City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to Boulder Welcome to Boulder City City Council appreciate everybody being here and Some of them's looking so good in their white shirts Thank you for being here We will call the meeting to order a confirmation of posting a roll call Thank you.

The agenda was posted in accordance with Nevada open meeting law and all members are present

Thank you. We will have our invocation will all arise for the invocation by service clergy Mark Wells from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mr. Wells, please.

Our gracious Heavenly Father, we are grateful this day for the opportunity we have to assemble together in this community. We are grateful, especially this year, for the country that we live in, for the sacrifices of many that have made it possible to meet together today, for the freedoms that we enjoy of speech and religion and the ability to meet together. We are grateful for those who serve in leadership capacities here in our local city, nation, and our state, as well as those who perform the functions of staff in carrying out the activities and administrative duties of our government. We give you thanks again for our lives and our health and safety. We're mindful of those who are in need and we pray for them. We pray for our leaders that they will continue to lead with diligence and with compassion, competency, and seek inspiration from the Lord. on behalf of all of our residents in this wonderful, beautiful city. And we pray for these things humbly and give thee thanks for all that we enjoy. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, amen.

Amen. Thank you. You could remain standing while we have the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We would like to recognize our police volunteers for volunteering their time with Boulder City Police Department's, quote, you are not alone, unquote, program, which is a free service in partnership with the Senior Center that allows older adults to have comfort and security in the knowledge that someone is checking in on them on a regular basis. Sherry Anderson is probably here. We would like to recognize you and particularly the other volunteers and we will go down and get a photo with everybody and pass out the certificates to Bruce Lennon and Brad Erlandson and Lonnie Munson. and Nick Silla, and Bob Facconi, and Harry Bonnell, and Monica Chavez. So we will go down and have opportunity to have a photo. And you'll be able to come up, please.

All right, is everybody ready?

Thank you. My alarm going off down here.

On a sadder note, we will have a memorial service at 920 on Monday at the Veterans Cemetery for Blake Fenovus, active duty Marine who died recently. That will be at 920 at the Veterans Cemetery this Monday. Any other announcements?

I do have a public announcement, if I can. I've been asked to share... some information about the Ray of Hope Foundation, a local family here in Boulder City that started it. The Ray of Hope Foundation helps families navigating ongoing medical care, financial strain, and travel for specialized treatments. They offer financial support for medical equipment, holiday assistance, and wish giving initiatives. And it's founded by parents who experience the isolation and challenges of rare medical diagnoses in their family firsthand. and the ray of hope foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading hope and changing lives and more information to be found at ray of hope foundation r-a-e named after their daughter ray of hope foundation dot org thank you mayor thank you councilman

Any other announcements. Seeing none we will open public comment at this time recognizing the public comment for this portion of the agenda is anything related to the agenda. If it is not on the agenda and we would invite you to come up have public comment at the end. Seeing that if you could identify yourself and state what portion of the agenda you're going to address.

Good morning, esteemed leaders, council members, mayor, Eric King, longtime resident in the area. I wanted to speak on a couple of items. One is item eight, which is a community development block grant. And though I don't know all the details of What may or may not be earmarked there, I wanted to advocate for consideration for stormwater usage to grow more trees when you develop said properties to be developed and use these monies to help do that. I don't know how much conversations have been had so far or maybe have. may well be had going forward, but I firmly believe that well-informed decision makers that can utilize all their resources to the best advantage for the community results in a better community. And that involves trees, And what rain does fall here, which is more than in the valley. And I'm seeing a lot of pines in particular really vulnerable and needle drops. So hopefully a community development grant could be more attenuous to that.

So what we will address is those things that will benefit the elderly according to what that money is designated for already in the block grant.

And I can promise you that more trees cooling the environment and providing more shade will be less stress on the elderly. Thank you. I'm 100% sure of that, Mayor, with respect. And I'd also like to address, I believe it's item number 11, and I got it right here. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, whichever one it was, I saw it on here, the airport improvement plan. I just had it here, sorry. The airport improvement, I think it was a grant. Aviation Administration Airport Improvement Program, which is item 9C, forgive me. And I also wanted to say in particular with stormwater runoff, which is a huge issue with high velocity massive amounts on all the hardscape that airports entail. That is a huge resource that could be directed in more fundamentally effective ways for trees to be growing there, not only beautifying the area without additional cost because things like mesquite trees that, once they get established, have the ample water table that you have available here for usage for them without city water. So basically zero cost trees, cooling pavements that are there for people to come and go, have less stress, more beauty, more clean air. And those are all opportunities that are massively scaled up with airport runoff waters. So thank you for hearing me on that. I wish it was a Hollywood sign that size message that you hear me on that because that is massive amounts of water. that not only require very expensive concrete channeling and basin engagement, but channeling it into the ground and hydrating that area for those trees means they're all healthier and better. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Anyone else like to come forward in public comment?

Good evening, Mayor, council members. My name is Adam Schultes, and I want to let you know that Boulder City has a consultant problem. Tonight you are being asked to approve another $288,177 consulting contract with Lisa Wise Consulting. At the same time, the city hired FCS Group to study our utility rates and now residents are facing proposed increases of up to 5% a year for three years. My question is simple. Why do we keep paying outside consultants to do work that taxpayers and rate payers already pay city staff and voluntary advisory committees to help perform? We have professional staff, we have department heads, and we have a utility advisory committee specifically created to advise this council about utility finances and rates. Yet we hire another consultant. Then the consultant recommends higher rates and who pays? The people of Boulder City. This isn't about whether consultants are ever necessary, of course they are. This is about a city government that seems far too comfortable reaching for the taxpayers and ratepayers checkbook instead of first asking, can we do this ourself? Before you approve another $288,177 contract, tell the public, why is this consultant necessary? Why can't our existing staff do more of this work? And exactly how much has Boulder City spent on outside consultants over the last two years? And what fund is it coming out of? Who's paying for it? Because $50,000 here, $100,000 there, and $288,000 somewhere else adds up to real money. Older city residents are being asked to tighten their belts while their utility rates might go up. Maybe it's time City Hall tightened its belts too. Stop automatically outsourcing the work of government. Spend our money like it was your own. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment?

I'm Carol Schultes. Good evening, mayor and council members. Tonight, residents are being asked to accept a 5% increase in electric rates every year for three years, compounded that is approximately 15.8% by the third year. Water and wastewater rates would also increase by 5% annually. The city says the additional electric revenue is needed for our aging distribution system. I understand that reliable utilities must be maintained, but residents deserve a complete financial picture before being committed to three years of automatic increases. More than 30 data center facilities are already operating across Clark County. NV Energy has also reported 39 prospective data center customers requesting approximately 16.5 megawatts of new capacity currently right now. Those 39 are not operating facilities but they demonstrate the extraordinary level of future demand being proposed for the Southern Nevada grid. Boulder City residents must also understand that the city appeal of BLM data center decision and the November's transfer area ballot question are two separate matters that involve the electrical grid. Appeal concerns a data center on federal land. Question one concerns operating, opening city controlled land inside the transfer area to data center development. Appealing one federal decision does not prevent the city from approving data centers on city land if question one passes. and it should because our appeal was brilliant and it included every reason that our citizens have given that we don't want data centers A few months ago, the city approved three large battery energy storing projects involving land in the transfer area. Prime energy at 500 megawatts, REV renewables at 250 megawatts, and ion energy at 200 megawatts. These best projects not data centers, but before the election Residents deserve to know whether any of these leases options or land arrangements could later be amended assigned expanded or replaced to accommodate data centers and One of our council members asked Primergy, whose best application was notably short-term, whether they were planning to build a data center. She replied, not at this time, and then corrected herself to say, we're a standalone battery energy storage facility. Her oops was very telling. Meanwhile, residents see the city considering assuming costly obligations, including a new fire facility and staffing, expanded recreation operations and other capital projects while simultaneously asking households to pay higher utility rates.

Thank you. Anyone else like to come forward in public comment on anything related to the agenda?

Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff, ladies and gentlemen, Brandon Smith for the record. Just gonna chat a little bit about item number 11 on tonight's agenda. First, I'd like to just kind of follow up with what Adam said. I agree with what he had to say in regards to outside consulting. Seems like we spend an awful lot of money on that. directly in relation to item number 11 and the proposed increase to utilities basically across the board. I've kind of focused on the water because that's our big issue in front of everybody right now. Nevada's just had its allocation cut My concern is here is that we seem to do things pretty differently from Las Vegas, maybe even Henderson, in that our rates, their rates actually start lower and then exponentially increase for every new tier that their residents surpass in regards to water. usage which basically encourages as much conservation as humanly possible. Our tiers are not staggered in the same way as those cities and basically what it our tiers are staggered to a very minimal level. So somebody using, say, over 60,000, 60 megagallons a month isn't paying that substantially much more than somebody using only eight megagallons. um it seems that our our bigger users should have to pay more because if they're not they're you're not really you're just charging them a little more but you know the the people that have the money don't really care too much and i think the the realistically and exponentially staggered tiers would encourage conservation much more than the current system does. I think while it would be great that the lower user households, the one, the two people that are living in a condo somewhere aren't necessarily using a whole lot of water, aren't subsidizing the households that have eight people living them in an acre home or whatever they have. And you're just asking the little people to kind of subsidize the bigger people or the bigger households. And I think that's drastically unfair. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else like to come forward?

Travis Chandler, been a resident since 1992, 1992, something like that. I've looked at my water bill over the years. One thing I did, planted trees. I was encouraged to do that by the city. If you plant trees, this, well, it uses What is Boulder City's allocation of Colorado River water? It was what, something like 330,000 gallons? Doesn't sound like a lot when you think about it. my take on it is it's worth it using the water to plant trees they help cool the outdoors and for that matter the house itself by the trees they cast shadows and shade on the house that helps um I have a small swimming pool. I calculated, measured, in fact, 5,700 gallons of water. During the winter, I just drain it. It gets kind of green and funky, and I don't want to be spending a lot of money on chlorine. And the water's just too cold then. But in the summer, it's wonderful to get some outdoor water. Not that much, 5,700 for one pool to fill it all. During the course of a month, might be a few hundred gallons that evaporates. If anybody knows the numbers that I just referred to a little bit ago about how much the city's allocation of water we have so much of the Colorado River water for the rest of Nevada, including a lot of Clark County. I don't know if that's true or not, if they get their water from Lake Mead or not. Or for that matter, Boulder City, I do know we get usage from the Hoover Dam. They have a special turbine just for Boulder City's electric need, quite a bit smaller than the six or eight turbines for that water, too. Anyway, my thoughts are that the usage of the water We weren't really using very much there. We had a certain amount allocated to us, but didn't do much. I think it's a good thing, though. Cool your houses, cool your yards. Just plant a tree, and that'll put shade on your house. I put two trees in the front of my yard by the street, and they cast done here. That last bit put shade in my cars that are parked in the street. So lots and lots of ways I think there is to use the water, such as trees.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome. Anyone else would like to come forward in public comment regarding anything on the agenda? Seeing none, we will close public comment and move to the approval of the regular agenda. Do I have a motion?

Mayor and council, staff has a request to move item number nine to be considered after item number 13, please.

Okay. That's the motion to include in the regular agenda with that motion to move nine after 13. Any discussion all those in favor say aye aye Any opposed unanimous? Thank you and that brings us to the approval of the consent agenda. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve consent agenda.

Is there a second? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous, thank you. That brings us to our regular agenda and we will go to, we're skipping number nine for the moment and going to number 10.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Boulder City residents. I'm Julie Calloway, your Parks and Recreation Director. And tonight, I'm here to let you know a little bit about agenda item number 10, which is related to our toddlers in Boulder City and a generous grant of $2,500 from our long-time partners, the Southern Nevada Chapter of International Code Council, who's providing us with that $2,500 grant so that we can provide free swim lessons to Boulder City toddlers. I'd like to introduce Benny Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor, council members. Hello, my name is Benny Gonzalez. I'm a chairperson for the Public Outreach Committee in this committee for the Southern Nevada chapter of the International Code Council. Our chapter is dedicated to public safety in the built environment. One of many ways our chapter supports the Southern Nevada community through our public outreach committee. is through our toddler swim grant program. Currently every year, the program gives a total of $25,000 in grant money in nine cities and the Southern Nevada Child Drowning Prevention Coalition to prevent childhood drownings. through free swim lessons, pool safety, and education. Every year, almost 500 children under the age of four, school age kids, and families benefit from our toddler swim grant program. Our chapter would like to commend the City of Boulder City Parks and Recreation Department for the dedication and their efforts providing water safety awareness and prevention to our community. On behalf of the Southern Nevada Chapter of the International Code Council, we would like to present you with a check in the amount of $2,500.

You want to come up and say something?

Yes, I was hoping that we might have a motion and approval for the resolution and then we'd love a photo op.

So you don't want to say anything derogatory about that?

Absolutely not.

Okay, so I need a motion. I'll second that motion so we have a motion and second to approve the resolution 8192 any discussion Just a deep sense of gratitude for continually coming back to Boulder City

to offer our youngest little residents the opportunity to learn to swim. It's big. And when I was a young girl, I babysat a family who lost a daughter to drowning that was a toddler. And the effect that that has on a family is, you can't calculate that. So thank you so very much for this opportunity here in Boulder City. We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

And Mayor, you know, the International Code Council covers all codes, right? Codes, building code, uniform building code, electrical code, the swimming pool construction codes and safety codes as well. And we know that that local chapter is very interested in the safety of specifically our communities and we have local adoption of specific codes for Clark County that we appreciate the ICC local chapter working on to help advise for those modifications as necessary and and particularly for this thank you yeah it's it's a big deal and we appreciate that Parks and Rec has the capacity to be able to take those funds and teach those lessons to our youth thank you

Julie, can you just tell us how a family can sign up?

Absolutely, you can register for any of our toddler swim classes at the pool. You can give them a call. You just need to have an account, which most Boulder City residents already participate in some of our programs, so they already have that, and just register for classes. As long as the pool is open before we close for construction of our new facility, we will be offering swim lessons.

Thank you, I too taught my children, they're older now, but when they were infants how to swim because there's no reason that a child should drown. And whenever we could provide, one of the gentlemen talked about how we spend money in the city, this is a good way to use that grant, so thank you very much, both of you.

Thank you, anyone else? So where are we at? We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. It is unanimous, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir. I think we need a picture. With a check. Did you bring the check? Okay.

Two cameras, all right? So are we ready?

That brings us to item number 11 for possible action on the 2026 utility rate study. Mr. Poindexter.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight we're bringing you the results of the utility rate study along with some context from staff on why this work matters right now. Presenting for FCS Group, a Bowman Company, Angie Hamrick, project manager on the study, Paul Quinn, assistant project manager, and Angie Vernoche, principal. They've spent the past year working throughout our electric, water, and wastewater systems, and they'll walk you through the revenue requirements and cost of service results. We're also joined by George Kahn, who has been advising us on this effort, and with me is Shannon Ryman, our public works and utilities analyst, who will be starting our presentation. Thank you.

Thank you.

It's the red button. Okay. good evening mayor council and to our residents my name is shannon ryman i'm the public works utilities analyst and i wanted to start with a brief history of our rates increases for boulder city since 2016 the city has conducted a rate study to evaluate capital needs and cost of service and implemented modest rate increases ranging from two to four percent year to year to meet city obligations to maintain infrastructure sustain reliability of electric water and wastewater services In 2025, the city engaged a new company, FCS, to evaluate the current rates. Due to the capital projects necessary to modernize aging infrastructure and the raising costs for electricity, FCS originally recommended or found about a 9.5% increase for three years to meet our obligations just for electric. The city engaged in value engineering to reduce the impact to our residents and businesses by prioritizing and deferring some capital projects and utilizing specialized funds and inter-fund loans to meet current capital needs. That leads us into enterprise funds. Many cities operate water and wastewater utilities, but Boulder City, we also operate our own electric utility. And as noted on the slides, enterprise funds are funded separately from the other city operations and are funded by user fees rather than taxes. Enterprise funds are designed to be completely self-sufficient, meaning users fees, excuse me, meaning users fees pay for all the costs for purchasing resources like our electric and water, our distribution infrastructure, and administrative costs. Okay. So the city does pay for all resources that are distributed to our customers. The city does not receive any electric or water for free. The slides show the diversity of our power portfolio, associated cost, as well as the water delivery and infrastructure cost from the SNWA. You'll see the representative in those pie charts. so now that i've gone over that um our what we pay for our resources and the funds that it comes from i'm going to hand the presentation over to gary so he can discuss the poles wires pipes and pumps that brings power and water to our residents before you leave we may have questions

I have a question. You did say something about free.

It's not free. It's not free. Not free.

