the year. Um, we also have one from the Commonwealth. What was the, is the public water. Oh, your usage. Yes. Your Withdrawal. Yep. Yep. You Use the resource of the Commonwealth. Yep. Um, so that's what intergovernmental is for. It's to pay other communities and the state, And isn't that we pay our por our portion of data processing and there there's like internal city intergovernmental too, right? Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't work way. Okay. I just, when we get to the end of June, it's gonna be a very interesting Yeah. That's why in, where did I put it here? The remaining debt service is what we anticipate we still owe for the next six months. And then the remaining personnel again is to pay the salary, to pay our health insurance to pay the retirement. Those are all just the, an estimated number. Right. Which, so in total of, you know, another $3 million Personnel includes that 900,000 you just showed in June, right? Correct. Okay, good. I, So I guess, guys, the, the question here is what do we wanna propose for our two rate increases? I still like the surety of the base. I'm saying, and I've got a number. I, I I like you. So you're saying the 40% in the base, I think it's a battle that the department has clearly faced over the past bunch of years and decreasing usages. And with the drought mandates coming, you know, the budget has to be made, you know, it, maybe it's a discussion of what the budget includes, you know, moving forward. But we talked about this last meeting, you know, we looked at from what we could tell, you know, there's nothing egregious in there. No, there Wasn't. You know, it's, it's not, yeah. So I, and the punchline from, again, last meeting is they have a, the department has a budget, they have costs, they have to be met by revenue. All right? So, just so you know, so right now the base represents 15.6% of our revenue mix. If we go to 40 with that new 20% increase, it would go to 18.8. So it would go, go up by three points. And this is something we should think about in kind of every subsequent rate discussion, is how do we continue to move the mix on that to be a little more, the mix on base to be a little higher in our revenue mix? I think, again, we gotta be careful Yeah. Because it really impacts those on fixed incomes. But I think at the same time, we need to stabilize our revenue. And I think doing something like that helps. I agree. And not to use, again, the forthcoming drought, water restriction mandates, but it's certainly gonna play a role or could play a role. So I, I'm fine with the 40 on the base, John. No, I, I agree. If we're gonna make a movement, um, to guarantee income moving into the future that I, I'm with you guys. I, I think that has to, that that's a good place to start. All right. I'm, I'm in agreement. So that's one side of it. How about on the consumption side? So 20% plus the 40% got us above, right? The current operating expenses 3% at FY 24 consumption levels by month got us to 8.862 million With the base increase, which is above what our fiscal year 25 budget is, which we think, which we all agreed when we did it, we felt was a reasonable budget. And I'm f Ann I'm gonna ask you, and I'm gonna ask Hannah, I think all of us agreed that that was a fair budget, that was achievable. Um, I'm gonna ask that question. Yeah, I think we were comfortable with the 8.5 and the 10%. 'cause we thought, you know, we, we'd be able to cover it. I just, the, the chemical cost, I think last contract went up 7% and I think the gas electric cost went up 10%. So Right. And that's 10% on two brand new facilities. That's probably, I don't know, eight, 10,000 square foot of buildings additional building. They're heating, you know, with natural gas and electrical. Um, I don't have, we don't have the bills in front of us, but, you know, those are, um, significant dollar numbers, uh, gas, electric, bill wise. Um, but I think, yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, wastewater net road alone is 35 grand a month. So, um, and I'm sure, uh, you know, uh, on the water side, uh, reservoir Road and, um, and, um, dry Bridge and Owen, you know, are, are right up there as well. Um, but I think, so Our expenses won't be level funded between this year and next year. Our expenses will go up significantly. Right. Exactly. And they, that can change from bill to bill. Um, You know, so, um, agreed. I, I think that that calls for the absolute need and urgency to meet more often on where we are relative to revenue and where we are relative to spending, and to make sure that we've got better line of sight as it applies to this. And if we have to react rate wise, then we will react. But I think we need better data so that we don't get caught like this again, um, I just, I think using prudence, this at least gets us to that level. And let's see where we land. I don't, I mean, honestly, we aren't gonna be able to request a budget of this level next year based on what we've got, unless we do show that we've got the ability to graze revenue through the rate increases we propose. But even with that, how do we, how does the department pay off the shortfall? I don't, John, I don't think, or Joe, I don't think we can set a rate that's gonna do that