##VIDEO ID:aoF2itm9rgs## e e e e e e e e e I propose that we're going to talk about train going to get deluged all right we're going to go ahead and call the utility rate study Workshop to order we're going to start with a moment of Silent reflection for our First Responders and members of the Armed Forces which will be followed by the invocation by commissioner lore and the Pledge of Allegiance by the County Administrator if everybody please stand please join me in prayer our heavenly father we thank you for this opportunity to gather today to discuss the people's work and for this commission to guide and direct as commission to do father on this rainy day we think of the natural resources that you provided to us that makes this County so wonderful we thank you and we all the pra all the praise to you your honor we say this in your son's name amen amen amen please join me face flag Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all ah okay welcome welcome Sean I know this is you're going to you're going to take it away before before that though this is the first in a series of workshops public workshops yes or we will have other workshops that we intend to take out and go out to the public and and probably after hours a little bit more appropriate times for others to attend but this was more of an opportunity to share with you all um the results of the study okay fantastic um so thank you um commissioner Adams and Commissioners um it's great to be here today um it is very aopo that it happens to be raining so I will try to speak up so uh those in the public can hear so thank you for coming today we appreciate um there being some public here today U to to participate and again we will be going out and having some additional workshops um Beyond this um between now and when this is heard for approval um just wanted to take a minute to kind of introduce what we're going to be going through today uh we have just a couple quick introductions of participants um a little discussion of kind of why we are today here today and what what got us here today um presentation of the actual rate study results um a key key takeaways and then next steps and can you can go to the next slide if you would please oh sure I didn't even notice it sitting there um so just a minute to kind of introduce myself again Sean liskey I'm the utilities director um with me today is Brian bavers who's uh our utilities finance manager we also have our community manager here J Shara um with with us presenting today is going to be Andy Andrew um Burnham and did I say that Burnham Burnham um and he had a whole team of Consultants working with him um he's here today to present by himself but a couple of those who who did a lot of work Laura Arturo was really key to to helping with the the modeling of the of the the effort um and then unfortunately the the project manager who really kind of led us throughout the project Jeff dystra took a job actually almost towards the very end of the project he kind of got us through the majority of it um but then he ended up taking a position with the utility interestingly in Tennessee and so he is not joining us today but he did do a line share of the work um as well as many of the Consultants at stantech so what what got us here today is you know we we periodically have to take a look at our fees and rate structure to evaluate you know are we providing fair and equable rates for our utility customers um you know I it's it's something that's really critical to how we maintain our infrastructure how we continue to operate as an organization we'll get into this a little bit later but we operate as a as an Enterprise organization so we do not have funding from the general fund or from taxes we are strictly funded through our utilities rates and fees so it's important for us to take a look at those rates and fees and make sure they a are able to sustain us and keep operating at the level we need to be operating at as well as help us to fund capital projects and maintenance of our system um again that kind of assures again that Revenue sufficiency to maintain an opera you know operational reliability um it also looks into kind of future growth and the demands on that growth and again that kind of gets into capital projects and expanding the system um and what those demand projections look like um the just to kind of G lay the groundwork a little bit the last rates study that we had done an impact fee study was done in September of 20 2018 now interestingly at the time the commission did adopt some of the recommendations from that report however they did not fully Implement that report and so you know working with the the fin previous finance manager before Brian had started Cindy kinti we were looking at this going we really need to reevaluate our fees again looking at kind of where things were heading even prior to that we were seeing kind of a a trend where our fees were not covering our operational expenses and so we needed to really take a hard look at our our rates and fees so to kind of kind of lead into that what we did kind of recognizing that we we needed to really take a look at that we put a request into the budget for our 23 24 budget which we are currently in um or actually 24 25 budget and looked at I'm sorry it is 23 24 looked at putting that into our our budget to to look at our rates and our fees and so pretty soon after the initial um start of the fiscal year our fiscal year is October as you all know is just is October through September um we started looking and we put out an RFP for proposals on a rate study we got three proposals back um myself Brian and our capital projects manager Howard um Richards reviewed those proposals and the selected consultant was was stantech that came out of that that effort um so then we we started working with them to to negotiate the contract and we brought before the board in November of 2023 the award of bid to stantech to Pro to conduct the rate study um the rate study was kicked off so we had our first kickoff meeting with them on November 15th um and then we received our our initial first draft of the results of that on April 16th we' then engaged um I think we actually met with all of you individually to kind of present some of the initial findings of that um we engaged stantech then following some of those meetings to do some additional work with us associated with community outreach and engagement um on July 2nd we scheduled this Workshop as well as um requested the the hearing date for that which is going to be in September so September 24th will be the hearing to actually approve the rates um and then to here we are today August 22nd to to present to you um uniformly the results of of the study and with that I'm happy to introduce again Andy Burnham to give you all the results of the study and then I will kind of give a conclusion after he goes through that perfect thanks Sean and just just one maybe kind of point of clarification do you guys want to you keep this kind of more open and ask questions as we go or would you like us to kind of get through the presentation and ask questions at the end I prefer to ask as we go otherwise we'll forget by the end okay great it's a lengthy yeah so please as as as as Andy's presenting or as if you have any questions for me at the end certainly feel free to jump in and ask questions thank you absolutely thank you Sean uh good afternoon Commissioners U what I'd like to do now is really start stepping through the analysis and I know as Sean indicated we've had some conversations about this back in April but we wanted to have a bit more more elaborate conversation in this forum and allow you again to ask questions along the way and to go into some of the details so as as Sean mentioned the way that um your department of utility services is structured it's an Enterprise fund which means you cover all the operating expenses and capital costs of providing the water as well as Wastewater Services through rates fees and charges and it's all self-contained within that Enterprise fund so it's handled very much like a business where the the rates and fees and charges have to support those expenses um no more no less that's really what the intent of an ENT R fund is and so as you go through the operations of Utility Systems one of the things that I think is really important to note is that for water and sewer and particular they're very infrastructure intensive and from The public's perspective a lot of that infrastructure is underneath your feet you can't see it it's networks of miles of pipe underground for both Water and Wastewater as well as lift stations and then ultimately you know the treatment assets and these are hundreds of millions of dollars of assets of infrastructure that we have to invest in and also to maintain and so that's a very big driver as we look to financial management for all Utility Systems not just here or in Florida or across the country is that infrastructure and how that changes in response to updated information about its condition new regulatory requirements growth drivers it's a key component of these studies and we'll spend some time talking about that today uh but one of the things that I think is important is proactive financial management and Sean alluded to that as well to make sure that you're staying on top of things monitoring the adequacy of the revenue Vue from your rates fees and charges to cover those costs both operating and capital and make sure that you've got your risk factored in your future plans analyzed look at funding sources and have good policies for how you want to pay for your expenses and you have a lot of great things in place to build on today and we'll we'll unpack some of those things but fundamentally as we work through this process today we're really trying to answer three basically interconnected questions how much revenue is required to cover our current identified cost operating capital from whom should that be collected how should that be allocated in our rates between water and sewer services and third how do we want to collect it what's that composition of fixed monthly charges usage rates ancillary fees things for like installing meters capacity charges how do we capture those costs in various fees and rate structures and we're going to answer all those questions today but our fundamental objective is really to make sure that you're able to provide the highest level of service in the community at the lowest