OK. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Mayor, if I could, I appreciate the fact that you addressed you know, the NRS regulation for enterprise funds. Right. And you and you explain that. Well, I think those other three boxes there are are really important. And if you would just touch on those briefly, please. This really is the foundation of the whole conversation here. Yeah. And so if you could elaborate on those and succinctly, please, that would help us as we continue on the conversation.

Right, so the most important are rate payers. That's how we fund these enterprise funds. We don't receive taxes to fund these. So our electric water and waste water, they don't receive property tax. There's no sales tax that go into it. Every dollar that is paid by utility rates is what's used towards maintaining the system infrastructure and the purchases of our resources.

Okay, that's one. Let's go to the next one.

Okay, so number two, we do have electric, water, and wastewater utility. As I said, we're special and have our electric utility as well. However, they're not three separate enterprise funds. It is one fund, but just for the sake of transparency is the reason that we like to keep them delineated by electric, water, and wastewater utility. but all in all it is just one enterprise fund. Now for the borrowing rules for the third square up there, As it says, the money loaned out of the enterprise fund is where the NRS comes into, but these aren't going out of the enterprise fund as they are one, so it's interfund is how I believe that's important.

So water and electric could share some funds, but it's gotta go back to where it came from initially. That's what you're saying on this box, right? If water shares money with electric, water has to pay that back to electric, right?

The law is really for funds outside of the enterprise fund. So the funds within the enterprise fund are not obligated by law to pay one another back. But I think the reason why we put it there is for the next, the bottom box there, which shows the city's debt limitation obligation and that we can't bond for over a million dollars without voter approval. And so this just highlights the restrictions that having an enterprise fund, one, has in that any loans out of it must be repaid. And then number two, if there were a large capital need, in order to meet that need, we would not be able to bond for it without voter approval, which is why it's important to maintain reserves and things like that.

Thank you. And I think that's a really important distinction. Our neighbors often will just take out bonds and service the bonds with the income, therefore, and just pay as you go for 30 years or 50 years or however long that bond happens to be. We don't have that luxury. We're not bonding. We don't have... the ability without going to a vote. And if we need a transformer change to wait for the next election cycle, it just isn't going to serve our customers. Therefore, these reserves are crucial for our utility funds here. And we have several sections in our financial management ordinance that dictates the amount that we need to have in our reserves. So as we talk about this, we'll be talking about the reserves required. to be responsive to those infrastructure needs.

Yes, and I think we'll see that definitely as we dive more into our presentation here. Thanks, Shannon, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. All right, well, is there any more questions?

Well, I'm gonna ask the obvious question. How do we stack up with comparing us with other entities?

There is a slide a little bit later on that will answer that question for you. All right.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you so much.

Any other questions? Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Well, with that, I'm going to pass it over to Gary so he can start talking about our infrastructure.

All right, so we added some slides in here to give a little explanation of the infrastructure. Went more into the electric side of it, but I can go into the water and wastewater a little bit more, but on the slides, it's mainly, it is the electric. So we have our six substations. Anywhere from back in the 1950s is substation one, which is located at our city maintenance yard. We also have substation two, which is 1990s, anywhere 70s, 80s, 90s, and late 90s. So part of that is your substation is about a 40 to 50 year. Plus, our older system is a 4KV. We need to switch to a 12KV. 4KV is more lower level mid... 12 KV is going to be more reliable, higher level for us. So it is part of something we're trying to switch to. We are going to sub three right now as a remodel in design. So we plan on, once we get that built, we'll be looking at tying in some feeder projects along with removing some of the 4KV substations and rebuilding one other. so next next slide just shows some of our ugms our power poles so you have 798 ugms 1495 wooden poles out there they last only so long so we've been replacing them it's all part of the infrastructure upgrades you have Substation three, these kind of give you a little breakdown of what I already talked about. This is in design right now. This is located at River Mountain in Adams. So with this by next year, we'll be having a new substation being built. that is funded right now this goes one of our older oldest substations um for older excuse me is from 1990s with the transformers with 50s and the breakers and everything they still work but sooner or later they're not going to and we can't get parts because when you're looking there are companies that salvage these and they have warehouses so you call them up and you're looking for a certain fuse or something we might get lucky and we're going to pay for it So yes. so you said they they still work what's the hazard of leaving it there and then it going down what does that look like for the city so part of what we have on some of the cip projects and is the feeder and the tie-ins so if a substation does go down most cases and we do have three projects on the cip but in most cases we can pick it up from another substation So in some of these CIP projects, if a substation goes down, we may not be able to pick up a certain area. So that's why some of these projects are very important to loop it for also reliability. Also, we have some primary cable that is not large enough to handle what is actually being used. So it's not if, it's when.

What would determine the turnaround time for that? Would be the cost, would it be manufacturing? I mean, obviously if something catches us by surprise, there's gotta be some kind of turnaround time.

it is we have we keep cable in in stock so it'd be the matter of pulling that cable a lot of times we'll have an outage and we have a failed cable and whether or not we can pull it the failed out of the conduit or we have to run above ground and trench so

What if a full, is it a, I wish I could say more. Transformer, yes, thank you, went out.

When a substation went out, we'd be picking it up, doing what we can to get it onto another substation, because those transformers are, they're out quite a ways. And I could tell you maybe a year. Sometimes they surprise. The last time we ordered, it was supposed to be a year, and they surprised us in six months.

Okay, so the turnaround time for it is a long time. Yeah. And the cost for it. Correct. More than a million?

The last one we bought, yes, yeah.

Okay.

Gary, I have a quick question for you. So in layman's terms, what happens when the substation goes down? How do we fill that as a resident? We go round out?

Yeah, well, a lot of times what will happen is it will transfer over to another substation. Or our staff, when they come in, they'll open some phases and they'll be able to pick it up at another substation. You'll start seeing when there's a large outage, all of a sudden, say we got 2,000 homes out and within an hour we might have half of them back on because we were able to pick them up in another circuit or another sub. On the girl streets, where they were out, and it was like maybe five minutes, but that's... A lot of times, and you might be at home, and all of a sudden it flickers real quick.

Yes.

It got picked up, another circuit picked it up.

So we're on borrowed time, really. This is 1970, I think you said it was?

Yeah, and you're about a 40 to 50 year lifespan on a substation.

Okay, thank you.

I work that night the first time I've been up over 24 hours in a long time I paid for that for a few days how this is going to prevent that from happening So yeah, that ended up being a transformer over on, over off of Jerry, and not Stacy, but the next one over. And lived here that long, and I just lost the name on it. And a failed, caused another failed cable over on Georgia. So it was one thing, the domino effect caused another, and it was, the way the system, being as old as it is, We start putting fault locators in throughout the town. The problem is you have to search for it. So it's a needle in a haystack. So unless somebody calls, say we have an outage and somebody calls going, hey, I heard this explosion over here, all of a sudden we can really dial in to going, hey, it's in this vicinity. The problem is, in that case, we didn't know where exactly it started. So we worked from Georgia over to Christine and over to the girls' streets, and that's when we found on Ramona that there was a transformer. And so we ended up having a cable over on Georgia and a transformer on Ramona. And it was just a matter of finding it. I think at the same time, we had Del Prado went out around the same time. We had another outage up there.

You mentioned something like you're putting something in the line so you can catch that faster.

There's a fault indicator. It goes inside the cabinet. So we've been putting those in. That's part of our improvements is so they'll be able to open it up and see if it tripped. Then they know they're in the right area.

And where are these cabinets at?

These are your transformers or inside the UGMs. that are located, as you're out walking sidewalks, you'll see the metal lids that say electric on them. You also have other communication companies that have bolts too, but ours will say electric.

Thank you.

Anything else? Okay, continue on.