without it being completely off, completely off the wall. Totally agree. And that, that was kind of the basis of my question earlier. Yeah. In the sense that you're going to make the rate slightly well above what you think budget is not crazy, but, so you don't get caught in this situation again, and that you can build some fund in case you do get into this situation again. But I guess my question still remains what happens, Which it is right now. I mean, if you want me to bump the 20 to call it 22? No, No, I think 20 is good. I think 20 gets that because what'd you say it was 8.86? Yes. Yeah, I, yeah, that's, they're at 8.5. So that, you know, is a good number without it being a crazy number. John. No, I, I agree with what folks are saying. I, my, my concern is, and I, we, I know we have to make a move here, but, um, obviously, uh, I don't know what the right process is. Do we just, um, vote this now? Do we have discussion with council, um, before Mo I mean, this is a pretty dramatic change, uh, kind of unprecedented. So I, I guess that's where I'm hung up. I I'm not sure the, the best approach here. I agree with you, John. You know, like if there, it should be, I mean, it's in our purview to approve, but what I keep doubling back to is, I, I just don't know what else you can do. No, I, I, I understand. Yep. I don't, it's not, it's not like this is a rate increase to build funds for future, anything like this is just trying to get whole mm-hmm. In front of the department. Um, yeah, I don't know. This was, I I did receive an email. This was referred to us right? Or was referred to the water commission. It was referred to a couple other committees. Yep. Auditing the mayor. Yeah. What does, what does that mean? That doesn't interject itself into your process. Your process is entirely separate from the city council's information gathering. Well, it says, this was referred to the finance committee, auditor, mayor, treasurer, collector, water department, and Water Commission. So I guess is there, what are they? I I just don't know what that means. So refer to a bunch of different departments and people in departments, I Think, I think they just wanted almost like this kind of information. I don't think they've been privy to this information. So I think they wanted to know what our finance would look like, how, how we're spending our money. Um, so they just posed the question at one of the last council meetings, and then it was referred to all these departments to kind of discuss, right. But that this is, It has nothing to do with what we're doing tonight. Right. But these kind of things are settled and done in a committee, water commission meeting. Not, this is way too much detail to have in a I agree. Yes. You know, a council setting. Right. But I, I would guess these various departments are looking for at least a summary of the justification for the, the budgeting in and of itself, and then decision-making regarding rates. So no, No other department has asked for that information. That's specifically coming from those city councilors. They had, they, like I said, they pos it, they had some, they had a conversation about it at the last council meeting. I guess it's on, it's, it's on the city website if you wanted to watch it. Um, it's at the end of the con the council meeting, they just talk about what happened to this department and they pose that question, that email that you all received, that they want some information from us. But it is completely aside from the rate increase that we're trying to accomplish, I personally dunno what they're looking for. The, the, the question to me is a little, a little vague. So, So no one's discussed that the people requesting it haven't discussed anything further with the department that, Not with us. There was a a, a meeting date there and all, but I think that's like on the 12th perhaps. So, um, I think you're gonna miss a vote if you don't take some type of vote tonight to get us moving forward. I think we are gonna need to explain what the basis is for what we are, what what we are requesting for a rate, rate increase, which I think anybody that's been sitting on this call understands exactly where we're coming from. Um, and I, I think that's what's, I think that Joe, I think you or the group of us are gonna have to go to the finance committee, finance subcommittee meeting. And Hannah, you're gonna be with us or with whoever, whoever goes, but I think that's gonna be the request is further detail needed as it pertains to why. Yes. But that's also why there is a water commission and why you have meetings and, you know, all the facts and information is gathered and, you know, you kept abreast of how things are going not to go, you know, to a, honestly, this is almost kind of what we went through a few years ago with building the treatment plants, you know, where we discussed that in the confines of how it's supposed to be discussed and then it goes further. I'm not to, I'm not to say that we shouldn't disseminate information and, and do you know, marketing if you will, but, um, you know, at some point it, you know how many times you have to explain it when it's already being explained in a meeting. Now you're gonna go to another meeting and explain this