possible cost in the most sustainable manner that mitigates and measures a lot of your risk along the way so I think before we get into the current result just some history is I think important for for everyone to appreciate and so what we're showing here on this chart the yellow line represents the change in the typical bill for a a customer here in IND River County um from 1999 or 200000 all the way to 2024 that's the yellow line at the bottom and over that entire 25e time period the rates have increased only 12% the Blue Line represents the actual national average change in water and sewer rates across the country during that same time period And so starting in 1999 to 2000 all the way to 2024 the national average increase in rates as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics with this Consumer Price Index has been about 210% and if you look at this chart a little bit more in depth you can see that there was about a 20-year time period from 1999 to 2019 where Indian River County was able to meet its needs without having rate adjustments um but in the last few years there have been small rate adjustments that had started to occur uh again to allow the utility to keep up with inflation to the extent they could as well as factoring Capital cost increases uh but what we're starting from is obviously a position where we've had very good stewardship of customer resources providing a good level of service during that time but in the last few years we've seen a lot of things change underneath our feet and I want to talk a little bit about that as well um may ask a question yes please do you know during that period of time at what intervals uh the rates were reviewed so I know that the uh last official rate study uh Sean mentioned was done in 2018 um and there was also the same point in time a review of the impact fees and then I think prior to that there was a study around 2,000 that was done independently so the rate study process was done you know fairly sporadically during that time period however annually you know just like all the other County departments there are reviews of the budgets in terms of capital Improvement plans and operating budgets and so invariably there'd be conversations about you know the level of rates at those times as well so are we saying then from 2000 to to 2018 there was no true review not an outside independent rate study that's true all right thank you sir we did have an internal rate study that was done in earlier part of 2000 and we had a study done somewhere around 2009 as well yeah but they they were internal they were nothing internal scope or capacity in which you have performed exactly yep and that's common and you know some communities will do that internally on an annual basis as part of the budget process and to your point as well the level of depth of those studies you know they may be higher level or smaller scale Scopes um but the scale of the study we're talking about today those were the last times that these types of studies were done in depth so that's a great clarification and what I have one other question so did this problem um happen overnight so to speak I mean within the last year or two or is this something that's been building over time I think it's um actually for many communities it's consistent with what we're seeing um that what we're seeing here is consistent with those communities is that things really changed underneath our feet as a result of the pandemic in terms of cost of construction and cost of key um operations and maintenance components for instance here just from 2020 to 2023 we saw our chemicals and electricity expenses increase 43% during that time period we've seen the cost of capital projects not just for your system but others more than double during that time period so it's really been very acute since Co and the pandemic in terms of a lot of the supply chain issues then labor shortages compounding and material cost increases so we've seen a lot of pressure build up in the last couple of years as opposed to during this entire time period thank you so this chart I'll be happy to to come back to and there'll be points I think we'll touch on along the conversation that'll build from these questions as well about some of the context and why we're here and some of the things that we're seeing that build on these questions but one of the other things is that we like to do is not just look nationally to give some context but just kind of locally and so we do some just rate comparisons where we take the typical bill for your community at 4,000 gallons for a residential household it's a typical usage here and say if we were to to take that service and calculate a bill in all these other communities based on their rates what would the bill be so we can compare what is our typical bill against those of other communities and so for Water and Sewer Service you know you can see here on this chart a list of many communities in the area their combined bill for Water and Sewer Service and the range for other agencies goes from about $68 all the way up to about $115 in Barefoot Bay where we sit today actually is our bill is $506 so we have one of the lowest combined Water and Sewer bills in the region and just I did mention this before but we work with over about 12530 communities in Florida this is a very very um favorable Bill comparison so for 4,000 gallons we typically see the cost be much higher than $50 um but so again we're starting from a point of comparison locally where we have some of the lowest utility rates in the area so one of the things that we look at first when we start the evaluation of the rate studies is that first question how much revenue is required to cover our needs and so we go through a process of understanding operating expenses historical spending Trends on those expenses current budgets as as well as forecast spending assumptions against those budgets and apply inflation and as I mentioned we saw some notable increases in chemicals and electricity during the last fouryear period they went at 43% on actual dollar terms and so we've not necessarily assumed that level of inflation going forward I think we're all starting to see and hear some news presses that there's some relief on inflation so we've taken it down to more historical levels we're not assuming same rates of inflation that what we've seen in the last three years is part of our forecast period but what we are seeing though is that these prices are staying we're not seeing reductions back to historical levels for chemical costs or electricities we're just seeing a slower rate of increase at this point than what we saw over the past four years but what we ultimately do is looking at those expenses we have line item specific factors based upon that analysis and the composite result is about a 4% year-over-year increase in operating expenses because of those inflationary drivers a cost are our category of of line items the other important part that we've included the analysis are capital Improvement so over that four or five year time period from 24 to 25 we've got about $150 million of capital spending in the forecast so it's about $25 million a year when you break that down and as we did this forecast we're really focused on the near-term but we take our models and we actually extend them out over a 10year time period so that we can try to factor in some bigger long-term expenditure requirements and have an understanding of their impact today even though we may not necessarily Factor them into our rates today and so we did start to identify and look scenarios of potential capacity expansions to serve growth in terms of additional treatment capacity for both the water system as well as the Wastewater system and we modeled those out starting in 2020 2032 um as part of our modeling and you'll see you know that in the forecast that I'll show you here in a moment and one of the other important parts is just making sure from a financial sustainability standpoint that we keep good levels of reserves on hand to account for contingencies natural disasters rate stabilization unplanned emergency to maybe provide Advanced funding in advance of grant reimbursements for capital projects so the rating agencies as well as industry associations like the American Waterworks Association provide guidance on reserve levels for Utility Systems so we factored in nine months which is consistent with your policies that you have in place today uh we've just elevated that slightly based on that industry guidance but one of the key points as well is not just making sure we have adequate reserves but how do we pay for Capital Improvements going forward and so we don't have any outstanding debt for the utility as we sit here today and so what we wanted to do is make sure for Renewal and replacement type Capital recurring annual Capital needs that we're not putting that on the credit card that we're paying for that with annual cash resources on the system and preserving the use and issuance of debt for large capacity expansions in the future that may serve multiple generations of rate payers so again we've tried to be very principled in terms of setting this up to be sustainable um going forward so that you can cover what needs to be covered for your existing system and thoughtfully expand the system you know and have those costs be spread over the future rate payers as appropriate so in terms of the analysis itself when we we start these analyses we like to do a diagnostic view to say if we just took your current rates and the revenues that they provide today how will that perform in meeting these current costs that we have both operating expenses as well as capital and so we play that forward we make assumptions for growth both on revenues for the system as we expand it and new customers come in but then also for inflation on the expense side and so what this chart shows you is that the bar on the left- hand side shows our operating cash flow that's basically our revenues from the Enterprise fund less our operating expenses and so it shows our net cash flow in 2024 is about five to $6 million but then in 25 it goes down to about 1 million and then it actually turns negative in 2026 and such by 20129 it's about2 to three million dollar negative on a cash flow basis and then we put next to it what do we need each year to cash fund those renewal and replacement pieces of our Capital Improvement program so in an ideal world you would see that