Agenda - 09-20-2011 - 5k - Laserfiche WebLink

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Metering -Potential Solution and Secondary Issues The current policy (Attachment 1), as amended on November 4, 2010, states that if a customer believes they are using less than 5,000 gallons, they may install a meter on their well at their expense which would then be monitored each month to determine their usage. The bill would then be based on the actual usage rather than the set amount of 5,000 gallons per month. This is a potential solution to the customers' issue with the amount for which they are being billed. The upfront installation cost would likely be $300-$500, depending on the site. However, at the current sewer rate of $10.86 per thousand gallons, if a customer was using 3,000 gallons per month, they would save $22.26 per month on their sewer bill. This gives a payback time of approximately 18 months for the meter installation. As the sewer rate increases, the. payback time will decrease even more. However, there are at least two issues with this alternative. First, the customers who spoke with the Staff Engineer have stated that paying $54.26 per month is difficult or impossible for them. This would likely make paying $300-$500 to install a meter that much more difficult or impossible. In addition, even if their bill averaged 3,000 gallons per month after the meter was installed, this would still represent roughly a 400% increase per month when compared to the previous $10.16 bill. So, even though the payback time for meter installation is real and based on future savings, it is hard for the customer to think of it this way since their bill is still increasing either way. Second, OAWS policy does not allow for its meter readers to enter private property for the .purpose of reading meters. This would preclude them from reading well meters as the meter would most likely not be in the public right-of-way. Therefore, if the customer elected to install a meter on a water line, OAWS would not be able to read it for the County as they do for the rest of the Efland sewer customers. This means the County would have to enlist some other means of obtaining the meter information. This could be via a privately contracted individual, a County employee, or the customer self-reporting the meter reading to the OAWS office. Each of these options has its advantages and disadvantages, but in every case would represent either additional expense, liability, and/or staff time, thereby offsetting revenue brought in by the billing adjustment. In addition, discussion of these meter reading options presupposes that the customer has the initial financial ability to pay for the meter installation. Moving forward Because there are many facets to this problem and staff believes more research needs to be done to adequately address the issue, staff is proposing to temporarily set the monthly bill for sewer-only customers at 3,000 gallons per month, which would translate to $45.26 per month. Recent census data suggests that the average household size in the Efland area is 2.5 persons per household. Using an estimate of 40 gallons per person per month from the previously noted EPA study, this translates to roughly 3,000 gallons of water usage per month. This would alleviate the loophole that occurred when the rate structure was changed and also happens to coincide with the amount of water use per month for which sewer-only customers used to be billed. Staff proposes enacting this retroactively to the start of the fiscal year. In two months, staff will bring forward a proposal for a more flexible policy for sewer-only customers that can bill more accurately for the estimated usage than the current policy. FINANCIAL IMPACT: The loss of revenue due to lowering the monthly bill for sewer-only customers is approximately $22 per month per customer, or $110 per month total. RECOMMENDATION(S): The Manager recommends the Board approve this interim policy change until a more permanent solution can be studied and developed.