Agenda - 10-30-2002 - 1 (AOG) - Laserfiche WebLink

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12 Bill Strom: Has there been any unanticipated consequences on the financial side? Has that affected your ability to borrow money or bonding, anything like that? Ed Kerwin: Not at all. In fact, last fall we closed on a $35 million revenue bond and we enjoyed a very favorable AA+ rating. Barry had also asked about one of our fees. Our connection fee, something akin to a capacity charge or connecting charge, for a single-family home our fee is based on square footage. And for a smaller home, that can be quite large. What we did is we looked at homes built a certain year and then we looked at, "OK, they've been customers of ours now for two or three years. Is there a relationship between how much water people use and the size of the home?" And what we found is there is a fairly strong predictable relationship that smaller homes use less water than larger homes. So we designed a connection fee, or an availability fee where smaller homes pay less than larger homes. Now, fees aren't cheap, they are based on what it actually costs us. For instance, a home that is 1,300 square feet or less, the water connection fee is $700. If the home has 3,800 square feet, it takes $4,300 for that same connection. That's quite a spread. Chair Jacobs: And it's revenue neutral for you. Ed Kerwin: It is, it's based on cost of service. It wasn't subsidizing for a certain class of customers. It's worked out well, and again, we're happy to share what we did with anyone if that's of interest. Chair Jacobs: And just let me add that I particularly asked that question because we read about the concerns about trying to provide service to those who are least able to pay, this is a defensible way to help them hook on to the systems. And so we wanted to make sure that OWASA shared that information. Thank you. Robert Wilson: Barry, they didn't consider in any assessments other than just the cost of that water line. You don't have a right for assessments do you? Ed Kerwin: No, our board can assess. What I think I heard your policy is that the benefiting party pays the full cost. For instance, if there's an unsewered neighborhood that wants public sewer, we can assess them and make that improvement. Although the two towns do contribute, I think Chapel Hill, for instance, will contribute up to $4,500 in an assessment project to help defer the cost to encourage people to get off septic tanks and hook to the public system. The OWASA board is empowered to do the assessment. In fact, our most recent one was putting in five hydrants in the ??wood subdivision on 54 west. That's a very small project, and those folks have been assessed, and their savings in their homeowners insurance for having fire hydrants will pay the $25 assessment back in one year. Terry Roland: Do you have a fixed fee, availability fee or something that is right off the top before you charge for per gallon of water? Ed Kerwin: Yes, we have a monthly service fee and then the commodity charge. The monthly service fee for sewer and a commodity charge. There wasn't any change in the sewer side, nor was there a cap placed on sewer. It's just the commodity charge for water. Terry Roland: Is that fee variable depending on the size of the meter? Ed Kerwin: Yes. Chair Jacobs: Since we are running a little ahead of schedule, I thought we might ask Chatham County to take the opportunity to share its concerns and I'll recognize Commissioner Pollard. I know she has some staff members here. F. Chatham County—Commissioner Margaret Pollard Yes I do, and I'm sure Ron Singleton our Public Works Director will carry forth for us. But there are a couple of things, and I'm sure Commissioner Bob Atwater will have comments as well. I would like to mention just a couple of things that are policy issues that concern the board and I think we've made some progress toward and that is that right now we are in the middle of refining our land conservation and development plan, and there is a plan to tie our water policy and our land use policy in some reasonable way. The other thing, I think we really have paid close attention and will be paying even closer attention to the protection of the watershed. That's been on our agenda for a number of years, and there was discussion last year that this year we would have an Erosion Control Officer, because I think that really does determine to a large extent, erosion control determines to a large extent the water quality. But since the budget situation is such, I'm not sure that we'll be able to carry forth with this goal this year or not, but that's certainly in our plans. But I think one of the most important things that Chatham County has done to bring ourselves inline with meeting our water supply needs was the hiring of Ron Singleton who really has provided staff leadership