bar on the left the cash flow at least be equal to cover those cash needs for the capital expenses but unfortunately we're not at that point so we can see that in 2024 that cash needs for capital is about almost $20 million a little less than that which is significantly greater than our operating cash flow which means we're going to then draw down our reserves from our bank account to pay for those Capital costs is what that means and that's what the dotted line represents is your level of Reserves at the end of each year and so if we don't make any changes to rates and we fund the capital needs that we have and operating costs we could do that until about 2027 and you can see that dotted line gets to basically zero in 2027 which means at that point we'll have depleted all of our reserves all of our savings that we have and then in 2028 we just would not have enough resources from revenues or in a bank account to cover our needs and we would basically go negative it's really a non-sustainable condition so we'd be about $10 million negative at the end of 28 and that would grow to about3 million in 29 and so this really shows that we have kind of a a structurally imbalanced budget based on the cost of what we have for operations today and the capital needs of the system the current rates just aren't going to be sufficient to support that going forward and so we also then took a look at not only just the revenue generation adequacy of our rates today but just how should our cost be allocated this gets to the second question of it from whom and so we worked with staff to go through all the line items of the budget to understand how they should be allocated for providing water versus sewer service and through that process we did identify that there's a little bit of a gap where the water revenues are a bit higher than the cost of service and the sewer revenues um are actually a little bit lower than the cost of service and so part of that um the results of this is informative to us in terms of how we distribute any rate increases between water versus Sewer Service the you have about 57,000 water accounts if memory serves me correctly but only about maybe 35,000 on the sewer system so having these things in alignment is important because not all customers have both services and so um what this uh plan uh depicts for you here this slide is really it's a screen capture of our financial model and we went through several iterations of testing assumptions and sensitivity tests and scenarios with staff and we always came back to this kind of control panel or dashboard to review the results and so I'm not necessarily going to go through everything in in specific form for you but I just want to give you a sense of orientation and some context so when we look at the top rows that show the rate plan for water as well as for sewer that's the level of annual increases identified for the system for this particular plan and you can see in 25 and 26 we have higher increases uh for water and for sewer service and then it drops down to 5% per year as an indexing adjustment in 27 and then you can see in 2032 we have higher increases at that point point in this forecast largely associated with those placeholder assumptions for future capacity expansions and so that's what's driving those increases in the future years um what you can see for the um the next section down where it says total single family bill is just what's the resulting bill from the application of those increases for that typical 4,000 gallon residential user so that you're able to see what that rate plan translates into in terms of dollars and cents uh but the charts at the bottom are really what's what's important here because this is about managing the overall Financial health of the Enterprise fund and so if you look at the top left chart that shows our end ofe balances in our basically our checking and savings account combined and that black line represents that Target of wanting to have nine months of operations and maintenance expenses in reserve each year as kind of a minimum Target and you can see that in 25 and 26 we don't quite achieve that even with this rate plan but we start to achieve it potentially in 27 and Beyond and then in 2032 we draw any surpluses down to pay for those future capacity expans EXP iions in part at that time period but that's a very critical chart for us to look at because that's really measuring how much liquidity we have in our ability to really withstand some of those potential um challenges and risks that I mentioned earlier as they come up and what generates those Reserve balances on that leth hand chart is the top Center chart that shows your Revenue versus expenses and so this is basically showing in the black line the the the revenues that we're receiving versus the orange line is the total expenses the total checks that we're having to write out and what's important to note is in 24 as I mentioned that orange line we're writing more checks in 24 than we're collecting in terms of Revenue and that's why we're using that fund balance down on that operating chart and you can only do that for a certain period of time because those reserves are non-recurring resources so once you use your savings account down it's it's gone it's not there the next year and so that's why when we developed this plan we looked at a way as much as we could to try to spread out and levelize those increases without taking our checking account too low so to speak but we have to get to a point where our revenues and expenses are matching to be sustainable going forward and so we tried to to do that as best we could in the context of the plan um the capital spending that you see is is really the bottom row of this chart that shows the total Capital by year on the left how it's paid for in the bottom center chart the CIP funding chart and then the bottom right shows borrowing and as I mentioned we're really not showing any borrowing for our Baseline Capital Improvement program and we're really preserving that potential borrowing for potential future plan expansions that may be needed in the future as they're anticipated to be rather significant expenses that will last you know for a long period of time that would be very suitable for debt financing and so kind of summarizing this up you know what where we stand right now that was a 10-year forecast that we were looking at but really the the approach that we're recommending you take now is a two-year plan of rate increases only um so the customer bill impacts for those as I mentioned it would be for a typical user a little less than $10 on that bill for the first year and then about $7 just a little over that for the second year and the reason being is that there is going to be a master plan um conducted that will help further identify the capital needs thinking about for instance those future expansions that'll help tell us when those future expanses will expansions will likely be necessary and give us some better estimates of cost for those as well as updated information about our existing system and where we may need to prioritize Investments over the next couple of years so as opposed to adopting a you know anything beyond that 2-year plan now we think it'd be prudent to wait get the master plan finding you know and then incorporate those um for future adjustments beyond the next two years um but conceptually again we're looking at a scenario of trying to keep the system on a pay as you go basis for that recurring Capital needs um that you've been on for the past several um years as part of this financial plan and that again will give you that borrowing capacity for any future substantial expansions or substantial rehabilitations that come up in the future so as I mentioned you know we did the comparison of where we sit today for a bill comparison for a typical user and so we just overlaid the 2-year plan um against everyone else's current rates and so the the two additional yellow lines that were added at the bottom were what the bill would be for that typical user in 25 with the first increase and then in fiscal year 26 with the second increase applied and so even if the utilities on this list don't change their rates at all over the next two years which is very unlikely we would still have the lowest rates in the area even after the implementation of this 2-year rate plan however it's again very fair to expect that these other agencies seeing similar pressures from inflation increasing regulatory requirements aging infrastructure they're very likely going to have increases as well a couple of them we know have approved increases already um established for next year Coco is looking at 2% and then 4% a year after that pal Bay has an annual indexing plan that they apply so there's a number of examples of other utilities that have increases for again many similar reasons is what we're talking about today for your system and then we also broke this comparison down as I mentioned just because not necessarily all customers in the area have both Services there still are some water only customers to just show the water bill um so out of that total combined bill this chart here just shows the water bill um excluding sewer and you can see where we go today from our our bill of just under $20 to at the end of the second year it would be about $25 still one of the lowest in in the area and I think context is also a very important part of the conversation we think about the value of water so this is um actually a national conversation that's ongoing about you know trying to help people appreciate all customers of the system just the value that's really provided from Municipal Water Services like what you provide and so we've tried to find ways to do that and have conversations about it and so one of the ways that we've gone about is to say well let's take a a swimming pool 10,000 gallon swimming pool and let's see what it would cost to fill that and so if if you were to fill your swimming pool with um potable water and pay for that with your rates so this would be your third tier top tier rate no sewer charges it cost about $50 $51 to fill the swimming pool but if you were to use um bottle water from the grocery store um and we actually when we did this survey we got current prices for for both all these items but we can go through those but if you grabbed a a pack of bottled water and did the math on how many ounces you need to fill a 10,000-gallon swimming tool it's