is, you know, Well, you bring up, you bring up the elephant in the room, Fran Ann, that regardless of what we vote on in the next 15 minutes, a some sort of statement is gonna be need to, need to be made within whatever form we make it. And I think the next item on the agenda is gonna need to be discussed as well, is how do we broadly communicate this? Both what one, the rate increase and two, the why of the rate increase, and three, the water restriction potential as it exists. So that, that's kind of the next step of this, is we need to be able to, to quickly communicate out this is what's happening and this is how we got to this point and why, um, and this is what we think it, you know, it's gonna mean. I think h Hannah, the, the way that you broke out the impact individual impact individual household is, is makes softens the blow, but it's still, it's still is gonna be need to be communicated clearly of what's happening. Yeah, I mean, I have no problem, you know, once you guys make a vote tonight, putting something together tomorrow, email it to you so you can review it and then we post on the city website and make it available to the public. Absolutely. We can do that. And just to confirm, the budget was audited and the finances have been audited. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So if we were to vote it's effective, when would it be effective? I'm looking to have it effective today so that the bills for Ja like January 1st, so that way the bills that we need to issue for January 1st will have these new rates so we can make sure the next six months have new revenue. Because the only thing is that if we don't do it for January, then we have to do it for April because I can't issue a rate increase on one district and not the other three, the other two. So it needs to be effective immediately. Ron, John, what do you think? I, I, I feel we had heartburn out on that in the past. Yeah, no, I, i I know we gotta do it. I just, my, my hangup is, I, I just kind of feel strongly like we should have discussion with it. It's gotta be a buy-in. Um, and I, I don't know, I'm, I'm just kind of stuck. I, I ultimately, we have to do this just, oh, city Council used to have, um, the authority to set the rate and they gave that up last 2000. Yep. 2007 to the commission to do it themselves. So at the end of the day, it's really up to you guys to set the rate how you feel is appropriate. I I understand that. Yep. And, uh, I just, I, I don't know how else, I just feel pretty strongly we should have some discussion with folks at council, uh, and not in the weeds. Like, we've spent a great, great bit of time on this tonight. Um, but the messaging's gonna be very important. So, um, I just, I think if we vote tonight, and I'm just concerned about the messaging moving forward, I, I think we're gonna need a kind of consolidated front to make this work there. We've talked about it, there's gonna be a lot of people unhappy with this. And, uh, it, it, it is what it is. I mean, I, I'm sure other departments are facing similar issues, but with us being enterprise department, nobody wants to hear rate changes. And especially the magnitude that we're talking about here. And I know on the grand scheme of things, you know, on the household level, it's not gonna be huge. But that, that is significant, as we were saying with some, a lot of people that are on fixed income. So it's, uh, it, it's, it's real money. And I have one question. As we propose a, as we propose the change for base, for base rate, I have a number for whatever the, you basically had a 25 13, and I'm assuming that was the, I'm looking at my screen, but, so 25 13 on, that's for a regular domestic meter or domestic meter, right? Correct. So you are going to have to, so if I give you a 40% increase, which would take that to 35 18, you'll then use that, you'll use that 40% increase and apply that to the other meter sizes to, to get the roll up of that. Correct. So all we're proposing on base would be an increase of the base rate to an increase in the base rate of 40%. And I can give you again, for, for and what, what's the 25 13? That's for a three quarter. Yep. So 25 5 eighths, 5, 8, 5 eighths, and then the three quarters also the same price, and then at one inch, that's when the price goes up. Okay. So we can, we can propose the rate increase based on that. So again, a a five H meter going from 25 13, a 40% increase to 35 18, and the rest of the meters, the rest of the meter rates going up at the same percentage increase, something like that. Correct. Yeah. And you could easily just, yeah, 40% increase on the water base fee. Yeah. Are you guys good with that as a, as a motion approach? Yeah, that makes sense to me. And then 20% on the, the rate per gallon would be moving from five 30 a gallon to 6 36 a gallon, or you mean Per thousand? Per thousand gallons For a thousand gallons. Yeah. Yeah, sorry. That's okay. Yeah, that'd be ugly. Yeah. And I think Dollar 6 cents. Yeah. So to Ron's point, that's your, you know, your optics and your marketing Ron is the dollar six you said? Mm-hmm. It's a dollar six. Yes. It's 40%, but it's a dollar six. No, 20%. 