Environmental Services Commission - Regular Meeting

It is 06:30PM, and I call the April 2 Environmental Services Commission meeting to order. Next, I will do a roll call. Commissioner Wan? Present. Commissioner Hainosh? Present. Commissioner Laxon? Present. Commissioner Thiessen?

Present.

And commissioners Dupertis and Margolis are excused. Good evening, and welcome to the April 2 Environmental Services Commission meeting. The first item of business, I will entertain the motion to approve the agenda.

To approve the agenda? Second.

Thank you. Commissioner Hainash and Laxon. Hearing no objections, the amendment is approved as motioned. I've got a lot of things to read here. Okay.

A real oral and written communications are now open. Reminder that there is a three minute time limit per person and thirty minutes total per meeting. Public comment shall be limited to matters relating to city of Bellevue government and to subject matters encompassed within the powers and duties of this commission. Persons participating in commission meetings must not engage in speech or conduct that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of any meeting. Disruptions may include and are not limited to failure of a speaker to comply with the commission bylaws concerning public comment. Joe, are there any written communications?

There are no written communications. Joe,

do we have anyone we registered for oral communications? I see mister Zimmerman is registered. Yes. Would you like to step forward and make your comments, please?

Thank you. Oh, you steal my ten second. It's okay. You always steal. You're doing this in every meeting.

Okay. My name, Alex Zimmerman, and I don't come talking to you because you, for me, look like a dirty, damn Nazi fascist bastard. I come talking to Siete, to Bellevue. You know what this means? City Of Bellevue, 150,000 people. Yeah. So first, what is I explained to you, and I talk, I've been about this for many year 100 times, why you don't show people faces here? I spoke from Tacoma to More than 5,000 time. Yeah. I spoke every week right now, 10 times. And every you show faces. I don't understand this. Yeah. Who are you? A bunch of.

Yeah? You don't see faces. You don't know who's talking. Nice trick. You make this trick, not me. Second, twelve year ago twelve year ago twelve year ago, consul make a decision. It's all under camera. In talking to because Alexander Manberry bet, so we decide right now we will have thirty minute and 10 people only. Let's go for twelve year. They be all late as freedom of speech, First Amendment. They acting like a Nazi gestapo bastard, a criminal, a bandita. Who care about this? I spoke to me for three years. No one face. Talking about this.

No one And how seven consuls so stupid so this go for twelve year? Can somebody explain to me? Nobody explains. Bellevue is this number one fascist city in America. It's very critical what has happened here. There's not only plantation with 20,000 people, 65 Indian and 45 Chinese, but I don't have analogy in America. We have a mayor who, Iranian Muslim, man with two citizenship. Iranian citizenship include, and he's Amer. How we can make Amer? With who?

With country. What is we have war for fifty year, and for last year, we have a typical physical war. Yeah. Everybody quiet. And nobody talking about impeach him. It's a problem what is I see it right now. Why? Because all you are garbage and human bastard. It's exactly who you are. Situation very unique. You know what this mean? And I come in talking about this for many year. Thirty year I spoke here in city, and nothing happened. We were Trump. We were new American revolution. Stand up, slapping, happy cow. So right now, you know what is who you are? It's very simple, everything. Just for you guys. So you remember when you have a memory.

Is anyone else in the audience that would like to speak? And if you are attending remotely, please use the raise your hand feature in Zoom, or if you're joining by phone, press 9. There are no one else wishing to speak at this time. Staff reports. Joe, are there any staff reports for this evening?

There are no staff reports for tonight.

Next item on business is approval of the March 5 meeting minutes.

I move to approve the minutes.

Thank you, commissioner. Second. Thank you, commissioner. Any objections? 03/05/2026 meeting minutes are approved as written. Is there any unfinished business at this point? Nope. Alright. New business. The first item on the agenda is a 2025 financial performance report that was a written brief included in your packet.

We are not going to have a presentation about that this evening. But if there are any commissioners that have questions about that, we would we could entertain those at this time. There you go. Commissioner.

Alright. Thanks, for the memo, Matt. So my question, has to do with table two, the 2025 utility renewal and replacement reserve fund ending fund balances. So I guess I'm trying to look at those numbers in relation to a target or benchmark of some sort. And so I kind of took the six year CIP, took an average for each one of those utilities, and just said, oh, okay, six year average for water is about $48,000,000 and we got $91,000,000 in the fund, You know, so and so.

And the one that stood out to me was stormwater, because that fund is pretty high relative to the average six year CIP for stormwater. So maybe you could help us understand how to look at these funds. Yeah, for sure.

In response to your first question on what the target is, first to point out the city financial policies, while we have targets in our financial policies for the operating reserves, Targets are not part of our policies for capital reserves. Now that doesn't mean we set we don't set we do set targets. They're just not dictated by some council approved policy. That administrative practice is that we we try to maintain at least two years worth of CIP in the minimum in the target reserve. And so you can see water in that point is kinda right there at that two years.

In response to your second question about stormwater, unlike the water utility, which is an active replacement, our stormwater utility is is the newest of the three wet utilities, and so much of the infrastructure has not yet reached its useful life. And so we are actively putting money away in the reserve to promote inter intergenerational equity so that when those are due for replacement, like culverts, for example, that the money is ready to replace them. Mhmm.

Are there other questions regarding the financial report summary? Alright. Then moving on to item two, utilities proposed twenty twenty seven to twenty thirty two capital improvement program plan.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm Dave Byshe, assistant director of engineering for utilities, and my colleague is Biral Shah, our CIP portfolio manager. We are pleased to be here tonight to present to you our utilities capital improvement program or CIP and proposed budget for 2027 through 2032. We worked hard over the last couple months to strategically develop our proposed six year CIP that we performed to meet the city's mission and vision. Tonight, you'll hear our key steps of planning and development process and the resulting budget proposal for each one of the three funds.

In the many programs that comprise our capital improvement program, we'll also be providing information on the primary changes of this proposed CIP as compared to our current adopted six year CIP. Earlier, we sent you the proposed twenty twenty seven through thirty two budget packet. This is your copy of the proposed CIP budget that B roll and I will be going over tonight. We encourage you to have it handy for reference this evening as we go through our summary slides for the proposed CIP. We wanna remind you this is a informational briefing, so no action is required of the commission tonight.