All right, so I'll go back to, let's see. So this goes into our electric, the different CIP projects we have. I mentioned a few of these already. Substation three rebuild, we're in design right now, almost at 90%. We're working with CRC closely on that. circuit 45 61 62 and then the other circuit 63 and then you'll see the Those are in 27 and the tie for 14 to 24 and 28. Those are all reliability Switching like you mentioned if we had to switch from subs so when you the line size upgrades, so those are what those projects are all about and And then the substation one two substation four feeders is when we do go over the 12 KV. That is your So we can remove substation one from the system And then as we go down substation for rebuild is going to be rebuilding that from a port KV to 12 KV We're not going to tear it down. We're going to rebuild it so and then of course our bucket trucks And then our distribution upgrades and meter replacement, that includes all of our changing up poles, pole transformers, regular transformers. We have UGMs, you'll see I walk in and some of the lids, they'll go bad after a while. So that's all part of the infrastructure we have to replace. And then the transmission switches, there's four of them. You'll see we have a transmission line up, Buchanan, large poles, and then down Adams. So there's four transmission switches throughout the town. I'm sorry, I didn't click two things. So that's your electric. And then your water and wastewater capital projects. So I didn't include any pictures. However, so we have the 14-inch line, solar field, PRVs. There's really high pressure down that way. so adding those prvs we're in design on that the adams boulevard potable main extension is going to be for the new substation for a fire hydrant so the pressure reducing valves around town the prvs and back flows give you an idea We've got about 3,200 valves out there, street valves, isolator system. I've got 786 feet of potable main line. Sewer, we've got 450,000 feet of sewer main line. And a lot of this, I mean, you look up on Cherry and Birch and Ash, and those are all from when that area was built. It's all clay pipe. So it's all part of a very important for us to continue putting money into our infrastructure. And from there I'm gonna pass, any questions for me?

Are those clay pipes, are they out in the street also? I know they come through the yards, and so there's always a problem with the roots, but are they out in the street, the clay pipes also?

Yeah, correct. On the main line up on Ash, Birch, Cherry, some of the tree streets, they are.

Okay, so we have to replace that. Okay, thank you.

And I wouldn't replace it. We would actually line it. Oh. So there is other ways to not have to trench dig up the entire street. More cost effective is to line the clay pipes.

And how long does that last?

100 years.

Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah, that's what they claim. I haven't been around to see.

Yeah, I know. I hear you. Thank you.

You got it. Thank you. All right. Let me get out of your way, Angie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, hello. Angie Hamrick with FCS. I'm joined with Angie Vinash and Paul Quinn for this part of the presentation. And so I'm going to start with why a rate study. There we go. Why rate study? So when we talk about that, just enabling the utility to be self-sufficient, you want to see and understand the fees need to be generated to cover the cost for that utility on its own. It informs financial decisions and their impact. You want to develop that capital plan that is specific to that utility, and then you can evaluate the needs for external funding. You're looking at equitable cost recovery for customers. You know that each class has a different demand on the system and so you want to develop that plan. And then it's a living plan set that can achieve a long-term planning objectives. so fcs was retained to complete this utility rate study and we've done about over 3 000 of these similar to this one i just want to say that we're grateful to the city staff as well for their help especially for the data that they were provided to to produce this study it was definitely a team effort But as we move through, the utility rate study itself is a multi-year financial plan providing a forward look at each system's needs. And for the water and the electric systems, we also did the cost of service analysis and we looked at rate design considerations. So our focus for today is really taking a look at the overall rate study, the revenue requirements for each system, the cost of service analysis results for water and electric, and then we're gonna move into fiscal year 28, rate design considerations for water and electric as well. Overall the rate setting process you start with step one the revenue requirement What is my overall need my overall revenue need step two is moving into cost of service? It's looking at that equity evaluation Looking in each class because they have a different demand on the system and then three rate design designing the rates what is the structure of the rates to collect that target revenue and And continuing on with a deeper dive into revenue requirements, it's a multi-year financial plan, so it looks at the revenue necessary to meet all the obligations. Okay, what are your operating costs? What are your capital expenditures? What's your debt service? What are those fiscal policies that you have to meet year over year? From there, it's looking at your capital funding plan and your capital needs, identifying those capital needs, maintaining ongoing system reliability, sustainability, potentially internal, external funding sources, and then rate stability. And then evaluate sufficiency of current rates on a standalone basis. Again, we're kind of going back to that self-sufficient. We're looking at each individual utility on its own. And then from there, crafting an annual rate implementation strategy. There's another look at revenue requirement, kind of more of a visual. You look at your financial policies. You look at what you're forecasting for O&M costs. What is your rate-funded capital for that particular utility? What are your existing and potentially new debt service? And all of that wrapped together becomes that annual revenue need. And from there, I'm gonna jump into wastewater unless there's any questions. For each of the systems, we had similar assumptions, although they're a little bit different for each. We started, obviously all of the forecast basis was the same, 2026 to 2035. The reserve targets, we held 90 days of cash on the operating expenses and then 2% of fixed assets. Those were the same across each system for those metrics. Customer growth was held at 0.26%. That's about 17 new services. Annual revenue was right about 2.5 million in 2026. We looked at operating expense based on 2026 budget. We utilized inflationary factors ranging from 3.25 to 5%. 5% example was how we forecasted labor forward. For wastewater, there was no existing debt. And for the capital plan from 2026 to 2035, it was right at $21.6 million in current dollars or $24.7 in escalated dollars.

I have a question on that slide. On the customer growth, did you factor in Track 350 and the homes that will be built there in the next couple of years?

I don't believe that we did. I'm going to ask for...

That's right, of the allotments, yeah.

We took an overall average to include that, yes. Okay, yeah. Thank you. Sure. Okay, so moving on to the wastewater revenue requirement. I'd like to just take a minute, kind of orient you to the chart and walk through each kind of component. So the dark blue is the cash operating expenses. That's that bottom part of the chart. And then on top of that is the yellow, which is the rate-funded capital. And as we see that dark black line that is trending down through the yellow towards the blue, that's your revenue at existing rates for the wastewater system. So if there are no increases and if left without those increases, your trend would be down and you would start to not be able to fund in the capital needs and then moving towards the operating costs. So the gray dotted line are your targets for the year. But you can see the black dotted line then shows the 5% increases through 2031 and then 3% from 2032 on that then goes above and meets those needs at those levels. I also want to talk about the gray in the background, which is the fund balance that is also being utilized to come down and help with capital projects. Between 29 and 30, there's about 9 million in costs, and so you're going into your fund balance to help fund those projects, and then you're slowly building those funds back up. So it's a combination of all of those together to meet this plan.

Mayor, if I could, could you explain which fund balances we're referring to?

So those that are attributed to wastewater in that enterprise fund that are the basis where you start with your wastewater fund balance, and that's what we use for the particular study for just wastewater. And then I'll note too that there's just some examples on the bottom, these are.

I was gonna ask you about that, go ahead.

Okay, going back. So there are There we go. The difference, like if you look at 2026 for a wastewater bill, it's 2528, a 5% increase takes it to 2654. And then you can see it goes up to about $1.53 difference by 2031. And then once you go back to the 3%, it's about 97 cents additional per year at that level.

Mayor, may I make a clarifying comment and correct me if I'm wrong? Sure, sure. I think this is a very important slide and I found it very interesting because that very large gray area between 2026 and 2030 is the reserves that have built up over time and the city has a backlog of projects that we've identified and if I understand this correctly, we will be using those reserves to essentially implement those capital projects. If we did not have those reserves, the increase would need to be more, because we still need to cover those costs, but we have built up a reserve that can cover that. And I just wanted to point that out particularly on this slide, because I think it's very important. would those cost be the substation those bigger items which items are you talking about that covers it yeah this slide is actually for the wastewater projects so some of the sewer projects that gary mentioned of replacing the clay pipes i think those they were totaling upwards of like 16 million yeah and the other large ticket items are the lift the two lift stations okay capital improvement program without those we would be in trouble on projects

still the figures that were down at the bottom is that what the increase would be projected for a residential for the wastewater if i could continue on that point that the city manager was making

And so you mentioned that gray dashed line that's within the blue operational area. Those are our target reserves. So as we spend the current reserves, will these target reserves then build that back up to where it is now or will it maintain that reserve balance at a much lower level as we see projected out from 2031?

So it'll maintain that level at the gray dotted line and then it'll start to build above that. So that's kind of your bottom. So we're trying to hold those targets and then we're starting to build back above it from there. Does that answer your question? It does.

I think it's so important, the city manager pointed this out. It seems like sometimes we do our absolute best to keep things together with duct tape and bailing wire. And we get every last ounce of service out of our infrastructure, but there comes a point where the duct tape and bailing wire just isn't sufficient any longer and we have to make investments. and it feels like we're at that point now that that we've done all that we can to extend these to delay the projects to not do certain projects we've gotten federal funding and some of our national representatives have been here to uh to um you know to represent the fact that they got this for us and we've been able to do upgrades at our wastewater treatment facility because of some of that money and which has preserved our reserves and we're grateful for that funding but that's not a bottomless well either and we need to you know recognize that these investments are important to be made yeah thanks

if i may so if if we didn't have our huge gray area of reserves we would be in big trouble right now much much higher increases to accomplish the capital plan that's needed we would have to be doing a whole lot more of implementing or augmenting the proposal that we have today, for instance.