about 1.3 million ounces um it would cost you about $10,000 based upon the current cost of purchasing basically a 32 pack of bottle water if you were to say use Coke or Pepsi a 2 lit bottle uh the number of 2 lit bottles based on the current price it would cost about $24,000 to fill a swimming pool um based on the cost of a gallon of milk we took the Statewide average for this at a little over $3 that would be basically $30,000 and again this is comparing to what it costs to actually fill with your water which is $50 and we took this all the way through from products like gasoline to buying actually bottled beer to taking Starbucks coffee and what you pay for basically a midsize coffee at $345 and that would cost $320,000 we even did tops soil to say look if you wanted to just fill your pool with top soil um that would be $2,200 with average price of a bag of top soil from Home Depot so if you if you stop and think about it I mean the cost of goods and services that we pay the value of what we receive for from Indian River County at $280 for 1,000 gallons of water is just pretty phenomenal in the cost of what we compare it to of things that we really purchase in our day-to-day life and even if you don't think about it on the scale of a swimming pool but just think about it in terms of a grocery store trip or going around the community you get a th000 gallons of water for what is proposed for next year at $280 th000 gallons of water but yet at the grocery store a gallon of milk is about $386 so you get one gallon of milk for what you get from the county you get 1,000 gallons of a loaf of bread at 275 a slice of pizza at 350 a box of cereal at 3 and a quar a cup of coffee at 375 I mean these are just things that we are just using one of yet we get a th gallons of water at $280 so I even know I personally sometimes struggle to communicate the value of it but maybe some of this helps resonate with you to just understand the context of what we're providing in terms of the value and the impact it has to to households and and lives in the context of what else we're we're buying today so I do have a few other points that we did as part of the study is as was mentioned this is pretty in depth so we covered not just monthly Water and Sewer rates we covered all the rates and fees that you have and conversations about some of these other charges are pretty important because for things like fire protection or bulk service or septic tank disposal we need to have rates that cover the cost of providing those specific Services because if we don't then that means any shortfall has to then come into the monthly Water and Sewer rates and so we've updated all of these fees even done benchmarking on some of them as well to make sure that your updated costs are consistent with what we see throughout the state so for fire protection you know there's not too many of those customers that have these dedicated lines for fire protection but we've updated those fees based upon industry accepted practices and your current cost to make sure that again we're charging a fair amount for the cost of providing that standby service for fire protection we've updated your bulk Service rates for um sewer as well as for um reclaim water and established a bulk rate for water um in the event that that's needed going forward and then we've also updated as I mentioned the septic um septic tank and sludge disposal rate um that is a very high highly concentrated um volume of Wastewater that we're receiving that is expensive to treat and so we've updated the cost based upon your current cost of treatment and Facilities needed to perform that service we've also looked at other things like deposits and just looked at the actual time period that you would go between issuing a bill notifying a customer and then potentially shutting them off in terms of what's that exposure of Revenue that you have to really inform setting these deposits based on your current rates but your current deposits today for a water and sewer connection would be $100 based upon your updated rates it'd be $125 so a small change on deposits but I do want to recognize that these are returned to customers um um in 24 months or 60 months depending upon if you're an owner or renter with good payment history uh but these are really for utilities to help mitigate against some of those risks of you know non-payment for services that that are provided and then we do have some other miscellaneous fees for things like meter installation service calls Etc and again these are really intended to capture the cost of Performing these services for the specific customers that request them um and these are really just pulling out your calculator and adding up what's the cost of the labor the materials the equipment that's used to perform the service um so it just takes time to really understand what those are but we work through that with staff and so there's approximately 35 fees there's a number that haven't been updated in some time um it's interesting going through the process some fees you would you would think given the passage of time you'd expect all of these to go up not necessarily the case like the new account fee when we updated it based upon the way you're providing the service today that actually comes down a little bit from 2841 to $25 uh each year you've got about 7,751 of those that you do in terms of setting up a new account um service calls went up slightly uh the meter installation is a big one if you look at just the cost of the meter itself and the box and the apperances that's about 300 $50 so your current fee that you have today is just not even covering the cost of the materials that you're actually buying for putting in a meter and so it's just a good example of what we're trying to do here is to really align these fees with your current costs and A lot's changed since they've been updated in terms of the cost and the the last item that I wanted to touch on was the uh the impact fees um these go by many different names throughout Florida and the country but these are really the uh upfront capacity U charges that that you apply to new development or Redevelopment to cover their cost of capacity and you use these uh the revenue from these fees to really cover those capacity cost for existing capacity that you've built that's being used to serve growth or for additional capacity that you're having to build to serve growth in the future um and so the approach we took here was based on your existing assets um what's important about impact fees even though these have been studied in in 2018 uh the last time they were actually modified goes back to 1999 so you've looked at them but action has not been taken on these fees in in a number of years so as we went through the the study you know we did Identify some adjustments that are recommended for the sewer system it's actually a slight reduction based upon your current cost your level of service uh which is different than what it was in 1999 when you really go through the industry accepted process and do the math on that the sewer fee should come down just slightly from about $2,800 to a little over $2,600 for typical connection but the Water fee um does need to increase uh based upon your current cost of capacity and so we've identified a plan a phasing plan of an increase to the Water fee that's consistent with Florida legislation that governs overall impact fees um it may not necessarily have to apply to Water and Sewer fees but we've taken the interpretation of being conservative and being customer Centric and phasing this fee in would be an approach we'd recommend to you for consideration and so the phase in plan would move it up to basically 1950 which is very close to the full calculated cost that we'd identified in the study but do that over a 4-year time period with equal annual increases and we did also do benchmarking on the impact fees looking again at the same local communities to show you just where you compare for a typical residential connection the blue represents the water uh impact fee and the green represents the sewer impact fee and this just shows again your comparison where you sit today and then where you would sit with your updated fees um based upon the study for fiscal 25 as is being recommended so you'd really stay in effectively the same position again not necessarily sure about what others may be doing with their capacity fees going forward so this is again a snapshot of where we sit today so I know there was a lot in there and I'll be happy to to go back to anything that you have specific questions on but I think that's the intent of the study is to be comprehensive to really dive into all these details to make sure that we have a solid understanding in foundation for setting a sustainable course going forward so we do have um conclusions that are unfortunately that your rates are just not going to be sufficient to meet your current ident ified operating cost and your planned Capital needs going forward and based on that we are recommending a two-year plan of adjustments in 25 and 26 only um but that notwithstanding your bills still are expected to be the lowest in the region even after those adjustments uh we would recommend you update a lot of the miscellaneous fees that I mentioned the deposits as well as the capacity fees and phase in the water increase U but you could do the decrease on sewer immediately just to right siize all of those fees with your current costs um and then we did would recommend that you perform annual Financial reviews as was kind of mentioned as you get information about the master plan as you see impacts of any changes in operating cost emerging regulatory requirements just to be able to monitor this plan and to make adjustments up or down depending upon the way that conditions play out so that's just an important part of the process because you do your best to forecast and sometimes things turn out better sometimes things come up that weren't planned upon that maybe regulatory requirements change and you have to address so just being proactive in that financial management is going to be important to really make sure you stay on top of things and are able to to make decisions do minor course Corrections uh the longer you wait sometimes the bigger those corrections may have to be and so with that I'd like to turn it over to Sean just to talk a little bit about kind of next steps in this conversation because this is certainly that not the