The this is a introduction of the proposed six year CIP budget. And at the end, we'll show you the anticipated schedule and how it inputs the utility's overall budget review and approval process. We're requesting your feedback so they can be incorporated as part of the forthcoming budget review and approval. Our agenda starts with a high level overview of the utilities capital improvement program. We'll then follow with that with more detail, including a description of the primary steps we went through in the budget development process, an overview of the proposed budget for the three utility funds, and then some details about the programs within each fund with the emphasis on significant changes from the current adopted budget.

We'll have some time for discussion and q and a at the end, but please feel free to ask questions along the way too. I'd like to thank you beforehand for your role in reviewing our proposed CIP. You've seen this graphic before, but I'd like to quickly remind you on how ESC's role in capital budgeting relates to the roles of the department staff and the city council. Starting on the left, engineering staff are charged with developing capital improvement programs and projects so that they're well aligned with the council's vision and strategic priorities, which include developing these projects in accordance with our asset management principles and meeting our customers' needs by promoting providing utility services at the lowest life cycle cost. After formal adoption of the CIP, our role is then to deliver the projects that are approved through planning, design, and construction.

The ESC's role is to review the proposed CIP programs and budgets, request information from department staff, and provide feedback to us. Tonight, we'll be providing you with a lot of information about the proposed CIP. With your review, the ESC will will then be asked to provide your policy recommendation to the city council. Upon receiving your recommendations, the council then reviews, directs any program changes, and approves the proposed CIP and budget through the biannual budget process. Next year, as staff works to implement projects, council has the role of approving contracts and any requested program budget changes that occurred during the biannual.

Next is a high level overview of the capital improvement program. The CIP is a critical component of utility's ability to continue providing reliable water, wastewater, and stormwater services to our customers. It's a six year ongoing program in which we invest utility funds in the capital improvement programs and projects for Belly Vee's utility infrastructure. CIP is updated every two years as part of our biannual budget process. This is important because it addresses critical needs for renewal and replacement of our aging infrastructure, ensures we continue to support growth in our rapidly developing city, and provides for environmental stewardship of our watersheds, including the city's creeks, lakes, and wetlands.

Our CIP projects help us to keep in compliance with local, state, and federal regulations. And lastly, the capital program improves the reliability of our infrastructure to support excellent utility services for our customers. To put the CIP in context, utility manages water, wastewater, storm, and surface water infrastructure systems valued at around $10,000,000,000. The management of these assets requires operations, maintenance, capital investments, utilizing the best practices of asset management to deliver high quality utility services to Bellevue's customers and the community. Our systems include over 600 miles of water distribution mains, 500 miles of sewer conveyance mains, 400 miles of stormwater drainage piping, and much more associated infrastructure.

The CIP ultimately supports public health, safety, quality neighborhoods, a sustainable environment, and a thriving economy. I'd like to turn the presentation over to Biral Shah, who will start by describing the process we used to develop our proposed capital improvement program budget.

Thank you, Dave. Good evening, commissioners. We had several key goals in mind when we developed twenty twenty seven, twenty thirty two CIP budget. First, we want to make sure that we have the right projects in right sequence and prioritize to make sure we strategically replace aging infrastructure while maintaining uninterrupted utility services to our customers. Second, the level of investment is in alignment to the asset management strategies.

Our go our goal is to continue the ongoing level of investment for water asset renewal while gradually ramping up investment for sewer and the storm's aging infrastructure. Third, we want to develop the CIP in alignment with the previously planned rates. And finally, we want to make sure we can deliver the proposed CIP with available staff resources and meet our CIP delivery accomplishment goals. Here is a quick recap of the CIP budget development process. It started with identifying projects on various sources, including system plans, strategic planning studies such as lake line management plan and watershed management plan, and problems identified by our operation and maintenance staff at the field.

We also identified projects through coordination with WashToT and other neighboring cities. All of these projects are evaluated and ranked using a set of prioritization criteria. Then we develop the scope, schedule, cost estimates, and resources needed for these prioritized projects. We review various scenarios to meet the needs of our programs, assess the cost resource needed to deliver these projects so that we can deliver, and assess the rates impact to finally develop the proposed CIP that we'll be reviewing today. The adopted budget fulfills importance objectives, and these are captured through a set of criteria that we use to prioritize projects.

The goal of the project prioritization is to provide an objective decision making process and allocate limited resources to the most needed projects. We have utilized the same evaluation criteria and weighting factors as the last budget cycle, as shown on the slide on the right hand side. These criteria and weighting factors were developed by the city staff with detailed technical analysis. One criteria used to prioritize project was to reduce the risk of system failures and increase system reliability and resiliency. Another criterion was to prioritize project that meet regulatory requirements, staff safety, and legal obligations.

We also prioritize project that will improve level of service or will increase system capacity to accommodate growth. Environmental stewardship is another criterion that we refers to the project's ability to improve water quality and aquatic habitat in our streams and wetlands. We also made sure to consider projects that meet schedule or meet time constraint, such as dependence on other agency projects or requirements imposed by interlocal agreements or grants. Lastly, we also prioritize service equity, considering a project's ability to improve utility services in the underserved areas of the city, considering factors such as race, income, education, and language barriers. Two years ago, we engaged with the community at large through in person and various online platforms and obtain valuable feedback on our CIP.

Overall, the input from the community aligned very well with the prioritization criteria ranking by the city staff, and it validated our approach. Over 240 projects were identified, prioritized, and programmed in developing the proposed six year CIP. We have utilized the previously developed twenty twenty five to two thousand and thirty CIP as the basis, and then further refine it with new projects and changes from the active projects which come up with the twenty seven to thirty two CIP. One of the ways we improve the CIP development process is to incorporate our understanding of factors that affect project delivery. We refined our CIP budget planning with data from active projects to improve cost projections, establish more realistic schedule, and allocate a sufficient staffing, and ultimately right size the CIP that we can deliver.

The proposed twenty twenty seven, twenty thirty two CIP budget that we will present today is adjusted for inflation assuming 3% per year. Utilities capital investment plan provides sufficient funding for six year capital spend plan as well as long term focus for asset replacement needs. Even though the proposed twenty twenty seven, two thousand thirty two CIP that we'll review today is higher than the previous budget, but we were able to maintain the rate path that was adopted in the previous budget. Near term budget needs were addressed by leveraging available R and R reserve funding, while meet to long term expansion of proposed CIP is in alignment with the renewal and replacement strategies that were adopted in the previous CIP and thereby accounted in the rate model. The proposed CIP, as you know, consists of three funds with distinct source of revenues and include separate programs.