Correct.

And so we're using those reserves appropriately so that we can spread out the need that we have in order to be able to use those so that we don't put people in desperate situations. Right. Thank you.

Yes, of course. Going on to water. Similar assumptions, a little different. Same forecast basis, reserve targets are held the same levels, they're a little bit higher though because of their percentages. Growth is the same, 0.26%. Annual rate revenues run about 10.7 million in 2026. We have those basic same inflationary factors, although there's some other options here with SNWA water purchases. Existing debt is for the series 2019 utility revenue refund refunding bond 2.2 million and that last payment will come in 2032 Capital plan for waters at fifteen point seven million and escalated dollars is eighteen million. I So we'll take a look at this chart. So we start again with those cash operating funds, expenses, the dark blue. The teal is actually the SNWA water purchases, which is a substantial amount of the water expense. The darker green is your existing debt service, and you can see that that really bumps into any sort of rate-funded capital that you can accomplish through 2031. And I'll take your eyes to, again, the dark black line. As it trends down, you can see that you're not able to meet the debt service, and then it goes right into the SNWA purchases by 2032, if there are no rate increases. So then with the 5% through 2032, that brings your ability to come up above the debt service and then raise your rate funded capital. The biggest increase there too is because your debt is coming off in 2032. So then you're just rate funding by cash at that point. No existing debt, no proposed debt. draw your eyes again to the lighter gray behind. And so from there too, we are coming in a little bit as well with water, utilizing those funds and then building them back up from three and a half on up through 2035.

And then- So the theory is it's good to have a reserve.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

Particularly since we have that bonding limitation, right?

Yes, and it's yeah, I'm sorry if that was gonna be your thunder go ahead It's exactly the reason we do have those funds building in there is because You want to offset any kind of emergency. It's really easy to see when a road is aging and people complain all the time. Have you seen this road? Have you seen that? I mean, I don't know how many people understood Gary when he stood to talk about everything that he just talked about. It's a little harder to understand maybe when your electrical Supply chain is aging or your water or what kind of projects need to happen to keep us providing the services that we provide and utilities for us are Multiple other municipalities don't have their own electric that they're doing. So revenue is not just nice, it's vital. I serve on the Clark County Debt Commission. We never take out debt, because we cannot, and everyone else, this is how they're surviving. We're mandated to keep surviving with what's coming into the revenue fund, and it has to self-sustain.

So I know I tried to ask this before, but how do we compare with other municipalities?

Well, I think, and then there is a slide coming, and we have some deeper dives here. That's what I heard.

I'm just waiting.

But you're comparable, very comparable, how that told you to that next slide. I'm sorry.

One last question here, at least my last question. Could you remind everybody the debt service, what that's for, please?

That is the refunding, the 2019 refunding bond, the $2.2 million that will drop off in 2032. And the project... I was going to say 23. Yeah, it'll fall off in 2031. You'll have it. Yeah. Right, right. That's right. The raw water line. Yes, thank you. And I'll just draw your attention to the bottom of the slide is just the increases. for water with the 5% and then the 3% later on. So $2.02 up to 257 in 2032, so. Go ahead, Kathy.

Just had a quick question just from my own understanding. So at 2032, it looks like it drops off. What would keep that from happening? Would that be like an emergency or is this, this is not a guaranteed, it's just a projection, correct?

So the debt itself is dropping off, meaning that you've paid all of your debt, and so it would keep it from happening if you didn't pay your debt. So I think that's what you're asking, right?

Yes. Well, there's going to be an increase on water. That's at the bottom, correct? And at 20, oh, it is going up. Never mind. I see it at the bottom. I think the drop-off is 2032 to 2033. Okay.

Oh yeah, when it changes from 5% to 3 1⁄2, the rate itself, the increase in the, is less of an impact in 2033. Because the debt is paid off? Yeah, it helps that we get it to 5% in 2032, we keep it there, but then we're able to come off because the debt has been paid. That was a substantial help.

Okay, and the only thing to keep the debt from being paid is some type of emergency, obviously.

Right, yeah.

Okay, thank you, just for clarification.

My question is this. What happens if our water here, I see it's the blue, what if that triples in price and we don't have enough money to purchase the water towards the end? Do we have to do emergency rate increase? How do we handle that? And I know this for three years, but what if something happens next year where our water's tripled?

the cost from SNWA, for instance. So I know it's a contract basis, and I believe that we've built in the contract rates for the next two to three years. But if something happens, then that's what you would have to do is come back and note that they didn't say that the increase was more, and you'd have to come back and increase to cover those costs. Again, you have substantial reserves that, depending on what level that would be, you could potentially ride out that increase. So it would just have to be an analysis, what makes the most sense at that time.

So do we have a legal and binding contract for the next three years for our water rate? Yes, yes, yes.

SNWA. The rates are set by SNWA. I don't believe we have a contract. We have a board member, and they're updated if there's going to be any rate changes. The wholesale rate, you know, we're paying for the water treatment, we're paying for that. A lot of the capital for SWA projects is through a different source, so it's my understanding the wholesale rate is just operations costs and treatment costs. So if those were to unanticipatedly go up, but I believe we had forecasts and provided those to the consultant. But we would have, if they were to go up, we would be briefed at the staff level and it would go to our board, our SNWA board. And so we have that representation there.

But we don't have a contract.

We have a contract with SNWA, but it's not a set rate in the contract. It's just what is set by the authority. And our membership is, we have a council member as a member. All the member agencies have members.

I think it's important to acknowledge, you know, just like we... don't know what the, we're forecasting costs, right? And SNWA as the overseer with all the purveyor members having a seat there, same thing, their model predominantly, their biggest source of income is from the bigger communities over the hill, right? and growth has been that model. Charges for meters and extending sewer lines and wastewater and septic and so forth. As growth slows down, the SNWA totality, all of us purveyor members, that revenue will likely decrease because of the slowdown in growth. And we know that there is a slowdown forecasted because independent of our issue out here with the BLM, it literally takes an act of Congress to sell land to municipalities. And they're slowing that down. And so the communities over the hill can't gobble up, so to speak, more federal land to build on. And therefore, there's a construction slowdown on the horizon because of that. But the cost to treat, to pump, and to service all the facilities continues to go up just like ours does. so you know the board members will see if there if there ever is a request by the purveyor members to maintain the reserves that we need at that purveyor level to increase the wholesale cost to the purveyor members in total so we'll see how that comes

So do we get about a year's heads up on this sort of thing?

Well, there hasn't been a rate increase that I've been involved in. So Gary might be able to better forecast that. I don't know how long that lead time is.

I have not heard anything. Thank you.

So we have a sample down below of the cost increase. Is this, and as it was pointed out in public comment, there's different structures, right, for the amount used. Is this at the lowest level of water use?

This would be a residential $5,000, yeah, kickoff.

Is that our lowest cost?

It's an average residential, yeah.

Okay. How many tiers do we have in there for usage?

There are four for water, four.

OK.

Thank you. It's about for the residential schedule, It's based on per 1,000 gallons. And so the first 8,000 per month is a certain rate. And then between 8,000 and 25,000 per month is a certain rate. So this is just taking the average residential use and what that bill would be. So for smaller households, it's going to be less. Apartments, things like that. For larger homes, it would probably be slightly more.

thank you it was just pointed out to me too that you did give us a handout along with the other six sitting right here that i will now assimilate so thank you for that information that answer you got your question on that because the tears then of anything over 45 that or because of five to ten tend to It did answer mine, because what it says to me is if it is an average, right, then it's not the lowest end, but it's also not the highest end. So it kind of says to me that we're not just showing you the lowest end of it to make ourselves look good. We did an average. Thank you.

I think some of the statistics and the rates that we've heard, you know, in five years it's going to be this or that. Well, in five years plus one year or in seven years, our rates are going to go down simply because we paid off the debt. And I think we need to realize that even though we're paying off the debt, once that debt is off, we're going to be paying less in a household for water than we are now.

The increase will be less, but the overall total is still increasing.

So when I look at the sample resident monthly bill at the bottom, 2033, it'll be 189.

would be the increase, yeah. So 232 is 5402, and 233 is 5591. You are reducing the overall increase, but the bill itself is still continuing to rise.

So that is a... That's a three and a half percent increase. A bill as opposed to an increase.