20%, 20%. Yeah. Yes. And then a thousand gallons, it's not two bottles of Poland Spring, it's a thousand gallons of water. Mm-hmm. It's still 20%. But I, I think, I think it takes some of the sting out. I mean, we were initially proposing 6 75 as our lowest step. This is 6 36. So, and it, it does these two changes do cover or at least operational budget for 2025. O optics too would be, I think, important to highlight where the city stands amongst neighboring communities. I'm not sure Mass Eastern isn't necessarily a fair comparison, but, you know, I would even argue, I dunno, Hampshire and Hamden counties, So the, the tool that we looked at earlier, the dashboard tool, um, you can narrow it into within 25 miles or within 50 miles. So you're excluding the eastern part of the state entirely. And we are way low, you know, even compared to those local communities. I just think it's an important piece of the puzzle. Absolutely. And way, way low with far more comprehensive expenses in terms of two new treatment facilities, a new water storage tank. Not that other communities don't have infrastructure needs, but Westfields have been far and beyond other communities have required plants. That's my point. That's exact, that's exactly my point. Correct. Yeah. No, we are unique in the state and we have been told by our regulators that we take essentially twice as long to review on at during our sanitary survey as most systems in the state because we are one of the most comp complicated and, um, comprehensive systems that they have to review. Okay. And the, the debt piece as well. I think that's a huge consideration of what we've had to do. I mean, If you wanted 20%, now, that's fine, but you know, when I know more debt's being sold and if the debt goes up, I absolutely will have, I have no problem coming back and saying, this is our new debt and we need to reevaluate the rates if that's what it comes down to Again. And that's why my ask is at an absolute minimum, we have quarterly meeting to talk through both revenue, how we're, how we're proj, how we're forecasting, or how we're tracking to revenue. And then from an expense standpoint, and clearly debt as it's sold needs to be considered within this, Well, the new debt on Dry Bridge Road was pretty cleanly around $50,000. So ideally you're not gonna get the big sticker shock, whatever exact number that pans out to be, which is helpful to have that information now, Which would be $600,000 a year if it's $50,000 a month. So $600,000 a year in addition. So you can take the debt service that is projected right now, add the $600,000 to it, and that's our new, uh, non-discretionary amount. So, you know, you're talking about from the 2.5 now, you're gonna be at three point, almost 3.2 for 26. Um, and then going up from there, So average you spitballed at 15 million, we got debt forgiveness of, what was it? Like 3 million, Something like that. So say that we're on the hook for 12, if it's a 20 year loan that's, that's $600,000 per year loan. Yes. Yes. At at 0% just because of the SRF funding. Right. So then proven Mountain tank will be on top of that And 330,000 on that. Uh, and Fran's estimate is three 30 per year on That. Those were the numbers that we originally ran when we first started talking about replacing the tank, which is just about to go in service. Yeah. Obviously, as these things become visible and concrete, then this discussion happens again. Is there idea when that debt service will begin for the department? So, So we just received our last invoice for Daniel O'Connell for Drive Bridge. Um, so I'm assuming that once that final invoice for construction services is paid, we'll look at the rest of the project and see what's left. And I would assume that shortly after that, the Charger's office is gonna start looking to sell off that bond. So it could be this year, it could be next year. I don't know the answer to that yet. Um, I can get more information, but, um, it's gonna happen rather sooner rather than later. I'd feel better if it was after the, into the next fiscal year, just so we can understand it a little better, you know, come July. But I guess what I was gonna get to is if the department thought it was next month or, or March, we don't consider but don't actually Spending on that. So We could have a discussion with 'em that they could do just time selling. Yeah, we can, we can, we can speak to the treasurer about that, but, um, yeah, I don't think it's gonna be in the next month or two. No. Okay. Cool. All right. Do you wanna, do you want me to make a motion? I, I, I just don't know who else we talked to, like the numbers, if they've been audited and we've gone through the alternatives that we can provide. I, I just, I keep going back to the bottom line. The budget has to be hit, and John, I totally get where you're coming from. I just don't know who, who we were to get additional buy-in from and what they would, you know, what would the outcome be that would change this. And I go back, I'm not sure it's gonna change the, the outcome. I'm just, uh, I, I don't know if it would make sense to have discussion with at least liaison or, you know, know some of these, uh, other entities that were referred to kind of review these operations before we make, I I mean, ultimately we have to make the vote. I I'm not Yeah. Arguing that at all. I