Each program has projects with a defined scope and budget. As we noted before, water utilities is in active replacement stage, while investment in sewer utilities sewer utilities is ramping up. Storm utilities is continuing to be in the evaluation and planning stage and will be ramping up in in coming days. The proposed twenty twenty seven, two thousand and thirty two Water Fund CIP is about 287,000,000 for 17 programs. It is the largest fund with 60% of the proposed CIP budget.

There are a few drivers for the high investment in the Water Fund as compared to the two other funds. One driver is regulatory requirements. Drinking water is highly regulated by the Washington State Department of Health for public health and safety, especially drinking water quality and adequate water pressure for fire protection. Another driver is to ensure service reliability, where a break in the water main can cause loss in pressure and directly impact our customers. We have a comprehensive water main replacement program, which is the largest program in our waterfront, as well as in overall CIP.

Furthermore, the repair and replacement of critical infrastructure such as reservoirs and pump station require a higher level of investment to maintain functionality and reliability. The proposed six year SUR fund budget is 105,000,000 for 12 programs. Sewer services are also critically important for our customers. Bellevue's sewer system conveys wastewater into King County's regional system for subsequent treatment and disposal. We're ramping up the renewal and replacement programs in our sewer utility and proactively assessing a rehabilitating pump station and sewer mains.

Proposed six years stormwater and surface water fund CIP is about 86,000,000 or 10 programs. These programs aimed at replacing aging infrastructure, providing flood protection and mitigation, enhance fish habitat, improve water quality, and stream health. It is also regulated by the State Department of Ecology through the stormwater NPDS permit. The total six year 02/2027 to 2032 proposed CIP budget is 478,000,000. There are four major drivers for changes in the proposed CIP.

First, we had over programmed and asserted schedules for water main replacement program and few other water projects to meet our system needs. This has resulted in a projected budget overrun in 2026, which is included as adjustment to the proposed 2027, 2032 CIP. Second, we have added new projects as well as construction phase funding for several projects that included planning or design phase funding in the previous CIP. Third is the change in the schedule and schedule delays due to environmental permitting and easement acquisition challenges. Some of these resulted in a scope changes and increased complexities for projects, particularly in the sewer and the storm pond.

And lastly, the fourth category is increased construction cost above planned inflation. These higher prices are due to economic conditions, supply chain issues for construction materials, and construction crew labor shortages that were driving construction cost in general. We have started to note some price stabilization in the in the last couple of years. However, few of the previously estimated projects were re costed with about 15 to 20 cost increase. We'll further elaborate these changes as they apply to specific programs.

This pie chart show a comparison of proposed 02/1932 CIP with adopted twenty five to thirty CIP. The proposed six year CIP is approximately $182,000,000 more than the prior CIP. The increase in the Water Fund budget are primarily driven by increase in the water main replacement program and Maidenbauer South Reservoir project, which is also known as West Operating Area Storage program. Major changes in the sewer fund are related to higher investment in the replacement and rehabilitation of sewer pump station and increasing the amount of sewer pipe defect repair, particularly in the later years. For storm fund, the increased budget is attributed to increased cost of some of the active projects as well as addition of few new projects.

Also, it is worth noting that when you compared twenty twenty five to thirty CIP with twenty seven to thirty two CIP, the proposed CIP budget that are appropriated for 2031 and '32 is much higher than what was allocated in twenty five to twenty six. For twenty five to twenty six, we purposefully kept those budget as minimum as possible to overcome the scheduled delay for projects programmed in the prior budget cycles. Fortunately, we were able to advance project efficiently and to some extent with asserted schedule, particularly in our water portfolio. We develop budget by fund and then repackage it as per investment area and in alignment with council's strategic target area. This figure shows the difference in areas of investment between current adopted CIP and the proposed CIP.

Utilities continue to invest over 75% of the CIP for renewal and replacement of aging infrastructure as shown in blue on the the pie chart. The proposed CIP includes 28,000,000 more investment in capacity for growth category shown in orange. This is to fund the new reservoir and associated infrastructure needed to provide drinking water storage for the planned population growth in downtown, Belgrade and Wilburton areas. The proposed CIP also expands investment in the environmental preservation category by about 25,000,000, shown in purple. This increase is attributed to several new project in the flood control and water quality improvements program while continuing to fund the fish passage and streaming improvements projects to preserve and protect our natural resources.

Before I hand over to Dave to elaborate on our water fund, any question from the commissioners?

I had one just kind of a general question with on cost escalation, and you had mentioned 3%. I was wondering, is that is that enough? You know, it feels like we're using 2% or 3% a lot with projections, but then the construction costs come in much higher. So maybe just generally talk about what you're seeing out there.

Yeah. So 3% is the general macroeconomic inflation that we see across the the entire economy. In the construction field, as you know, we still the cost see the cost going up higher, but not as much as what it used to be post COVID time. But we do have projects that were estimated prior to that and had to be escalated by about 15 to 20% total, like, about seven five to 7% a year. So, yes, price increase in the construction projects has been higher than inflation. Do you want to add?

Yeah. And we do readjust, our current estimates based off of the most up to date data that we have. We track all of our bid and unit prices and update that. It's more of the future projections that are harder to predict. So we've we've been going with three percent. We feel like after COVID, the market has started stabilizing. There are some items, like, such as asphalt that's heavily tied to oil prices, so that's harder to predict because it can be more volatile. But and, like, for the water and sewer and storm, that's a that's a big component. The overlay, the pavement restoration is a big component of the cost of replacing the pipe. So

So I guess one thing I'm just wondering if you know, I know it's hard to, you know, have a crystal ball and say, okay. What is what are construction costs gonna go up? But would we look at adjusting our contingency approach maybe more? I mean, thank you for mentioning the difference in the previous six year plan to this one because that was a big that's a big jump. And then, you know, kind of explaining that those these last two years that you added, 'thirty one and 'thirty two, contain some really expensive projects. But, you know, I'm just sort of wondering, you know, do we look at our contingency policies to capture maybe some of the uncertainty in the construction costs? Or I don't know if that has changed or not.

Yes. We would we definitely be taking all of those consideration in the contingencies. And then contingency also varies whether you're planning up a project versus more close to finishing up a design. It started maybe starts with higher contingency, about 30%, or and then by the time you progress to your design, it it goes down 10% when you go into the construction site. So we try to capture uncertainties and the risk and unknown element of the projects as part of the contingency. And market factor like oil prices, sometimes it's hard to hard to predict.

Any other questions?

Move on.