Yeah, so the bottom line is the difference, or the increase, and the monthly sample bill is that actual bill as it progresses through the years.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, of course. And I think next we're going to go to electric. And Paul Quinn, who's on, is going to walk you through this portion. Thank you, Angie.

So if we take a look at the next slide, similar assumptions for the electric utility in terms of our study period was the year 26 through fiscal year 35. We're looking at similar reserve targets, 90 days of operating expenses and power, plus 2% of our asset costs.

Can he disconnect and reconnect? Hang up and call back. That always works.

Did you want him to disconnect? Yeah, Paul, if you can hear me, there's some feedback. from, I don't know if it helps for you to connect and reconnect. Try again.

Can you guys hear me now?

Still a little feedback.

So can we turn off this mic while he's talking? I don't think it's on our end.

He said have a call back.

Right now.

How about now?

A little better. Yeah.

A little better? Now it's really soft.

If we look at the overall electric assumptions on that slide there, so similar assumptions for this utility where we're looking at a 10-year period, fiscal year 26 through 35. similar reserve target minimums of 90 days of our operating expenses in power and 2% of our asset costs. So for the electric utility, that combined target is around $5.5 million today. Our growth assumptions for the utility really ties into the energy purchase forecast that was developed by your power purchase partners at Silver State Energy Association. They help you coordinate with the various entities that you're purchasing power from, and they also help you secure open market purchases. So they come up with a growth forecast for the utility. every year. We're tying to that forecast that they provided to you all a couple months ago. Based on that forecast and your current rate schedule, that translates to about $19 million in annual rate revenue for the utility before rate adjustments. Our operating expenses were based on the fiscal year 26 budget plus inflation. For our future power cost projections, we started with that forecast, again, provided by Silver State Energy Association. We did make a few tweaks to those cost numbers to incorporate a few power purchase agreements that you entered in following that power cost forecast, one for the Parker Davis Hydro Project and another for the Pinal County Solar Project. Overall, that translates to about four and three quarters percent inflation per year for the utility on its costs. For this utility, there's no existing debt service, so not having to repay anything there. And over the next 10-year period, we're anticipating about $70 million or so in capital expenses. So if we switch to the next slide.

On that slide, I noticed the residential is different. It's like three times higher, 60 residential. Why is it so much different from the water? It just includes businesses?

So we're tying, you all received a forecast of growth from the electric utility from your partners that help secure you power.

They come up with a load forecast, an energy forecast, and that's the forecast we're tying to for the electric utility.

For residential, we looked at the five-year just residential growth. So just different ways we were looking at growth for different utilities.

okay so that's why the difference between the water and uh electric okay correct correct so on the next slide we bring everything together as angie went through before the colored bars here represent your near the utilities expense obligations so that bottom dark blue bar represents your own expenses The middle green bar represents your power costs. And then that gold bar on top represents rate funded capital. The solid black line on top of that graphic is the forecast of your total revenues before any rate adjustments. And so if we compare that solid black line to your cost or the colored bars, what we can see is the utility is able to cover operating and power cost expenses before any rate adjustments, at least for the next several years. However, what it's not able to do is fund the capital program and get some of those aging infrastructures replaced, as Gary went through earlier in the presentation. When we were originally reviewing these numbers with staff in the UAC, we were looking at 9% plus annual increases for this first several years. It became pretty clear to us after talking with staff in the UAC that, you know, 9% were just not acceptable in terms of the annual rate increase for the utility. So we went back and worked the numbers a little bit. What we're proposing here is capping the annual rate adjustments at 5% per year for the next several years. In order to make that happen, the utility is going to receive several transfers. One in 2028 from the shared utility rate stabilization fund of about $3 million. and then another $2.15 million from the water utility spread across fiscal year 29 through fiscal year 31. Now that rate stabilization reserve that will be replenished by fiscal year 32. The transfer from the water utility will be paid back to the water utility by fiscal year 36. And if you look back in the graphic starting in that 2032, you'll notice there is another expense bar between the power cost and the rate funded capital that represents that pay back to the water utility for that 2.15 million dollar transfer we're anticipating the other takeaway looking at that graphic is that shaded gray area graphic in the background and that dotted gray line so that shaded area represented in that gray color is our forecast of our ending cash reserves for the utility after rate adjustments and transfers from the rate stabilization fund and the water utility. You can see for the first couple years starting in 2028 or so, we're gonna be dipping below the reserve targets and we're gonna be going below for several years in terms of the projection. The good news is we're able to meet that 90-day operating reserve target. What we're not able to fully meet is that 2% of our asset costs. So the combined target we're not able to quite meet. until year nine or 10 of the forecast. But again, what we're trying to do here for the electric utility is cap rate increases at 5% in the interim, but still get all our capital programs funded and make sure we're able to pay our staff wages and our power costs, keep the lights on. The other table I'll note here is on the bottom, we're showing you a sample monthly bill for a typical residential customer. Now we're assuming in this, this instance uh this is using 1200 kilowatt hours of energy on a monthly basis that is you know the residential average annual monthly usage uh statistic looking at the past couple years it should be noted when you when you're peaking in the summertime you got the ac load on the average monthly usage is closer to 2 000 kilowatt hours per month but on the off, you know, the shoulder months or off peak season, energy usage is closer to 800, 900 kilowatt hours per month. The 1200 represents kind of the average annual monthly usage statistics. So right now, under that usage, a residential customer is paying about $124 per month. with that 5% increase next year, that bill would be going up about $6 on a monthly basis to $130. And they would see a six or $7 increase on a monthly bill for the next several years with those 5% increases. So with that, I'll just see if there's any questions on the electric revenue requirement.

I do have a question for low income residents. I think there's a program that maybe Gary could talk to or Ned that's available to our residents.

Hi, there is a energy assistance program that is provided through the state. Our utility office do have the applications available for our residents to apply for. And once they send the application through the state and it's approved, then the state sends money to the utility billing account for their assistance based on income requirements.

Do we have a good chunk of people that use that right now?

From when I was in utility billing, there was certainly a lot of customers who benefited from the program. And I could double check with utility billing to see what those numbers look like today. Okay, thank you. Yes.

My question is actually going to be for our city manager because my concern was, looking at this chart, the revenues for capital dips down below a comfort level. But our city manager explained to me what, if we have something catastrophic happen, how it's going to be repaired. Can you explain that?

Yeah, a couple of things there. As was mentioned in the presentation, what you see here will still cover, there's two parts of the reserve target, and part of that is 90 days of operating expenses. And we will, even at the amount shown here, we would always be able to meet those, the 90 day target for operating expenses. What we wouldn't be able to cover is the 1.5 million in construction. However, we do have other funds available that if there was a catastrophic emergency, the city has built up those reserve funds, and we could tap into that for anything during that time that we did not have those funds available.

So we won't go without power then during that period of time. Correct, yes.

And the bottom line is we will not go without power.

Perfect, thank you.

if I might, Mayor. Thank you for explaining how we're gonna basically cover for the shortfall in the electric utility for the capital projects by those transfers, the Utility Rate Stabilization Fund, as well as borrowing from our internal, as is so well explained by Shannon, the internal singular enterprise account for utilities, but taking the water little portion and sliding 2.125, I think you said, over. Will this account for or all of these in totality account for recovering our balance in the utility rate stabilization fund as well. Is that all included in these funds and these rates?

It is, it is. And I have a little bit deeper dive into that stabilization fund and how it gets.

Okay, thank you.

So I can continue. Kind of just walking through, maybe bring this all together, how we're looking at closing the self-sufficiency gap. Like we talked about originally with electric, it was between 9.25 and 9.5 when we were starting with rate increases. We were looking at water, we were at about $1.3 million net shortfall. You've seen the electric for the capital, it's like 71.4 for the 10-year plan escalated, and kind of the impact of all the years of kind of holding back on some of those infrastructure repair and replacements. So the path forward, setting these 5% increases for electric water and wastewater from 27 through 29, that's kind of step one. and using the funds that are available within, as we're just talking about here, to help between the utilities and not having to go out to get additional debt. And so that's kind of that piece of the pie that we're looking at. And so for that, we have a deeper dive into the rate stabilization. And as we've been talking about it's kind of that shock absorber, but it's giving you the ability to Smooth out those rates and and cover those balances so that you can continue with those capital plans It's kind of acting as intended keeping those electric rates down and so the plan to keeping to repaying that balance or that stabilization reserve is the water fund will immediately begin paying back at varying levels, about 100,000, but over the next few years through 2032, that rate stabilization fund will be back to $3 million. Electric will be the beneficiary of it. Water will be the one paying it. Electric will transfer back to water. So it's kind of a multi-level plan, if you will. But that is part of this rate design or this rate, these rate increases. And so I think as the city staff has noted, the infrastructure piece is just necessary at this time. And so we can't kind of wait any longer.