just, I'm looking at it more from optics buy-in. Um, it's, it's more than just this group of people here to, um, message this correctly once we move forward with this. So Honestly, if you remember at our last meeting, Mike, Jimmy Adams and Cindy were there. Mm-hmm. And I honestly believe that all, certainly Cindy was probably the most vocal, but at the same time, Mike was Mike. Mike was also the most supportive. Sure, You've gotta do what you've gotta do. We can't be the department that's running a deficit that ultimately would have to be paid out by general fund. I don't want that. Sure. So, so I think at the end of the day, we've gotta do what we've gotta do to make sure that we're solvent. And that's, this is the, this is the process that we've been doing for the last, you know, we've been going back and forth with these spreadsheets for the last week and looking at 'em. And that's what we've been talking about tonight for the last Couple hours. Yes. Yeah. Two hours and 18 minutes. And I think we've gotten to a point where we feel comfortable that this will get us at least again, having quarterly reviews to make sure we're tracking to what we think, but at least get us to a point where we believe, and this won't close the gap, it's all be wide eyes wide open. This won't close the gap for balance of fiscal year, but it will definitely put us in a place where we could present to mayor auditing, um, that, that we can request a budget that we believe we can pay for as long as revenue comes in. If we don't get revenue, all bets are off. And by the way, that is why we're short, is because revenue didn't come in. Yeah. We've been short revenue, we've been short consumption. And honestly, that's our biggest problem is we, we don't have enough volume. So, okay. Ron, do you wanna make a motion? I, So, hold on. I've got my numbers right. Trying me make a motion to increase the base fee on base meter fee across all meter sizes by 40%. Hannah, is that worded correctly? Yes, it is. Uh, effective immediately. Effective immediately. Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Actually, I think we gotta do roll call. Oh. 'cause we're remote. Okay. Roll call. Uh, commissioner Cole? Yes. Commissioner Nagel. Yes. Commissioner Poplar. Yes. Make a motion to increase the current, the co consumption rate by 20%, increasing from the current rate of $5 and 30 cents per thousand gallons to $6 and 30 36 cents per thousand gallons. Roll call. Commissioner Cole? Yes. Commissioner Naski? Yes. Commissioner Poplar? Yes. Non. Okay. Thank you very much guys. I appreciate it. Thank you for the comprehensive analysis and for all the background information and for fielding all of our questions. You're welcome. And like I, like Ron requested, I will come quarterly with this kind of information just so you're, you know, in the know of what happening. If we get more debt or things happen, then we can, you know, revisit these conversations. Okay. Thank you. Thank, okay. Next item discussion and vote on ordinance language change for drought protocols. So, um, I sent out to you and, um, I believe you all received and were able to review the, um, proposed ordinance changes for, um, section one dash 9.1 under non-criminal disposition and penalties. Um, where it changes, uh, the section that talks about enforcing, um, those non-criminal dispositions. Um, though water restrictions would, would, um, be only under one section instead of divided over to, um, the references are updated and corrected and the, um, enforcing persons are updated to the superintendent of public works or assistant superintendent of public works or deputy superintendent of water. And the citation amounts are updated from, uh, to first citation of $50, second citation of a hundred dollars and third in all other citations of $150. Um, that's, that's the full extent of the changes for that section. Then the second section is section 18 dash 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32, 33, and 34 and 35, sorry, sections 18 dash 28 through 18 dash 35. Um, I can go through each one. Um, but essentially what has been added is in addition to the, to the language that was already in there about, um, water restrictions, um, you know, preserve the public health, safety and welfare whenever there's in effect a state of water supply conservation, which is something that you declare, we've added in a state of drought, which is what the state is requiring, um, based on the conditions on our water registration or a state of water supply emergency was already in that language. So the first piece is just adding a state of drought as a condition that would, um, justify water restrictions. Um, Megan went through and updated the MGL and MGLC and MGLA references so that they reference the, the proper sections currently. Um, and then in section 1829, I know there was some questions about the, the language that is used there. That language is taken directly from the condition on our water registration. Um, so that's the language that was, um, vetted through the public comment period and was approved through the mass DEP process. Um, so the non-essential outdoor water use shall mean language. All of that is straight from the water registration statement that we were