Alright. So I'm gonna dive into our water fund. And I do wanna mention that we'll do an overview of the fund, and then we're gonna go into details of some of the programs within each fund. So you'll you'll get more information as we progress through. Before we dive into the details of the water fund, I'll start with the mission of the water utility, which is to provide a reliable supply of safe, secure, high quality drinking water that meets all of the community's water needs in an environmentally responsive manner.

The c p CIP continues to be aligned with that mission. We'll stop at the end of each fund review and see if there's any questions. Let me orient you to this slide because you'll be viewing viewing a similar table at for all of the upcoming program areas. The first row of the table shows the currently adopted six year budget for '25 through 2030. The next row shows the proposed six year budget for twenty twenty seven through thirty two, and the bottom row shows the difference per year.

Lastly, the rightmost column shows the total six year CIP budget for the water fund. The proposed six year budget is 187,000,000 or about a $100,000,000 increase from the current budget. There are some key drivers for the proposed change. We're accelerating project programming for water main renewal and replacement to meet our system needs. Maidenbauer South Reservoir costs have increased due to increased sizing and design development to meet our future storage needs for growth.

Project schedule shifts, early starts and acceleration to meet our delivery capacity and increased investment in reservoirs, pump stations, and new projects. Here, we have the proposed water budget comparison. I wanna first note that the proposed 2027 budget is significantly larger than the approved budget. The budget '27 budget is designed to replenish reserves that were used to accommodate the current overspend. We are purposely over programming in the water fund with accelerated schedules for water main projects and early starts for pump station projects.

This intentional spending ahead was to overcome under expenditures in the sewer and storm fund and meet our project delivery goals and capacity. Proposed spending is then reduced in the later years to accommodate these changes. The cost increase in 2030 is largely attributed to the Maidenbauer Reservoir project from scope changes, including doubling the size of the reservoir and some other developing factors. We will talk about these programs more later. This bar chart shows the relative changes in the programs for the water fund.

The dark blue represents the adopted budget. Light blue represents the proposed budget. W 16 on the far left is our water main replacement program and drives the significant budget change in the water fund. In our presentation tonight, we'll focus our discussion on the programs with the most significant budget changes, including the water main replacement program, PRV rehab, reservoirs, pump station rehab, West operating area, storage, which is the main Bauer Reservoir, and the 0 And M facility. So we'll start with our largest program, the water main replacement program in the Water Fund, and it's also the largest in the CIP.

We have a goal of replacing about an average of five miles per year. For context, this replacement cadence is less than 1% of our system per year and effectively gives the water system a life cycle of about a hundred and twenty years. This is not an aggressive replacement schedule, and it's assumed in the future we may need to replace at a higher rate to eliminate materials that have a shorter service life. Overall, construction costs for water main replacement have increased in addition to higher restoration costs such as roadway overlay. With the accelerated projects that we've discussed, we're projecting to replace about 5.6 miles, so over that five miles in 2026, and then, 6.4 miles in 2027.

So we're accelerating some of our water main replacement. We then reduced slightly to an average of about 4.4 miles per year from 2028 through 2032 while we build rate capacity to catch up to the increased costs and then resume the five mile per year cadence. I do wanna note that we've seen a cooling in the construction costs from the sharp increases we were experiencing during COVID 2021 through 2023, and they have slowed down in 2024 and '25. So we're trying to adjust our budget based off of what we're seeing in the market too. The '27 budget is designed to replenish those reserves, that we discussed in their current overspend, but it also includes an expected 33,000,000 in project spend for that year.

And so those kinda stack on top of each other. That that overexpenditure was intentional over programming accelerated schedules and, was based on our capacity to deliver it. So we're doing really well in that delivery. K. On to our next fund, the pressure reducing valve rehabilitation program.

It rehabilitates replacing aging pressure reducing valve stations throughout the water service area. Because of the hilly topography of our city, Bellevue has a 151 stations, and these, in addition to reservoirs and pump stations, are an important part of our water system to manage the 74 pressure zones that we have throughout the city. The proposed CIP fund for this program is reduced by about a 1,000,000 to $7,200,000. The investment strategy maintains the r and r re renewal and replacement schedule planned for '23 through 2032. After that, ramp up had origin a ramp up had originally been planned and will be delayed to 2037 to support higher risk projects and overall fund needs, including the Maidenbauer South Reservoir and water main replacement programs.

Next is w 85, our reservoir rehab and replacement. So Bellevue owns and operates, and maintains 24 drinking water reservoirs in the system with a combined capacity of 41,000,000 gallons. The rehab program funds retrofit or replacement of the of these drinking water reservoirs. The main reasons we need to rehabilitate reservoirs is to address age and use related deterioration and structural improvements for earthquake resistance. Some of the changes to this fund include include Crossroads North And South Reservoir recoat projects added with accelerated schedule in 2026 through 2037, and this project will address corrosion issues and environmental hazards due to the exterior lead based paint.

Kirkland the Kirkland South Reservoir scope increased to a full replacement in a larger reservoir. Bellevue shares 13% of the cost or about 3,500,000.0, and we utilize some of the capacity from Kirkland's Rev Reservoir and share these costs. Clyde Hill 390 and 340 include seismic our seismic retrofit projects, and those schedules were adjusted to start in 2031. And lastly, we have a few new added projects, including the Somerset 2 Reservoir and the Cherry Crest roof improvements project, which are scheduled to design in 2032. Alright.

Next, we have the water pump station rehab program. This was established in 2005 to rehabilitate water distribution booster pump stations. Bellevue operates and maintains 22 pump stations. Depending on the need, investments can range from basic improvements to complete reconstruction. The rehabilitation work may include capacity, safety, reliability improvements, new mechanical, electrical equipment, on-site emergency power generation, and seismic retrofits.

Some project specifics include the following. Pump station condition assessment was added in '26 to '27, and it assesses and prioritizes our future needs, including alternative analysis. And we holistically evaluate the pump stations, life cycle costs, social and environmental impacts, and mitigation needs. This approach will allow us to recommend the right projects with improvements that provide the best overall value and return on investments for our customers. The Somerset 2 Pump Station project schedule has shifted to include construction in 2027.

And then another scheduled shift to the Clyde Hill Pump Station includes construction in 2032. So we not only do we look at costs, we also look at schedules and programming, when's the right time to deliver these projects based off of our capacity and the need of the systems. Park Site and Northeast 40th Somerset pump stations were also, shown having construction that starts in 2033, which is just outside of the six year CIP. So at our next one, you get a those will be added in. We've talked quite a bit about this.