last time we're going to be talking about the utility rates great thanks Andy um Andy really did a great job of summarizing kind of where we are but just to kind of summarize it kind of key utility takeaways for us what are the key things for us you know Andy really did a good job of mentioning this too is really reversing the trend of utility reserves of that declining utility reserves right we continue to to dip into our cash reserves um and that's not a sustainable approach to to balancing our budget so we really need to reverse that and that's probably one of the key takeaways from all this um he mentioned this as well address that long-term impact of inflation you know he mentioned the continued increase that we see of chemical costs of construction costs alone we keep seeing construction cost go up and up and even though he did mention it's kind of maybe not continued on the on the on the trajectory it was headed it's kind of leveled off a little bit it still is going up and so we have to be able to address that as we as we look to Capital needs in the future um really providing you know what they did is provide that comprehensive rate evaluation and update um and that comprehensive look at our rates and our fees I think is really key to looking at what we need to do to make sure that we are addressing our long-term sustainability as an organization um we can't continue to function and operate if we continue have declining reserves and that's that's a key point for us um you know we did commit as part of this we did agree and and part of our contract with stantech was to do annual updates um with this so we do intend to evaluate our rates and fees they are on retainer for two years to periodically look at our our rates and fees on an annual basis going forward um we are today asking for um those rates to be evaluated and approved not today shouldn't say that today but what we will be asking at the September 24th meeting is for you to all to approve a two-year rate increase um and that will go into effect January 1 of 2024 and then the next rate increase would be effective October 1 of 2024 or 20 sorry 25 um so January 25 and October of 25 um and then we would be still evaluating those on an annual basis to see kind of what we need on a continual basis um part of that is is is incorporating this long-term master plan and I know you all are aware we're right now in negotiations with um consulting firm to finalize the scope and fee associated with our integrated water master plan and once we get through that as as Andy mentioned that's going to be key for us to actually re-evaluate these rates and make sure that what we're putting into that master plan is actually something that we can can also fund and so looking at that trying to evaluate when we may need new new capacity that means new plants um where and how we expand our infrastructure including our our our distribution system and our collection system a lot of that is is expanded by um development but we may need other areas where we have to expand and replace so we have we know we have asset management needs we have replacement needs within the system and so looking at all that you know we have septic to sewer as well so looking at all those efforts on all those projects and figuring out how we build rates and fees to help us sustain and continue to to manage the system like we should so those are the real key takeaways for us the next steps um as I mentioned the September 24th uh meeting will be where we hear this um at a public hearing and hopefully adopt um we will be asking for those fees and rates to be adopted um at September 10th we will be um actually not necessarily requesting but announcing the public hearing for um o uh for September 24th in the meantime I did mention that we will be having a series of of work groups or workshops out in the out to the public uh we do fully intend to have at least a couple if not more um and we do intend to reach out to some of the more significant users uh such as the school board um to really maybe perhaps personally meet with them to kind of Express to them you know what these fees and rates and how they may impact them specifically so with that I think we would be happy to answer any questions in the meantime too we did uh create a website specifically to allow the public to view um any information we will have a Q&A up there we're going to actually have the rate study itself um up and that is up and ready to go I do believe um so it is up today if anybody wants to go check out the results of the rate study that rate study um I think we did have some corrections today so we did provide you all an updated copy of that um but that is up on the website and is ready to go for viewing by the public and anybody who wishes to to take a deep dive into the document and and look at what stanch put together it's it's up on the website um as we embark on those workshops that information will be up um and the times and dates and locations of those will be available on that website again that's IRC utility rates.com with that we'd be happy to to answer any questions Commissioners do you have questions commissioner M I was just um I was just curious I'm looking at the um fire protection charges so the existing is $17.23 and the proposed is almost double or is actually is double $36 and 57 cents I was just wondering how many customers that we have and this is just out of curiosity how many customers does that affect and and what kind of customers are we talking about with that it's about 254 was the customer count that we have from the billing system and typically these would be um commercial customers and possibly multif family complexes that have dedicated fire lines that serve their on-site like sprinkler systems that they have so it's going to be multif family mostly commercial um is typically the ones that have the dedicated lines that's for those sprinkler system these These are businesses then what size businesses would this is this going to affect small business or we talking about larger businesses bu it's it could affect all businesses I think the reality of it is is is what's the building code require and if they require a dedicated line for for fire protection I.E sprinkler systems I mean it's the sprinkler heads that you see in the ceiling that drop down if they are required to have that they're required to have a dedicated line to that and that's who this would would impact so B basically it they have two water lines running to the building because one is reserved specifically for the fire suppression system you can't use your regular water line because you have to have the pressure and everything so any any building that would would require that yeah no I was just thinking it's a large increase uh for small businesses so thank you and hopefully they don't have to use the water if the spr system is activated it would be very pricey but if it is activated you have bigger problems than the water bill exactly Adam shair yes I'm sorry yes commissioner Laur Sean and Andy thank you and and for the public that each know that each commissioner was individually briefed on this about six months ago uh it's obvious that um we're behind the eightball when it comes to this um so I think the uh the flavor certainly is is you know to close that Gap uh we can argue and debate on how we got here uh but that's for another day additionally I think Commissioners some of our other divisions towards the end of fiscal year have had some balanced dollars that have gone to utilities I can think of ship as one uh and that is simply to shore up Utilities in some way shape or form so when we think about that just robust could our other uh divisions be having not having to shore up utilities so thank you for the presentation how does this affect our these rates are they accounting for the the potential growth that we know that's on the books and stuff right now to that is that figure like it's going to happen in the next the new subdivisions or developments or commercial buildings that are going to come online the next 18 months or so we did yeah that was one of the assumptions that's embedded in the forecast is we worked with staff to look at historical growth in accounts and then have some conversations about the planning in the Departments and so we have on the water side about um 1,250 new equivalent residential units each year and then on the sewer side it's um actually 1,350 assuming that we continue to pick up a few more septic to sewer over time but it's about a little over 2% growth rate on sewer and almost 2% growth rate on water is factored in so that's kind of organically generating more revenue for us as part of this forecast and it has been factored in my next question is and you you just mentioned it Sean mentioned it about the sector to se stuff I mean we're already doing some projects we're obtaining some of that funding through grants and stuff like that the state obviously hasn't come in and said you know we're going to give you this much amount of money to offset the cost to do that is that we kind of looking at that too or that that's has that been factored in yet or so we've we factored it in for the specific projects like Sebastian for instance so there's a substantial amount of grant funding for that septic to sewer program and I think as we go forward each year and have updates and identify the next areas or areas and again look at grant funding opportunities that's part of the update process that they'll be factored in more specifically but that's the biggest one that comes to mind for me Sean is is that one in particular yeah and I think one of the thing we we certainly have to look at is we understand there's grants and the grants are available but you know as we see those grants aren't aren't full cost recovery so there are are at times other costs that need to be be expended by the utility and so that's certainly factored in now if there are if there's an assessment or or something like that you know there's there's other funding mechanisms but we we would have to account for what those grants don't cover and that is that is accounted for in in the modeling okay next thing I know the impact fees are obviously separate get the meter hook up might be somebody that has an existing house who never hooked to County water now they want to to $500 meter charge that that was a pretty good substantial jump in that is justify that to me yeah the um the big part on the meter