given. So, um, so that's what all of that means. Um, then we also kept all of the definitions that were in there for, uh, that we had put in locally. Um, and then declaration of a state of water supply conservation, which is on under section 18 dash 30. Um, add an additional instance where the water board of water commissioners, um, may de shall declare. So it's not a may at this point because we're being required to do it. It's a shall declare a state of water supply conservation upon the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs drought declaration for the drought region, county, or watershed where the city of Westfield withdrawals are located. Um, the second piece that was added, um, was added to, uh, speak to times when the, um, the timing of water commission meetings may not coincide with being able to nimbly respond to drought declarations. So what it says is that the Board of Water Commissioners may annually designate one of its members to declare a state of water supply conservation in the absence of the board's abilities to meet within a timely manner upon a draft declaration by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs for the region, county of Watershed where City of Westfield withdrawals are located. Any such declaration by the designated member shall be ratified by majority vote of the board at its next regularly scheduled meeting. So what that would mean is just like you vote on a signatory, um, for things, uh, annually, you would vote on someone who could declare, um, a, uh, state of water supply conservation. If, for example, it's during, um, the recess over the summer, um, it would be a way for the commission to comply with the requirement to declare the state of water supply conservation, um, without having to have a special meeting in the middle of summer or, um, try and constitute a quorum at other times that might be difficult to do. So, um, the restricted water uses were also updated so that they're consistent now with the straight drought language. Um, our ability to use an odd even water ban is still kept intact for any reason that the, that locally we might wanna declare our state of water supply conservation, but we did have to add the one day per week outdoor water use, which is what the state's requiring if they declare a level one drought. And then we also needed to add the outdoor water use ban with exception, um, which is also language from that registration statement, um, for a level two drought. And then for level three or four outdoor water use ban now states that it's all non-essential outdoor water use by water users is banned. Um, so that's again, incorporating that all non-essential outdoor water use, which harkens back to that definition at the beginning of the section with all of the state's language and state's exceptions. Um, then there was also some language added in, at, at the bottom of this that defines the, um, that if it is solely because of a drought, the conditions that the state has issued would be the ones that are in effect the one day per week or outdoor water use van with exception or outdoor water use van outright. So those are the only three that are eligible if it's solely because of a drought. Um, the notification piece, um, Heather, Could you stop there for a moment? Sure. Would it be helpful in that section, even if it's in that section B, that for the respective one bullet one, bullet two, bullet three within that put in as defined by a level, level one drought, a level two drought, a level three drought. You understand what I'm saying? That the reason for each of those respective, um, usage reductions is tied to the ban? The ban or the, what, what is it called? You said it The drought level. Correct. Um, the only reason I would hesitate on that is that if the state decides to, um, to change up how they're declaring their droughts, whether, you know, instead of a drought level one, they have A one A, B, and C or something like that, this would preserve those levels regardless of whether the state changes 'em. Um, I do, I do hear what you're saying though about adding, uh, um, clarifying to be more clear about what would constitute each level. Right. And that's all I'm saying is it, this doesn't necessarily this, it doesn't necessarily sound clear to the ray payer what, you know, what these mean. And I, I know they wouldn't understand the level one, level two, level three, but clearly you've seen it, we've all seen it on a map and we never had to deal, we never had to deal with it in the past because we had our own water supply, but now we do. So I think they're gonna need to at least be educated on what those, what those one through three steps are gonna be triggered by. I definitely think we need to do a good job of educating folks as far as what those levels are and, um, what is justifying the water supply conservation state, um, when we issue a, a supply, a state of water supply conservation regardless. So we would certainly wanna add, um, the educational language into our, um, our notice on the city website, our published in the newspaper press release and all of that information. Um, and I, I think as we've talked about before, we're definitely going to need to be educating the public before this