This is the West operating area storage, w one zero three program or also known as our Meenbauer South reservoir project. And this will increase the drinking water storage required for the projected population growth in Downtown Bell Red and Wilburton areas consistent with our updated water system plan. So as you know, we're currently undergoing an updated water system plan. As part of that, we look at our projected growth, and we're at a deficit of about 7,000,000 gallons that we need over the next twenty years for the growth. So this project will design and construct a new 6,000,000 gallon reservoir, a new pump station, and approximately one mile of transmission water main to provide a seismically resilient connection to the water system.

As I mentioned earlier, we increased the size from 3,000,000 gallons to 6,000,000 gallons to maximize the use of the site and meet our future storage needs. Design complexities for a larger, deeper buried reservoir as well as refinement of the construction cost estimate as designs are further developed. So the design alternatives are being evaluated as a value engineering exercise to explore potential ways to reduce costs. But this is our largest site with a potential to develop additional storage that we are projecting we'll need over the next twenty years. Schedule for completing construction of the new facility has been accelerated from 2034 to 2030 to align with the projected population growth and land use rezoning that will further increase density in the downtown corridor.

So this is a critical project. Next is the w one eleven o and m yard program. So in the previous budget cycle, council approved funding for land acquisition for a new operations and maintenance yard. The total funding is split evenly between the water and sewer funds. Delays are due to the limited availability of suitable sites that an that meet O and M's needs.

Property research and planning for land acquisition for North End Yard will continue in '27 through 2030. This proposed budget includes carryforward funding for the land acquisition, however, deferred 4,000,000 design funding allocation to start in 2032. It's a as everyone knows, it's a challenge to find suitable property at the size that we need for an o and m yard. So we're we're pushing some of that allocated funding out while we still look for an appropriate site. The facility recon meanwhile, we've added a new project in the proposed budget to renovate the East Gate Yard.

Facility reconstruction with updated technologies and site development will allow for continued use of that facility as the city grows. Phase one of this project includes a new decant facility in the southwest corner of the property, demolishing the existing facility, clearing and expanding a half acre of land in the northwest section, and regrading the site for future improvements, including existing driveway expansion. The cost for the East Gate Yard improvements project is estimated to be 9,000,000 for phase one. The cost is equally split among the water sewer and storm funds with about 3,000,000 from the water fund. Project is is proposed to start design in 2027 with construction in 2029.

And then lastly, we combined some of the minor budget changes of the water program in the one slide. So the following, programs have minor minor changes. Five programs have, minor budget increases. Two have decreases. The details of these programs can be fall found in your budget books, but I will highlight two.

The water service line and saddle replacement program has added a new project in the Forest Glen neighborhood to proactively address service line breaks. And then the water supply inlet rehab program includes condition assessment to assess mechanical and structural conditions scheduled for the factory inlet and east gate inlet replacement projects were also adjusted to meet on our needs. K. That is the end of the water fund. So before I hand it back over to Burrell to go over the wastewater or sewer capital fund, do I have any questions on the water?

Okay. Thank you for mentioning with the water main replacements, the replacement cycle. I got one hundred and twenty one years to be exact. And so that caught my eye, right? Because I'd love us to be at 1% replacement a year, if we could be. And yet I know age isn't the main isn't the only driver, right, for replacing.

Right.

But I was curious what, you know, what's the oldest pipe in the ground? Do we know?

Oh, that'd be a good question for Jacqueline, our asset manager.

Yeah. That's a that's a question that we will bring the answer to next time, for sure.

So so yeah. But but I would I would just say I would love us to to really try to see if we can get to that 1%.

Yeah. I can tell you that so, you know, a fair amount of our pipe is asbestos cement, and that does have a lower life cycle. So and we have seen when that fails, it fails catastrophically. It breaks, and there's big big breaks with chunks of the main that that blow out, and it causes a a pretty big damage. So, and then we have a smaller amount of cast iron, and the and then the rest is majority is ductile iron.

And we have seen ductile iron life's last anywhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty years easily. So depending on soil conditions and other factors as well. So pressure matters, usage, size, material. And so we look at a plethora of items when we're analyzing the risk and targeting which water mains to replace first.

Yeah. And then I noted the the drop in the PRV program too, and that got me kinda thinking like, oh, all those pressure problems, if they're happening on AC pipe

Yep.

Obviously, that's not a good combination. Right. But Yeah. Do you guy or so are you looking at specifically AC pipe and the the PRV replacements kind of to get there?

Those are those are the two biggest targets in in the water fund. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Fantastic.

Along with the cost of the reservoir, obviously, expensive as well, but that's for for future growth

Okay.

And capacity.

Thank you. Thanks.

Alright. Moving to our wastewater CIP. Starting with the mission of, wastewater CIP is to provide a reliable wastewater system that ensures public health and safety and protects the environment. The proposed twenty twenty seven, twenty thirty two wastewater CIP is about 105,000,000. It includes funding for 70 projects in 12 programs.

The proposed CIP is about 40,000,000 more than the adopted CIP budget. There are some few key drivers for the proposed changes. First, we've added construction phase funding for several pump stations that previously were funded for planning or design phase. This amount to about 28,000,000 or 70% of the total budget increase. So this is the biggest driver.

The second, we have increased funding for the sewer pipeline repair and replacement program. On average, we added about additional of 2,000,000 per year. And lastly, we increased the funding for Lakeline program as we will start the preliminary design for the first priority segment. We'll further elaborate as we go into the respective program. This graph compares the proposed CIP, what's your CIP with the currently adopted CIP, sewer CIP.

As you know, the dark one dark blue represents the adopted budget, while the light blue represent the proposed budget. This illustrates the fact that we're gradually ramping up renewal and replacement investment in the sewer utility, and it is in alignment to our asset management strategy. This chart compares the relative changes in the programs. As you can note, the the programs that has the most significant budget changes are s 16, which is the pump station program, s 24, which is our sewer repair and replacement program, s 58, lake line program, and then s one seventeen, which is the sewer extension program. In our presentation tonight, we're gonna focus more on these, specific programs in detail.

So starting with s 16, which is our pump station improvements program, this ongoing program funds rehabilitation of 47 sewer pump stations and associated force mains in our wastewater system. Stations are prioritized based on risk and likelihood of failure, age of the pump station, maintenance and operation experience, and coordination with other projects. Our proposed CIP includes major rehabilitation and replacement at nine wastewater pump station and proposes minor rehabilitation for six pump stations. And it's an increase over the adopted budget by about 28,000,000 that I mentioned before. We have initiated the planning phase for replacing two of the major facilities within our Newport Basin.