installation is really the cost of materials so we've seen the cost of meters what used to be maybe1 $150 for meter it's now $300 to $400 for meter in assembly it's just the cost of materials has changed substantially and this goes back to one of the prior conversations about just when of some of these changes happened pretty recently the meter costs have been really over the last few years kind of along the lines of the pandemic conversation so that's a real big driver the labor cost have you know are are what they are and they're pretty modest they're a small portion of it the bigger part is just the material cost and then the overhead on that the procurement the purchasing the warehousing it's the materials are the Big Driver on those meter installation fees I sure they do but in a way that almost sounds like they're charging me for use of the cash register to check out of the grocery store because the meter what the meter is what makes my bill every month that's how it's adopted en counted for and actually in other words we're losing money every time we install a new mod we are the other thing we are we are we're Los we're losing money on that end the other thing we need to remember for the public and others is that we've got over 900 miles of of U water lines throughout this County and some of those are younger than older but that's going to tell you there's going to be repairs in the future for sure 900 miles if you think about that and and and your second part of that I think was about Capac capacity charge right and and the increase in those capacity charges and you know or impact fees we impact fees is what we call them but those impact fees are really capacity so buying into existing capacity so we look at the value of of our treatment systems we're just in the process of we just went through a major overhaul of our South Water Treatment Facility Oslo um so that certainly factors into the to the cost of buying into that capacity as you rehabilitate things and you spend additional money that factors into you know what's that capacity and what does that charge need to be to buy into that capacity and so that's the that's all the factors that they put in to evaluate what's that number need to be and so as people buy into the system they're buying into that to that capacity existing capacity right and I get and I just wanted to hear for the public used to hear that the cost of a meter is not cheap anymore yeah and you know the ability to do like commiss L said we probably lose of money at the first isal hook up on that um I think that's all I've got right now I guess I mean we could talk about future capacities of pension we basically did when I ask you about the further development but I mean no telling where we're going to be in 20130 2032 with with where we're going to be if if Fels May does what they want to do uh some of these other developments that that are that are on board to come to come online eventually that that we've been to that all came into play in this right I mean that all came it was certainly an estimate I mean when you look out to 2030 2032 that's that's a long range plan and we we certainly expect and anticipate that as growth continues to occur within the county we're going to need additional capacity whether it's on the Wastewater or water side or perhaps both so we we're looking at and we kind of built that into the model but that's built into the model in the Years 2030 2032 as we Embark in this master planning effort too that's going to be part of also what we're looking at is where do we reach that break point where within as if if we're continuing to grow at a certain level within the county where do we reach a break point where we really have to start looking at that and is that an accurate number or is it pushed out further or you know do things change so in the next two years do things slow down and and the you know we level off or things speed up and and growth continues to you know get even more more I I don't know the answer to that and so a lot of that modeling is based off of these assumptions that we put into it and so we put in some assumptions based off of current current thought process but as we get into that that that Master planning effort we're going to did dive deeper into that we're going to look deeper into that try to do a better job of trying to assert when we are going to assume when we're going to need those those major infrastructure changes and then we would eventually build that into the model um and again both of these things need to be kind of flexible and and adjustable based off of current trends Trends change we all know that right I mean we saw things after the P pandemic where you know people were moving to Florida like you know it was like the next everybody wanted to move here um and then things have slowed down a little bit and so you've seen a trend where that that trend has kind of dipped a little bit but who's to say whether or not that doesn't you know ramp back up in two to three years again so we have to be able to be flexible and adjust in all of that depending upon those those assumptions that we make within within the modeling I like to still like the fact that we're still competitive in prices with with with with pretty much everybody in the in the area or even in the State of Florida from what I picked up so so that's a plus you know you could argue well why didn't we raise our rates years ago gradually more often but that's here and there now we're at a point in time where we're at now the fact that we're still competitive even with these rate increases is is very important sure some things went up like the meter and the fire protection a few others maybe a little more but overall the fact that the that we're an Enterprise fund it's run like a business it's run like a corporation you make you know you make your money to cover your expenses and not pass on the taxpayer too much I think it's a plus I think it was a good good good presentation I think it was understandable to anybody was in here anybody that's watching and and then so far I I I like what I see thank you well it has been said uh in looking at the the initial slide in comparison with rates with even Barefoot Bay uh we are the lowest and uh that resistance to uh increase uh has caught up has caught up and no matter what we do with the rates we will not be able to cover the infrastructure embarcation that we'll have to do uh so this is maintenance for the Enterprise fund to we have to look at availability for use as well but in essence what we're confronted with with water and sewer in the next few years we're going to have to look seriously at the impact fees more importantly than the availability for use I think that's all said I think it's you know right now we're trying to get caught up and have right sizing to cover those recurring needs and then that's a great comment that duve tailes off of what Sean was saying about when we have better definition about those expansions what they are when they may occur in the dollar amounts I think that's going to be the opportune time to then when you have more certainty there come back to that capacity fee conversation to make sure that you can start accounting for that as as soon as possible any unknown fact that with grants that you know we hopefully could to be Grant Reliant but we don't know we don't know what's available out there yet this is just again recovery not going to enhance our entire system I I have a question um about the process moving forward so if you're going to look at these rates on a yearly basis are you expecting to bring us adjustments on a yearly basis or what's the plan there are is there a threshold um that will trigger a suggested adjustment or how are we going to prevent going for 20 years without an act a good increase well what you saw in the in the presentation was again some assumptions based off of those those growth factors and a variety of different things and so if once we get through these first two years the idea would be there would be a static level um of rate increase over the next several years that's what we would have to evaluate kind of going forward is is what are the current trends and do those Trends still justify that rate does it justify a higher rate or a lower rate and that's what we would have to evaluate on on an annual basis is really looking at those trends re-evaluating that making sure those assumptions that we made are current or accurate based off of today's that that Year's situation yeah and is that is that rate sufficient going forward and again it may go up or it may go down I mean I'd love to say that it would go down um but I you know that just is really dependent upon but they did build a steady kind of rate increase if you saw in there from from after 2025 that there would be a steady rate increase um but again that that may happen that's why we would have them on board every year is to re-evaluate that and make sure that that rate makes sense going forward so Madam chair I would just add add to that I know next year they'll evaluate to validate the rate but after the integrated master plan they'll need to do a full-blown new rate study because what drives the rate is the capital program so they're projecting 25 million but I think we're going to find one when they do the integrated utilities master plan when you take into consider the septic to sewer let alone the water that may drive it up even more so I just want to so you be aware of that in two years it's going to be done and then the the more Fuller picture because we don't have that plan just want to I do have a question for that morning yeah go ahead so in the uh performa and the capital Project funding summary you identify $43 million of Grant external sources have we identified what those grants are kind of suspect to or kind of not suspect but kind of like without knowing what those Grant sources are how do we know that $43 million because otherwise that would affect the rates we have a list of the we we do have a list um and so it's for some specific projects so one being um Sebastian septic to sewer we put in grant funding there but some of the immediate ones are grants for um you know the Oslo water treatment plan improvements I think that 2.7 million is secured that's been used that's been used actually and then a couple of the other septic to sewer projects are included in there so um West will also and then we do have an assumption for I'd say