is, um, this is in place that April 6th deadline that we've got, um, to make sure that people are aware of what's coming and, and the reasons for it. Yeah. Okay. I'm fine. I don't, I don't think we necessarily need to put put it here, but we are gonna need to educate. Yes. All So go ahead. You were on. Uh, so As far as notification is concerned, um, upon declaration of a state of water supply conservation for a state of water supply emergency, um, all of the same notification methods that were in there before remain in there. Um, and it was also added that the, the Board of Water Commissioners shall pursuant to, uh, three 10 CMR 22.15 a eight, inform the DEP of the declaration of the state of water supply conservation within 14 days of its effective date. That's just incorporating, um, a regulation that's already in existence for DEP. It just states it clearly now in our coordinates. And then, um, there were some references that were taken out. And, um, as far as penalties are concerned, the references were updated and, um, the language was added at the end of penalties that, um, corresponds with what we already have in our water rules and regulations. But it states that if a state of water supply emergency has been declared, the Board of Water Commissioners may in accordance with MGLC 40 and 41 a shut off the water at the meter or the curb stop. We already have that, um, ability for our water rules and regulations, but this just states it clearly in the ordinance so that as a result of draft declaration and a state of water supply emergency, it's another, um, it's, it's another justification for shutting someone off, um, if they're in violation. And obviously that would be something that would not be utilized unless all other methods of, um, attempting to get the, the water usage under control have failed. Um, and so, so that's the extent of the changes to the ordinances. Um, what we would be looking for tonight is a, uh, a vote, um, confirming support of these ordinance changes. So that, um, when these are, I have a, a cover letter that I'll be sending to the mayor with these ordinance changes for him to present to city Council. Um, and it was recommended that we get the support through a vote of the board, um, recommending these ordinance changes or endorsing these ordinance changes to the city council. So before we vote on that, do we need to also vote on the penalty structure as well? That would be, so it is the two sections to the ordinances, um, that would be changed. So I, I believe it's one motion for each section. Okay. Um, so you would vote on the, the section that refers to the penalties and the enforcement, and then you'd also vote on the section, um, that discusses, discusses the water restrictions. Just one thing I, I caught just now is that the page numbers at the bottom of the pages just need to be updated. So like in the longer document, the first page is page one of two, and then it's two of three, three of three and four of three. And in this context, it's not terribly important, but out of context It's just because, um, mine don't have that numbering issue. Oh, um, No. So I'm, I'm not sure. So sometimes Even better, Sometimes with, with word files, especially with track changes, the page numbering will be screwy until those, uh, red lines and track changes have been accepted. That may be where we're seeing conflicts As long as you're not seeing it. That's, I double check that. I'll double check that before the packet is prepared for the mayor. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thanks for, uh, getting back with the, um, or presenting the explanation of that, sort of that preamble statement. I know you had the same questions, Joe. It, it, I know we can't change it. Thanks for clarifying that, Heather. But it is confusing and I know a lot of, um, regulatory language is oftentimes presented that way. It just a lay person, I mean, I had a hard time reading it. Um, I, I can imagine a lot of people are gonna have issues with that introductory clause there, and then it goes into I, anyway, that, it sounds like there's nothing we can do with that. So I don't know if it's worth making any change with the MGL versus the MGLA designation. So I, I spoke with Megan regarding that. Um, her opinion was that MGL and MGLA is referring to Mass general law or Mass General law annotated, and both are referring to the same law. The annotative, um, label is, uh, basically referring to case law that might be referenced, um, as, as more case law develops regarding those particular laws. Um, her opinion was that she, she can go through and remove all of the, a's if that would be, um, if that's what the commission wishes. Um, her opinion was that the difference doesn't, it's a distinction without making much of a difference. If it's legally the same, it doesn't matter to me. I just lagged it because it seemed odd. But if there's a legal justification for it, so be it. You know, no one's gonna get into the minutia of that specifically. I hope not. Yeah. Famous last words. I would concur with both Joey and John, thanks for all the work you've done with this, Heather. Yeah. But you need two separate motions on this. I believe so, yes. So, um, I, I'll make a motion to approve the, um, final