Based on the preliminary finding, we have proposed some adjustment to better align the system needs and schedule them accordingly. We've added the design and construction phase for Newport Lift Station while delaying Newport Pump Station and Forsman to later years beyond 2032. We have also added the design and construction phase funding for four pump stations. And these includes Fairweather Pump Station, Cozy Cove, Evergreen West, and Evergreen East Pump Station. Many of them are in that points community, and they, they're put in the same timeline.

So they're aging and and needed placement similar similar time. Lastly, we have proposed a new project for the permanent generator at Pump Station 16. This is in response to the failure that occurred in doing our last bomb cyclone. Next is s 24, our sewer pipeline repair and replacement program. Our city manages 516 miles of sewer mains and over a 100 miles of lateral sewers.

So repair and replacement of that is captured in this program. Most of the defects are identified through a video inspection and prioritized the repair based on risk of failure as well as input from our operation team. And sometimes these are also coordinate with the overlay program that is coming up behind us. We're increasing the investment in the repair and rehabilitation of pipe defects. Currently, we allocate about 2,000,000 per year, which will gradually increase to about 8,000,000 per year by 2032.

So you can say that we're ramping up slowly and even in further in the in the subsequent years. The increased budget will allow the utility to address more of the highest priority pipe defects. The budget also added some schedule adjustments and associated budget needs for a few active projects as I listed there in the second bullets. The next is our lake line program. As you know, Lake Washington Lake Line program is intended to address the 15 miles of sewer lines that are located either on the shores of Lake Washington, along the shores of Bellevue, Medina, Hunts Points, Yarrow Points, and Boats.

These sewer lines were built in nineteen fifties to eliminate the discharge of raw sewage into Lake Washington. Today, these are aging, and their location creates major challenge for repair and replacement. We have developed a programmatic Lakeline management plan, some of you already reviewed that, and we're expanding the development of the program and including additional assessment and development of financial strategies and policies to implement this plan. We'll be also developing a Lakeline emergency response plan to be ready to respond to if an emergency breakage of Lakeline if it all occurs. The purpose budget also includes an early action project to increase operational effectiveness of lake lines, such as building an access point to facilitate cleaning of the lake line.

And lastly, we have included the funding to perform business case analysis and predesign phase work to plan replacement of the first two of the first highest priority segment that we had invited in the plan. As Dave noted, this is the the funding portion for our operation and maintenance facility, the sewer portion, and it is shared among all all the funds. We have appropriated the the funds for the land acquisition, and that will be continuing as a carry forward in the budget while we're deferring the design and funding, construction funding in future years, similar way as w one eleven that Dave covered for the Waterfront. And, again, this also includes the one third share of the proposed East Gate yard that we identified in the previous slides. Moving on to the next program, which is a 100 s one seventeen septic system sewer extension program.

There are 1,500 customers in our city service that still serve by aging septic system. This program was developed to extend the sewer service in these areas in response to many customers' request. The projects in this program scored slightly lower in our prioritization process than other SOAR projects. So the funding in the first few years are adjusted accordingly. We're also reviewing the policy and performing some additional financial analysis to determine what the sewer connection fee will be for the customers who wish to participate in this program.

This is a relatively new program and we'll start by implementing a pilot project in at the Southeast 42nd Street near 1 20th Avenue Southeast. And then we'll be scoping projects for four additional neighborhood to advance the planning phase with business case analysis to identify the best alternative and better define the scope and cost. One of these four projects will be selected to advance through the implementation phase. So in this budget, we have included budget for the full implementation of one of that neighborhood, but yet to be identified that because we're going through the evaluation phase.

Yeah. I'd like to add to the as part of the prioritization for this program when we look at which neighborhoods to target first for sewer extensions, we do factor in the the neighborhood desire input as part of that. So it's the Southeast forty second residents have been very adamant about wanting this and the desire. So yeah. Go ahead.

Just the oh, go. I just curious about how much it I mean, you were saying you're looking at the connection fee. Is it is it gonna be a, I guess, an area specific connection fee? Is that what you're thinking?

Yeah. It right now, the way the the Bellevue City code is written for utilities Yeah. It would be a direct facility connection charge, which is basically an expansion charge. Yeah. Only it only applies to new connections that would benefit from it. So the cost of this project would have to be borne directly by the new connections to it. But it is something that we're evaluating right now, the DSCCs. Mhmm. And we'll likely come to you in the future to talk about that. So

I was just wondering, like, what if, you know, you've got 20 peep 20 neighbors, and you gotta get all 20 by all.

Right now, it could be affordability barrier. How it would work is it's the city, would fund it and do the project, and then who could or would wants to connect, they could. We've seen in the past if that expense can be a barrier. And so then, typically, some houses won't connect, and then the city just doesn't recover the cost of that project. So we are we are looking at, hopefully, proposing some

changes too.

Yeah. And what other obligations do those households have on them by the city? So in addition to that initial hookup fee, are there some expectations about what they do with their septic system?

Well, as far as, like, the abandonment of it? Mhmm. Yeah. There there is some King County environmental requirements for the abandonment of septic systems. Yep.

Which also is some other

I said it would be an additional cost.

Which one or both may be some of the barriers for households. Yeah. Thank you.

Alright. Moving to wrap up our CIP on the sewer side. There are few programs that have minor budget adjustment proposed in the cycle. S 32, which is a program for minor projects, will perform a repair work at couple of dosing chambers, and that this will help o and m runtime maintaining these these chambers. And s 66 program will continue to implement the ballpark sewer line replacement projects along with our the Kelsey kit covered that'll elaborate in those storm fund.

And then after that, this program will be closed out and merged with s 24, which will capture both the repair and replacement of sewer lines. Any other question before I move to storm?

I I just had one that I forgot I was gonna ask in water, but I think it also pertains to sewer or actually to the whole utility, and that's around cybersecurity. And I guess I was sort of thinking that in some of the capital program, we'd see a project or two. But then I'm thinking, well, this is a city, so it's probably handled at the IT level, your IT department. Is that maybe you could talk a little bit about how cybersecurity since it's becoming a it is a big deal, obviously, for water wastewater utilities. How does that get supported from a capital standpoint?

Yeah. I can I can answer yeah? I'm I'm not the expert on the SCADA for the sis the city. But, typically, there are some measures to separate those systems from the rest of the, you know, Internet or even the city the rest of the city systems. It could be things like air gapped.