the one that's probably the biggest assumption um Can administrator would be future septic to sewer systems we'd put in a 75% Grant assumption for those that's the one that's not really tied per se to specific project or received grants or specific possible that we can include in the report the final report the actual list of Grant sources so we can take stay on top of those sure we we can note we've already noted the grant um projects in the fun I'm talking about the grant funding sources the funding sources yeah we would work we can work with staff to get those documented and then the other question I have and I know and this might be more of Sean I know and it's discussed the impact fee component but the level of service at the 250 gallons per day know that's something that we evaluating because that would obviously if it comes more in line I think with the 180 that might be more industry standard it'll give us more capacity in our plants but so there's that and then you mentioned the septic the sewer the comp adding 100 units we have like 12,000 just in Sebastian alone so I think we just need to be aware when that integrated Master utility planning whether it be prioritizing and understanding that impact because we have a 2030 deadline and this shows that we're not going to be expending $37 million of impact fees for sanitary or for sewer until 234 that's four years after the deadline so so keep in mind that when we built that the Assumption was that we would be adding about a 100 additional so when he when when Andy mentioned that we based the the the water off of about a, or 1100 new accounts we added about you know another 100 to that of sewer and that was to account for adding about a 100 additional sewer counts to septic to sewer each year I don't know that we could do more than that I mean we potentially could but that was the assumption that we put in that each year we would be adding you know 100 so by the by 2030 theoretically we would have at least 700 in now that's again that's an assumption it might be higher than that and it could be lower than that just depending upon funding and funding availability so but that was the Assumption again that's one of those assumptions that we had to put build in and we didn't want to go too high we didn't want to go too low so we kind of came up with a number that we thought was somewhat realistic um based off of of even current funding I mean we've just got funding for or at island and and Hobart and combined those those two systems are going to add about 110 120 homes to the system and that's going to probably take us two years to get through so again you know it's it's a it's a rough number that we had to put in something to account for that if so for the board just so part of the utilities integrated master plan is going to discuss the septic to sewer project because I get 120 and 100 but we're talking potentially 25,000 in our County and we we and I know I've stay before we're not going to be able to go all 25,000 even if we had the funding and the materials and the plans and could break ground tomorrow and construct 24 hours a day until 2030 we would never get it all done so I think um which is unfortunate because that's something that's of concern I think to us and to the residents and you know I I would certainly hope the state would understand that the number and the time frame they gave is just it's really not realistic um but I do think that if we're going to go through this study and the integrated master plan I would prefer to um hope for more but plan for a little a little less because as we know with the rosand project that how many houses was that I think we added about 140 140 and it took I mean it got caught up in covid so you know but it took at least three years from start to finish yeah five when you add in Co um just to get two of those years was for grant funding and state Appropriations so and as more people are going to be trying to take advantage of that those dollars are going to get smaller and and more um difficult to get so I for the for the impact fee portion of it I would prefer to assume a little bit less so if we get more it's a bonus but we're financi secure at kind of where we are can I add something even on the SE SE sh was talking about the rosand project there were there were some additional costs that weren't budgeted in that initially I mean always like we I know the one house we had rerouted around another house and doing some other things which was additional cost is that correct yeah we had we had additional cost and what were covered by the grants and and we had that majority of that that project funded through grants um but you know and Brian can speak to that perhaps a little better than I can but yeah I mean and and some of that was funded through an an assessment and that assessment didn't cover the entire costs of of the so the water side of that was covered through a water assessment and that wasn't covered um 100% so certainly there were some costs that we had to incur associated with that you know you know the the part I struggle with with septic to sewers is well I would love to say that we could get it all done even if we got all the money to do it and we got grant funding to do it all we don't have the resources in this County to probably get all that constructed within the time frame that has been allotted for that I mean there's not contractors even available I mean we we probably wouldn't have the contractors out there to be able to complete all that effort so I mean we have to kind of keep that in mind is is and I'm a firm believer and I've told this to the board before I'm a firm believer in septic to sewer and doing what we can but but I think we also have to be realistic in what we can accomplish and I I I don't think the the the state was realistic uh same way as with the recycling mission that 75% threshold that had to disappear because it it was an unattainable goal they set the goal post Way Beyond the field that's a same thing with this as well even if we were to do septic to the the new septic tanks the eviscerator there not enough contractors to do it in the county to be able to service all of that conversion there's not enough count contractors in the state to service all of our County customers so if they have to do it on their dime or we have to do it or supplement it either way both lenses in the Cy class are fractured we just have to figure out which way we can get closest to the attainable goal nothing more than that it just can't happen and I just want to point out that that to those in in the audience and the public that's not to say that we're not committed to doing what we need to and can do what we're saying is as part of this discussion we're talking about financial sustainability infrastructure capacity and and what is realistic with what we have to work with that we can plan for moving forward obviously hoping that we can can do as absolute most as we can but also understanding that there are some impacts that may constrain that and I do feel you know if we can demonstrate just like with the recycling goal if we can demonstrate that we're having the conversations and we're moving projects and programs forward um that's what has kind of brought this on in other areas of of the state is the lack of forward progress and this conversation alone is huge forward progress so um I don't want everybody to get all upset and scared about it we are working on it but there's no real easy or quick solution to some of this um but I think getting the department and the utility on a financially even Keel will give us the ability and the time to be more holistically addressing this issue from from top to bottom because right now we've just kind of been reactionary we need to get out of a reactionary position and have a plan and then work the plan forward good all right this is a public Workshop I suppose so if there's people from the public that would like to comment we are here for input feedback questions comments concerns happy afternoons whatever come on up to the podium and state your name and address for the record good to see you yes ma'am okay I'm Janet Perry uh 73051 129th Street Sebastian and um I have enjoyed listening to all this and I would only have one well one comment on what was said here that those of us who have been here for 50 years I live down on the Indian River Drive and watched developments and changes but when we see things that we question like where the water line is in in conjunction to the river and hurricanes and storm surge and we ask for things to be secured for the Integrity of that pipe running there and we feel like we get ignored that we don't get heard nothing gets done then the homeowner does it on that piece of property when it should be a county thing done so it's done right that's that comment on that one my other comment is um I hang out with a lot of senior citizens at senior citizen at the coffee groups and the Sebastian Center and all that and we have a question that we've came to notice and I've brought it up to you two years ago Miss Adams at the rosand meeting why is my Indian River County utilities Bill going to Birmingham Alabama if we're supposed to be here supporting local people with my money that I have then why am I not having my bill processed here in Indian River County or at least in the State of Florida not in another state somewhere and the bunch of us would like to know why this is happening sure Sean or Brian would you like to address why the company that's Pro processing the bills is not in the State of Florida so I'm I'm Brian beavers the finance manager for Indian River County Utilities it's a great question um we we look at we work in a a collection cycle every month where our customers many send in a check we also have electronic payment many ways now to pay and as there has been banking consolidation banks have Consolidated into Regional areas where they do what they call a lockbox processing which is taking in a check a paper check processing it they have found synergies by having one large location um the bank that we have been using had a lockbox transaction processing center in Birmingham we're actually getting ready to change that because that bank is moving moving to another region to get some more efficiency so while I I appreciate the desire to to keep the transactions here in Florida the jobs Etc we are working with large Banks and need to utilize their services and that