So when we borrow from one account to another, the good news is we don't have to pay interest on it. So if we went out on the market, we would have to pay interest, and thus our rates would be increased. Thank you.

I think here's a slide about how our rates compare in southern Nevada. Ta-da!

Should we take a reset? No, we're not going to take a reset.

Electric, water, and wastewater. So Boulder City today, with the increase, we talked about that, the 130.05, Nevada Energy is at 169.75. Looking at water, it's very similar. The 42-33 compared to the three listed there, Las Vegas, City of North Las Vegas, and City of Henderson. Wastewater seems to be below City of Henderson, but above City of North Las Vegas. So there's kind of a quick snapshot of how those rates compare.

I have a question for you. Is there any type of technology that's on the forecast to make electric systems self-sustainable to where we're paying a lot less? Is there anything, you know, with all the technology that's out there, is there any studies being looked at?

For that, I might defer to Paul to see if he has any knowledge of that. Did you hear that question, Paul?

Yeah, so the question is about technology that's available to make the utility self-sufficient. Yeah, so unfortunately, you know, it's really just a financial problem. The utilities rates right now are not able to cover the capital program. So the way to solve that is through rate increases.

Period.

Period.

Okay, thank you. I thought I'd asked.

The next slide is just kind of an overview of the monthly billing. Taking another look at it between electric, water, and wastewater for fiscal year 27, 28, and 29, and kind of as a whole, if you're looking at a total, it'd be a $9.47 increase for 27, $9.95 for 28, and $10.43 for 29. Questions? We're going to move into the cost of service portion. I'll let Paul start again.

Thank you, Angie. So we're moving on to step two. So as Angie went over earlier, when we think about a comprehensive rate study, usually we think about it in three steps. We have the revenue requirement, which is what is the rate increase we need to move forward, pay for everything, get the capital program funded. Step two is what we call the cost of service analysis. So it's a little bit alluded to in the title. what we're doing here is we are looking at different types of customers think about residential small commercial larger commercial customers we're looking at them in those individual groups and we're asking ourselves does it cost us differently to serve different types of customers in other words what does it cost us to serve different groups of customers in order to answer that question We look at, you know, the individual utilities planning, engineering, design criteria. You look at your facility requirements. We look at how your users are using the system. You know, what are the unique demands they're placing on the utility and what does it cost the utility to meet those demands that the customers are placing on the system. Overall, we take away two results from this analysis. Number one, as I mentioned earlier, what does it cost us to serve different customer groups? We can compare that cost to serve against how we're currently collecting revenue to see if there's any misalignments between how we're collecting revenue versus what it costs us to serve different customer groups. And number two on a more granular level, the cost of service indicates from a cost basis, what should we be charging from a fixed monthly cost basis? What should we be charging on a per kilowatt hour or per gallon basis and so on and so forth. So what we did for the water and electric utility is we looked at the cost of service and we're gonna start with the electric utility. before we look at the overall results, I wanted to take you through kind of the high level process of the steps in the cost of service. What we're doing is we're taking all the cost line items that make up the revenue requirement and step one, we're determining what function does each individual cost line item perform for the utility and its customers. So we have four different functions of service for the electric utility. Number one, do we have costs that are related to generating power, generating electricity that we're selling to our customers? Transmission, do we have costs related to operating or maintaining any local transmission assets? Do we have any costs related to operating or maintaining a distribution network such as poles, transformers, conductors? And finally, dedicated customer-like costs such as utility billing or customer service. Do we have some of those expenses? If so, we will be allocating it to that customer function. Once we have our costs in those four functions, we further classify them to three cost pools, those being for electric demand, energy or power. So on this step, we're really asking ourselves, you know, why are we incurring this expense? Is it a demand related expense? In other words, is it a cost? that is based upon the maximum rate of usage or maybe it's an energy related expense or in other words it's a cost that's going to vary depending on the total consumption of energy over a time period and finally we have those dedicated customer like costs like utility billing our metering infrastructure or maintaining kind of backbone infrastructure requirements Once we have our costs in the cost pools, it gives us a very rational basis of allocating those costs to our different customer groups based on how those customer groups are using the system. So if we move on to the next slide, I'm gonna show you the results for the electric cost of service analysis. In this graphic, we are showing you visually what the results are. If you look on the bottom of the graphic, we have each individual customer group that we evaluated as part of this analysis. So it's starting with residential. Above each customer group, we have a bar with a percentage. That percentage tells us what the cost recovery level is for each customer group. So if we're seeing a percentage less than 100, it means that that customer group is paying less than what it costs the utility to serve them. If you're seeing a number greater than 100%, it means those customers are paying more than what it costs the utility to serve them. You'll see a solid black line at that 100% mark. That solid black line, 100%, that represents that true cost of service target for each group. In other words, if the result for a particular group came in at 100%, that would mean the revenue the utility is collecting is perfectly offsetting the cost the utility incurs to serve that customer group. that target is constantly fluctuating so it's going to be ebbing and flowing over time depending on certain things and certain changes that the utility is incurring for instance there could be a push for electrification of vehicles if that comes to happen that's really going to change the way your residential customers are using the system that's going to change their cost of service target and know what it costs the utility to serve them so it will change the target another way that you know that that target can change is the proportionality of your expenses uh on the electric side you just signed you know two new purchase power agreements when those kick in it slightly changes the target for everybody because the target is you know constantly ebbing and flowing a little bit over time uh you know we want to get The results for folks within a plus or minus 10% range of that target. If we're able to get them within that plus or minus 10% range, we can reasonably say that we're charging those customers based on what it costs the utility to serve those customers. That range of reasonableness is shown by those dotted orange lines in the chart. So if we zoom out and we look at the results for the utility, what we're finding is that your residential and municipal customers are paying less than what it costs the utility to serve them, and they are both outside that range of reasonableness. On the flip side, your other customers, which are predominantly your commercial customers, are paying more than what it costs to serve them, and they are also outside that range of reasonableness. Now, as a footnote, the last rate study, which was performed five or six years ago, came up with similar trends that we found in our analysis and that we're showing you today. So with that, before Angie moves on to water, I just wanted to see if there was any questions on the overall cost of service process or on the electric results.

Mayor, if I might. Well, as I look at this, I would, in a layperson's view, think, well, all those that are far above the 100% easily make up for those that are under 100%. But I don't know who's paying those bills, because it doesn't say. It looks like some of them might be the city itself. Can we describe what this, what looks like a significant imbalance in most of these are far above I get why there could be a little bit below in the residential and municipal, but tell us what this means with these others so far above. Please.

Yeah, that's a great question. So most of your customers are going to fall in that residential bucket or the general service bucket. So that general service bucket would be most of your commercial customers. you do have some commercial customers like the hospital or some larger commercial customers that are uh charged under a different rate schedule and so that's why we're showing you you know the secondary primary time of use the large general and the boulder city hospital groups but predominantly you know most of your customers are either going to be in that residential bucket or that general service bucket does that help

Well, it does, but I still don't understand how those aren't making up for those two that are below. And let's get a little more specific. If we have our public works director or maybe Angie, Who is it or what type of business? I don't necessarily need to know who but are some of these City costs like I look at area lighting I'm not sure what the definition is, but is that street lights throughout the community and if so that sounds like the city is covering that cost and so I don't understand what this is if we could get a more Localized the description of that would be helpful, please. I

Sure. Before maybe staff weighs in, the city accounts would largely be captured under that municipal category.

I can key in on a few items, but on the area street lighting is going to be our street lights, and then we have our facilities. And then with the large general service and general service, but I see what you're asking is, You have two that are lower, the rest are high. Why isn't that balancing that out? And Paul, or Angie, I would ask you to...

I do want to say, Paul, in that primary distribution, weren't those low dollars? So even though the 269% is extreme, it's really a very minimal? Or could you speak to that, the primary distribution?

Yeah, that's correct. So if we're looking at dollars or number of accounts, most of your customers, most of your dollars are coming from residential or your general service rate schedules. You do have other rate schedules available, and we did evaluate them. So we wanted to share the results with you, but As Angie noted, your primary time of use, secondary time of use, that's very low dollars coming into the utility.