A lot of the of the connections are over radio as well. So it and it's typically more monitoring versus control. So we do have pretty robust technology security for protecting, like, the actual controls of most of the facilities, But it is something that we on ongoing evaluate.

So does utilities have their their own cybersecurity or IT security resources, or are they

They're not. They're shared

They're shared to the city. Okay.

Through IT with the city.

Okay. Yep. Okay. That's why. Alright. Thanks.

Alright. Moving to the storm and surface water. The mission of the storm and surface water utility is to provide a storm and surface water system that controls damage from storms, protects surface water quality, supports fish and wildlife habitat, and protects the environment. Our twenty twenty seven, twenty thirty two proposed CIP continues to support this important mission. The total stormwater CIP budget for 2027 to 2032 is about 86,000,000.

It includes funding for 65 projects in 10 programs, and it is about 42,000,000 more than the adopted twenty twenty five, two thousand thirty CIP storm CI CIP. There are a few key drivers for the proposed changes. We increased the funding for storm pipe repair and rehabilitation program, primary in the later years. And budget is also adjusted for the cost increase for Kissy Creek Culvert project that is in construction. We also included the cost incurred for the couple of emergency project.

And lastly, we added few few other projects that didn't make it to the the previous budget cycle due to resource constraints. And this time, this becomes more of a higher priority, and we we included that in the CIP. This bar shows the relative changes in the programs for the stormwater CIP. The programs that with the most significant changes are d 64, storm water conveyance rehabilitation, d 94, which is a flood control program, and d one zero nine, which is our water quality enhancement program. We'll focus our discussion on these programs.

First, d 64, conveyance infrastructure rehabilitation. This is an ongoing program that captures the repair and replacement of defective storm drain pipes, culvert, GCHs identified in our utilities condition assessment program, or by O and M field staff. The majority of the project involves lining or replacing substandard pipes. Programs also includes replacing and replacing and upgrading existing culverts that are structurally deficient. The total six year CIP budget is about 45,000,000 45,500,000.0, which is about $14,500,000 over than the adopted budget.

And as I mentioned that this is another CIP where we are increasing our investment in renewal and replacement of our aging infrastructure, storm infrastructure. Currently, we allocate about 2,000,000 per year, which will be increasing up to about 6,000,000 per year by 2032. So as you can say, is similar to sewer. We're ramping up our replacement of storms, slightly delayed by few years.

Yeah. We're right now, we're currently undergoing a robust condition assessment, CCTV, of all of our storm water pipes, and that'll help inform and ramp up our investment with the storm. It's just a little that program's a little farther behind than where the water is and even the sewer. So gotta do the upfront planning and condition analysis before we start investing in the program.

This budget also incurred some of the costs for the couple of emergency projects, including Lakemont culvert replacement and this Lakehurst storm culvert replacement. Caught by surprise, we had to tackle this construction. Cost already been recognized, we're including that as an adjustment in this budget. And lastly, we added three high priority projects, and these are, at the Westlake Sammamish Parkway, outfall and repair, of the pier. Cherry case system realignment is just a strong pipe realignment.

And finally, outfall pipe repair at Northeast 12th Place. Next is D 81, our fish passage improvements program. Typical projects within this program includes fish passage barrier removal and stream habitat restoration projects. There has been a change in the site in the mitigation projects that were planned for the emergency culvert replacement that we did for the Newport Vassa Creek at Newport Way. There were it was done in few years.

The revised project now includes a replacement of a culvert along Strutavent Creek at Northeast second place, and the the budget is adjusted according to the scope and a slight increase in the cost. We have also revised the scope for Lakehurst Creek fish passage mitigation project. It is now proposed to implement in two phases. In the first phase, we'll be abandoning a culvert within our city property that is which is a fish passage barrier along the Lakehurst Creek. And in the phase two, we'll be proposing to replace a 30 inch pipe with a fish passable culvert between I 405 and Lake Washington Boulevard.

And the schedule is pushed out in in further in the later years to coordinate with a a future of WSHDAT project because it's it's gonna be a combined effort. D 94, is the next, which is our flood control program. Projects within this program propose to reduce flooding by constructing facilities that have sufficient capacity to handle peak stormwater flow. This program includes major culvert replacement at the Kelsie Creek, which is now under construction. And the cost of that project has gone up due to complex design and construction and permit requirements.

But it is also worth noting that we have secured $1,100,000 competitive grant for from the King County Flood Control District for this project. Valley Creek Culvert replacement at Northeast 20th Street is another project, also obtained $1,000,000 grant from King County flood control district, and the schedule of the design and construction phase is adjusted or actually moved ahead, two years because now that we have grant and we can, proceed at the the more accelerated schedule. 2027 and 2032, CIP also proposed few projects that didn't make it in the last time. Wellers Cove conveyance modification and Downtown Bellevue hydraulic modeling projects were added with an alerted schedule in 2027 as some of the private properties at these locations are at the risk of damage due to flooding. The police planning phase may also identify a few additional projects to be addressed in the subsequent years.

And then two other major projects new projects were added are culvert replacement at Southeast 35th Street and Tamoshanter Park drainage project. Next is d one zero nine, which is the water quality retrofit program. This program funds projects that aim to improve surface water quality by implementing treatment techniques to reduce or remove pollutants from our stormwater runoff. The proposed budget is approximately 8,000,000 higher than the adopted budget. And this is because we have added several new projects to this program.

Projects like Lakemont water quality treatment retrofit and Hampton Greens treatment projects were added because of failing existing treatment facilities. These projects also help satisfy the NPDS permit requirements for treating surface runoff from existing sites. Valley Creek and Gulf Creek water quality retrofit projects were added to treat washout runoff entering our cities right away. It is funded through our using our washout storm water fee. And then we also have to adjust some of the schedule due to availability of right away and to sync up with Washtop project, and couple of them are listed for for the second and third bullet.

So before I wrap up, there are also a few minor budget adjustment proposed in this cycle, and these includes d 86, which is a the cost of the Coal Creek off-site sedimentation project, adjusted the the project cost by about half 1,000,000. And d one eleven, which is a new program added to to house that one third share of the proposed East Gate Yard improvements project. D one twelve, which is a planning program, proposed some additional scope and assisted budget for the watershed management plan and Kelsey Creek Watershed stormwater retrofit planning project. It's a new project that we just started. Your budget book has a lot more details, so want to move to to wrap up.

But before I hand over to Dave, any question on the storm fund?