re red line revisions of the water restriction ordinance, um, as presented to the, uh, commission prior to this meeting. Heather, do we, or do we need the section numbers in there? The section? I, I believe so. Oh, okay. So, so if you, um, if you refer to sections 18 dash 28 through 1835, um, for one, and then section one, 9.1 for the other, I believe that covers them. Alright. I'm sorry. Can I get those again? Sure. So for the water restrictions sections, it's section 18 dash 28 through section 18 dash 35. Okay. And then for the non-criminal disposition and penalties, it's section one dash 9.1 Dash 9.1? Yes. Just section one dash 9.1 for section 18. Yeah. And, and the title is? The title is Non-Criminal Disposition and Penalties. Um, John, I'll, I'll, I'll do that one. I'll, I'll, Alright. All right. All right. Well, I, I'll, I'll revise my motion then. I, I, I'll make a motion to approve the final red line or red line edits, uh, of the water restriction ordinance, uh, presented to the Board of Commissioners referencing, um, water restriction section 18 dash 28 through section 18 dash 35. Second. All right. Roll call. Commissioner Cole. Yes. Commissioner Aki? Yes. Commissioner Poplar. Yes. Thanks, John. I'll make a motion. I'm making a motion to approve the red line version of non-Criminal Disposition and Penalties section one dash 9.1, um, as redlined to the Board of Water Commissioners Second Roll call. Commissioner Cole. Yes. Commissioner Alki? Yes. Commissioner Poplar. Yes. One question. One, one other question and we didn't, yes. Did we call this board to order when we initially opened the meeting? I didn't use the exact words called to order, but I did start the meeting. Okay. All right. I didn't wanna make sure we're following. Yeah, no, no, appreciate it. Um, one other thing that we should just touch on briefly is, you know, we have discussed the notifications that should go out to, uh, customers. Yeah. Um, I guess we can start doing that as soon as the ordinance revisions get approved. So I guess we'll just stay tuned for that. Yes, Absolutely. Um, okay. As, as it goes through the process with City Council, we can certainly start to send out educational materials, um, to our, our rate payers so that they know it's coming. Um, yeah, I will, um, I'll certainly be drafting things and, and look for your input, um, and your advice as that goes forward. So Certainly, yeah, we have some time. So I would, I would say though that the work on the notification and justification for the rate increase should probably happen sooner. Yeah. Now. Absolutely. Yep. I'll, I'll work on that tomorrow and then I'll send you guys just a draft, you can review it and see if there's anything you wanna add or take away from it, and then we'll send it out to the residents. Perfect. Okay. Um, and Joe, probably one other thing we wanna talk about is I can, I can certainly get into the office and, and sign as needed. Do we want to think about, obviously the next meeting's only six days away. Um, do we wanna push February to March or like you guys, you guys give a position? Yeah, that's what we discussed last meeting. Right. Um, Allison, is there anything, anything pressing in terms of abatements or anything else that you have at the office? No, no. The residents have until the first to argue against any liens. Um, and then we have 90 days, I have 90 days to present it to you. Um, so that's fine. It happens in March. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Obviously if something comes up that requires a meeting, we can certainly call one. Um, but if there's nothing pressing, I don't see a reason to meet in February and we can just meet in March. Yeah. I, I couldn't make, I, I wasn't gonna be able to make the fourth, which is next Tuesday. So I'm in the same boat. Yeah. Okay. I'm in the same boat, so, So we would put the next meeting on the calendar for March, Which I'm unavailable that first week, but if that works for others, don't, don't let me hold it up. Um, yeah, I'm, I don't have anything currently, so I can do either the first or second week. Yeah. I, I am available the second week if we'd rather wait Or do you wanna do the last week of February? That, yeah, that wouldn't be bad for me. The 25th? No, that's the, yeah, that's fine for me as well. 25th. That's a good idea, John. That's, I mean, it's, yeah. A month away, so Yeah, that's a good idea. Okay. February 25th it is. Good suggestion. Okay. Anything else? Would that meeting be back, obviously in person five 30? Yeah. Um, so Allison, as it, as it becomes needed, let me know. Um, I'll make myself available to sign schedules by night. Yeah, probably next week sometime. Carrie already plans on reaching out to you, so. Okay. And if you're in a jam, if that's a, if that's a pain in the neck. I, I mean, I'm, I think I'm gonna be pretty local the next week or so. You know, you're gonna be tied up for a while, Ron, so if I can swing by if needed, so, Okay. Same Yeah. This week. Thank you for always doing it. Yeah, no worries. Yeah, You do it a lot, so we appreciate it. Yeah. All right. Um, I'll make a motion to adjourn special meeting. January 29th at 7:46 PM Second Roll call. Commissioner Cole? Yes. Commissioner Aki? Yes. Commissioner Poplar. Yes.