is they're kind of dictating where well it doesn't make a lot of us happy when we know we have an economy here to support with local people so when we see that okay thank you thank you anybody else come on up and state your name and address for the record thank you so much my name is uh Bob Gallagher live at 4675 Hamilton Court in Oak haror we were fortunate to move to Bureau about eight years ago from South Florida and it's been a wonderful move for our family one of the surprising things when we got the first water bill said well this isn't bad comparing it to what we had in myami D County but I didn't realize it was sent every month I can tell you our water bill in Miami dat County was uh sent on a quarterly basis and the quarterly amount of the bill for water and sewer is about the same of what we get every month and have gotten every month from uh Indian River County utilities and I note in this little handout they gave a number of comparisons but there I don't think the comparisons went to a broad enough audience or municipalities uh dealing with water insured to give this commission rate how how efficient is this water and uh waste utility operation in indiia River County I can't believe that it's got to be three times High higher than South Florida thank you welcome name and address I'm Judy orcut 4665 Pebble Bay South and I'm here on behalf of the Clean Water Coalition um I'm a little concerned that the study didn't have um it says that the Indian River County Utility department doesn't have any significant plan or transmission expansion process identified um so the current R increase is just kind of catching us up and so I appreciate now that they're saying that we're going to have this integrated master plan and then we're going to revisit the rates but I'm concerned that that increase when we revisit them is going to be really bring out the crowds because we had a rate study previously didn't follow what they recommended didn't increase the rates and now you know hopefully we'll at least adopt these but I'm just worried a year from now when we look at this master plan the need is going to be so great that the rates are going to have to go up more I haven't heard any discussion about the fact that the Water Management District says that the groundwater is being depleted and that you know we're going to have to look to other sources for water and um is there discussion about uh toilet to tap is there discussion about um further um implementing reuse water into the neighborhoods so people quit watering their yards with um portable water when the portable water is going to be precious in the future I'm sure some of you followed the grov land project out in the western part of the county actually in St Lucy you know Southern Parts where they're spending a lot of money giving money to the St John's Water Management District to build a huge Reservoir to move water from the south Florida Water Management District into the St John's to provide portable water to developments farther to the north of us so I just think the whole water issue even not just uh septic to sewer which is of course one of my big issues because of my emphasis on the Lagoon but I think pable water is also going to become quite the challenge um and I don't know if we're preparing for that so um I think that's pretty much my point Thank you thank you come on down uh Tom Sullivan 4187 West 16 square uh my curios iOS it is you mentioned the hookups uh are we charging the new developments how much do they pay per house per unit same same well I'm curious it seems like we've become an area where the developers want to come as a matter of fact I made a lot of money on green brick properties Partners okay they were about six bucks about two years ago they're 60 today but so what I'm seeing is that a lot of these developers are coming here and making a great deal of as Bill used to tell me money you know and I think we can now look at maybe not being such a fertile area I want people to come I I want that but I think we're missing the point when you talk about money getting out of here these developers are beholding to the stockholders and I think we can charge them more I think we can charge them more on impact fees uh if I'm if a normal household is paying 350 and we're losing money on the meter let them pay a th000 I know I I bought a house in town here okay I think it was 10 years ago for 250,000 my neighbors just bought three houses in my backyard at a million dollars a piece so you can't tell me that the developer is not making money and I think we have to tax these people because the money is not staying here py Mr py is not living here Bill gho sold his business to green brick Partners which is located in Dallas so I'm just saying I think we're not being a sharp business wise with these developers I think they're taking advantage of us and I think this is a way that we can go back and say Hey I want you to live here I want you to build here I want people to move here but we're not going to let you come in here and just take advantage of our utility you know and that I matter of fact I was going to a meeting next door I just walked in here you know but I'm just saying I don't understand why we can't charge them more it's not that they're not making money I live in I live on 41st Street okay and in two years okay 700 residents have been built there there's two apartment buildings py put 142 single families uh green brick put 103 and then there's 60 doubles and somehow okay this medical area which you remember discussing this several years ago now we're going to have a pickle ball court there on medical property I maybe it's real abilita or something but I don't understand this and when I watch some of these meetings I see some of our Planning and Zoning people talking to the planning and zoning boards saying oh yeah that'll happen in the future and and if I have quotes from these meetings these videos where people from the Planning and Zoning Board have told people on the planning people on the planning side of our house here have told people on the planning zoning board oh don't worry there's plenty of room and we'll have medical there well the same person that said that through some sort of administrative decision wound up putting a pickle ball court there I'm just saying I I just look at this stuff and I get confused as I get confused here with all this building going on and all of a sudden we have an infrastructure problem well if you want to build and you want to come here and make money off the local then you have to pay and that that's all I'm saying I I just think we have to look at more impact fees on the developers that's it thank you anybody else come on down welcome name and address sure uh Bob a20 Ocean Beach Trail uh I sit on the Town Council of Indian River Shores I'm the town's representative on the city of ver Beach Utilities Commission uh the city of Viro Beach charges a profit against their utility Ray payers which goes back in the general fund lower taxes I think everybody knows that but in addition they use what I consider uh based on government accounting standard uh cost allocation methods which overcharge utility so that real estate taxes uh can be lowered in addition now I know the county doesn't charge a a profit but could you just uh if we could have someone address the cost allocation methodology they use if they attribute any of the general fund expenses over to the uh utility Enterprise fund are they realistic or are we going down a path the city of reer beach does in terms of uh hurting their outside rapair so sure is that something Sean or Brian don't go anywhere they might have they might need a clarification yeah I I might need a clar I'm not sure I quite understood are you asking whether or not we we draw general fund monies into the utility no actually the other way around do you take a general fund function and allocate some of the expenses to the utility Enterprise fund ver Beach does that they do it in such a way they take much more than the actual cost of service there for instance is utility dollars going into the general fund essentially what F our om does is they cost out they allocate cost to each fund to cover the cost for the services that they're receiving receiving so in the case of the utilities if if it was a Utility Authority if they had HR funds if they had an HR department they had an IT department so every fund actually participates in that and they have their own fair share and it's established the RB evaluates it at the beginning of the budget cycle provides those numbers to all the Departments so everybody's paying their fair share of cost allocation I I know what you're talking about so it's it's a rational methodology just not doing one of these uh that's correct okay all right for IT services right subsidizing one with the other on the backs of other outside the city of does yeah thank you good question y anybody else other questions comments no don't sit down Sean I think you got to wrap it up Commissioners you have any other questions questions or what's your time frame I don't think we have anything further I mean we've we've got a couple of you know 35 minutes left and give you guys 35 minutes rest you know back to your day um again the next steps really are September 10th is to announce the the public hearing for the 24th um on the 24th we will have the public hearing to hear and officially um adopt the rates um if so inclined and in the meantime we will be having a couple of public workshops where we'll be discussing this and bringing the rates forth to the community further um the website is up and running and people can go to the website and again the the full rate study is is up on the website for anybody who wishes to to to read through that uh nightly you know it's a nightly drone maybe if you want to read through the rate study but again it's very well done Stant has done a great job of putting the information together in a report um all the information is there they even talk about some of the assumptions we talked about today um all of that information is available in the report uh all that information is up on the website and the website is is up um today so um please encourage people if they're listening um those of you here please encourage you if you're interested in that information to check out check out our website that's all we have all right Commissioners if there's nothing else then we stand [Music] adjourned for