Has to do with any more WSDOT project culvert related projects. I know you mentioned one off of four zero five. I'm just wondering how you know, are we done doing those WSDOT projects, or how many more do we have coming?

There's one in in construction, the one Sunset Creek, and then there's one at the Lewis Creek that is kind of in the evaluation phase. We may not have our share of utilities in that, but we're tracking those. And these are the ones that are dimensioned, the w d one of nine that uses. So the fee indirectly from the from WSTAD. Yeah. For now. There's one in the Lakehurst that I mentioned that we are we know that we have to do it, and we are waiting to to partner with Washdad between I 405 and Washington Boulevard.

Any other Great. Questions on storm? We made it. That's a lot of projects. Alright.

So I'm gonna recap, the key points here. So here's some key takeaways. Bellevue Utilities ensures sustainable utility service to our customers by planning, delivering a robust capital improvement program. It actively manages our aging infrastructure through renewal and replacement, supports community growth and environmental stewardship, enhances our service delivery to our customers, ensures that we continue to meet regulatory requirements, and develop and implements technology solutions for maximum benefit. Our proposed budget further develops our proactive asset management to optimize costs of the infrastructure.

The proposed six year CIP, even though larger than the previous six year p I CIP, is within our planned rate path. We're accelerating some water main replacement projects and expanding water storage capacity for future growth. Sewer utility renewal and replacement projects are ramping up to meet our asset management strategy, and the storm utility continues to focus on point repairs and added many new projects from our system plan updates to manage flooding and water quality to meet regulatory requirements. Lastly, we're adding several new projects to the CIP to address planning and emerging needs, and a lot of those also get, inputted from operations and maintenance as well. Here, I wanna talk about our robust community engagement plans that we have for our capital improvement program.

The goal of our public engagement strategy is to use inclusive and accessible engagement opportunities to ensure transparency and understanding in the utility's CIP budget process. We wanna keep the community informed, gather feedback, and build public trust. We use various various digital and in person channels to accomplish this. Utilities has a public public facing budget website with an overview and timeline that we will maintain with regular updates as we go through the budget process. This is our one true source of public information about the budget.

We then share this information through various community communication channels designed to reach the diverse communities we serve in Bellevue. As you can see here, this includes video segments on Bellevue TV, community meetings, monthly social media campaigns, newsletter articles, tabling at community events, coordinated messaging with homeowners association associations and community based organizations, and partnering with other departments on shared messaging. Lastly, I wanna touch on the schedule for the capital improvement program budget with ESC. This is showing how the CIP budget inputs into the overall budget review and approval process. We have bolded the ones related to CIP.

Today, we are reviewing the preliminary CIP budget and getting your feedback. June 4, fiscal will present the operating and CIP budget proposals. June 18, the rate forecast will be presented. September 17, ESC is scheduled to provide a recommendation to city council. And lastly, in October, ESC chair is planning to present the recommendation to council.

That's it.

Yep. I that brings closure to our presentation today. Any other questions that may have?

I had one relative to staffing, and I love to hear that, you know, you guys always talk about you're looking at your resources as well as projects and, you know, scheduling as needed. So are you anticipating recommending staffing adjustments that would impact the operating budget, of course, but based on your your plan?

No. We have not included any additional staffing resources. Okay. The proposed budget, even though its size looks larger, Yeah. But we have have a very robust process in our capital delivery, and we have been tuning it up, and and we've been able to be very efficient in delivering. And also the project size may increase the for a d two project cost increase, but that doesn't mean you have a more projects to deliver.

Yeah. So sometimes the construction costs will increase, so that drives some of the need. And then, also, you can increase some of the scope for each project. So if you do a little bit more water main as part of one project, that doesn't necessarily need more resources. So Yeah. We're finding why ways to optimize the delivery process, package the right level or amount of work per project, And that allows us to deliver more with the same resources. Yeah.

Great. I will also say, though, that I'm not saying keep the line at where we are because we need to do more, as we talked about from a water main replacement standpoint, for example. And I am concerned that the water workforce is shrinking and it's becoming a real concern about getting people. So if we have to do internships or have apprenticeship programs or whatever, let's make sure we have that water workforce pipeline. And when I talk about water, of course it's water, wastewater, stormwater.

I just want to make sure we've got a reliable pipeline of people coming in to do the work. So if we have to add internships or whatever, apprenticeships to keep it reliable and sustainable, I'm for all for that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a great idea. And it's something we'll we continue to evaluate as our staffing needs. Yeah. You know, we balance what our CIP budget is with our resources, but also with what type of rate impact it might have. So we find that we try and find

that right. Yeah.

Thank you, guys. Great job.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Alright. No other questions. Thank you very much, Dave and B roll.

Thank you.

And then, we'll circle back to, councilman of any, input you wanna pass on to us from

No. No. No. No inputs. Just, sorry. I'm tardy this evening as we had the firefighter awards right next door, and, they've been bugging me to show up. So I did. It only happens once a year, but, we're very blessed by the amazing, people, not only in utilities, but in the fire department as well that represent our city and do incredible work. So, no report for me. Thank you so much.

Alright. Thank you. Joe, you wanna go over the calendars then?

Yeah. Wanna thank Dave for going over a lot of the budget items on the calendar. So this is the ESC calendar. I'll just touch on a couple. On May 21, we're looking at that field trip, a CIP field trip. So I think what we'll do is get an email out to you next week to get your availability for that date. We've committed, if we're doing a second meeting, to confirm with you your availability and then and make a decision at least three or four weeks ahead of time so you can plan. And then I'm gonna jump on to the council count.

And then well, but looking at June then, we're, for sure on that second meeting in June Yes. For the count for the admission.

Thank you. Correct? Yep. We are for sure on that. August is the recess, and Dave covered most of the other ones getting us into the fall. So I'm gonna jump down to council. April 28 is the sewer cost of service and rate design that you all worked on. I think two or three meetings were spent on this to get your recommendation out of that. That recommendation is in final draft form for commissioner Juan to sign. And then we get into May some standard project work, but King County wastewater treatment division rate forecast and the regional wastewater services plan update will be coming in May.

And then in June, another project you all worked on was the utility bill assistance program update. So that will be in June, and that will also have a recommendation coming out of the ESC. I am going to then finally in July, cascade budget rates and the cascade supply program will be updated to council. That will get us into the fall. So I'll just leave it at that. Any questions on the calendar? It is a busy, busy year.

Alright. With no further business on the agenda, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn.

I second.

Hearing no objection, meeting is adjourned at 07:55PM.