REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Approve Budget Modification No. 35 to Appropriate Funds for a Water and Wastewater Engineering Fee Study and Re-prioritize Funding for Water Pollution Control Plant Capital Projects
Report
BACKGROUND
Engineering Fee Study
Approximately once every five years, the City budgets for a review of its utility fees for both consumption of utility services (water, sewer, garbage and recycling) and utility engineering fees related to new development. The review includes a look at each of the fees and analyzes them for cost recovery. The City reviewed water use fees in FY 2011/12 and sewer use fees in FY 2012/13. The water study was complex in that it made significant adjustments to the user fees, adjusting billing tiers for both consumption and price. The recent sewer fee study was also complex, looking at a variety of use fees and ways to address the changing characteristics of the City's sewer customers as more mixed use development has arisen. Given these complexities, staff elected to temporarily defer the work on engineering fees. The City still has an open contract with a consultant who specializes in this area and is available to conduct the engineering fee review. Given the high level of development activity currently occurring, it would be beneficial to review and update the engineering fees at this time.
Reprioritization of Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) Capital Projects
As part of the Adopted FY 2012/13 Projects Budget, four projects were included which provided funds for the repair of each of the treatment processes (primary, secondary, and tertiary) as well as the power generation facility at the WPCP.
Funding was allocated for these projects over the next three to four years to address the immediate needs to refurbish each process area, and address long standing process control and compliance challenges. Originally, staff anticipated that significant work on the tertiary process would not be requi...
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