So if you were to look at dollars in this chart, you would see it's a big swing, but it might be just a few thousand dollars in difference. So perhaps a different chart would show that. So it's not as if it's 200%.

It's not dollar for dollar when we're looking at percentages.

No, it's looking at classes of service. And because that class shifted, it shouldn't be representative of actual dollars, if that helps a little bit. And we could provide more.

The explanation does. It would have been kind of helpful to see what that dollar amount was to flip so we could kind of visualize that. But now I understand that strictly percentages and the dollars associated with those vary. Right.

And so this is where you take this result and start to look at how do you interpret it? How do you utilize it? Where do you go next? But that's just like that starting point. But yeah, it's not dollar for dollar. Okay, thank you for explaining that.

Mayor, if I may, this is just a starting point. So this was just an overview to show that the cost of service analysis revealed some inequities. So phase two of what we plan to do over the next year and bring back to council in fiscal year 28 is is an analysis of those inequities, how to balance them, and what is a more fair tiered rate structure that accurately captures the cost of service for the type of use. And so this is just to illustrate the inequities. So we haven't delved deep into what those are and what needs to be changed to equalize it. That's phase two of the rate study.

Is the primary and secondary primary being peak times? What's the difference between?

Yeah, I believe that's correct. And then secondary.

Yeah, so that has to do with the different infrastructure requirements. So that primary time of use, that I believe is only serving one customer. That customer actually owns some of their own electrical infrastructure. So they're on a different rate schedule to acknowledge that they have.

Sorry. Solar panels or a solar customer.

What customer would that be? Singular customer that that is.

Oh, golf course.

Okay.

Okay.

I just wanted to.

Yeah.

It's not that they own generation assets. It's that they own, you know, their own transformers, their own poles, some of their own conductors. So some of their own distribution infrastructure is there. They own, they maintain, they're responsible for replacing.

Thank you.

So moving on to cost of service water? OK. OK. Not going. There it goes. Okay. Similar to what we talked about with electric, we start with that overall revenue requirement, then we start to allocate those costs by function. We have different functions obviously with water. You're looking at customer. Then Meteor and Services, you have base and peak capacities with water. You're also looking at fire protection. You have non-pot water and then you have effluent. So we take all of those functions and look to allocate those costs to your different customer class. which is residential, city potable, non-pot, commercial, and then golf courses. So it's kind of that exact process, but with different, let's say, functions. Obviously, we have some different customer classes for water. So as we look at the cost of service results for water, it looks a little different in the sense that most of your classes are in that range of reasonableness, that 10% either side of that dotted black line, which represents 100%. You do have residential that's under collecting just slightly, commercial over collecting just a little bit as well. Obviously, there's the private golf courses in the quarry are over collecting. But in this case, these are tied to different rates. And so that is pushing those rates and those costs in those directions. So the golf courses are tied to residential where the quarry is tied to the commercial rate. And so that's more of like a policy type decision that could be made to bring those in line for cost of service. So those can be explained a little more. And then non-pot just slightly over collecting, but we didn't have the extremes as much in water as we did with electric. And the two that are over kind of are represented by those residential or those rate ties.

And so for this, the same with electricity. How we provide that to you, the type from the 4 kV to the 12, is very different. Things change over time. So not just, and we need to pay for what we receive. I see this as thank you for really taking a good look at it as you said none of us wants to be overcharged or overcharge anyone one of the beautiful parts of living in this community really is that we pay less for a lot of what we pay for not our homes per se but a lot of what goes on inside of our homes so we're really lucky that way and so I I agree that I think that due diligence has been done on the part of our advisory committee, the part of our staff, those who did the deep dive for us, and I see that we have needs, so thank you.

I'd just like to kudos to the UAC as well. If you really want to see with the background of all that brought us to today, May 6th is the UAC meeting and July 8th. Look at that meeting. Both of them total six hours. That's long for the UAC. and i mean they they asked every possible question they could ask and then deep dived after that just to get to this point so nothing was done undercover nothing was done in secret it's all out and open it's a matter of fact it's open meeting that they have to conduct this like we do right now and they really hashed it out so i would anybody who has any concern of why the rates are where they are or where they're going or not going whatever is decided Take a look at May 6th and July 8th, and those are volunteers, as Councilwoman Jorgensen said. They volunteer their time, and I would actually ask people to join on the commissions because they advise us. They do that deep dive, so when we get to this point, we have loads and loads and loads of paper to study to catch up to what they did. So kudos to the UAC and all the commissions that are out there that prepare us to make decisions. Thank you.

so i i appreciate presentations plural uh the people who have been doing the quote unquote deep dives the our utility commission are people who are experts in utilities i mean boulder city that's what we started as a utility as it were it's called the dam and that's what we do and what's what we've been doing so i this discussion we're having did not happen in a vacuum and it's still not a vacuum and we still have abilities to have input i appreciate everyone that's been a party to this and people who have volunteered their time and effort and their input tonight so i appreciate that Having had a motion and a second, is there any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Thank you, it's unanimous. Appreciate it and we'll take a recess.

COVID-19 happened, there was a decrease in our commercial traffic with the tour operators at the airport. And that reflects in that number there. The minimum BC or cost benefit ratio needed to qualify into the program is of 1.0. Okay, and do you see the traffic coming back? The traffic has increased steadily since we prepared our submission in 2023. We're seeing about 10,000 operations more each year. So with the added operators coming in and filling in where others have left, and then we also have new development that will add hangers at the airport, which in turn increase traffic.

and get us back up even to the number where before it was highly recommended or beyond okay thank you yeah other questions i do base operations will you be expanding your staff justin just for this not that is not planned at this time okay thank you

So if I were to accept a motion, it would be a motion to include 8187, 8188, 8189, 8190, and 8191.

Is that what you were ready to do?

Well, I wanted to ask or have a dialogue with Rissa, if I could. Please, thank you. You mentioned that it will be a transition and we've talked about this and I believe it the change There will be some resistance and some acceptance and some in the middle Explain how please the transition will occur with the airport the air traffic controllers Will it come in right off the top and start running things, or will there be a transition where they listen and look and learn? And then will there be dialogue with pilots, open potential for them to interact together? Can you explain, please, if there is a plan, what that might be?

Sure, so when the contract tower is staffed with the controllers, there will be a period of time where they will observe our traffic at the airport and before they are directly controlling the traffic. So there will be that observation period or they'll provide guidance, that kind of thing over the radio. And as far as getting everyone ready for that transition period, we'll plan to communicate to the community, have outreach, possibly do some training or informational videos, pamphlets, something like that. with the community to engage with them. Working with our airport working group and then hopefully we can sit down with the contract manager and be able to have conversations with the airport working group and the stakeholders.

Thank you. I think a lot of what has been expressed to me by some that are slightly resistant is that the interactions with what turns out to be the same contracting company at towered airports in the valley is sometimes less than positive. Is there a way that we can have regularly scheduled follow-up meetings, quarterly, semi-annually, to give feedback, to receive feedback, to make sure that we don't have the same negative interactions that occur at some of the other local towered airports here in Boulder City?

Okay. Um, a collaborative relationship will be really important to maintain with that air traffic and that manager at the tower. Um, so I think that those are possibilities is holding regularly scheduled meetings. Um, you know, if not monthly, quarterly with that individual and trying to engage the stakeholders in the tenant community.

thank you i think doing all that we can to help soften that initial change it'll be a change but having been a flight instructor at boulder city and in the area for dozens of students the students really become better pilots when they learn how to interact with atc And I think that will not just translate to students, but also veteran folks that have been flying for years. And many of our folks down there have commercial or military experience, so this really won't be that much of a change, or fly to areas in the country where there are towers. probably won't be much of a change for for many of them but I think the most as much as we could do to help soften that change in those things that you just suggested will be very positive as we go forward so thank you for answering those questions thank you mayor if there's no other discussion I'll make a recommendation to approve all those resolutions herein I'll second

Moved and seconded to approve all of the resolutions before us, 81-87 through 81-91. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. That's unanimous, thank you.

Thank you.

We will now go to We did nine, so we go to 14.

The city is currently negotiating the sale of less than half an acre to the residential owner at the address of 395 Avenue I. For this subsequent purchaser to be able to access the land that they would be purchasing from the city, It requires the vacation of a one foot no access easement that is along Nevada Way in this area. Staff is supportive of this vacation. To consider the vacation of the one foot access easement, it does require a public hearing. And consideration of Resolution 8194, subject to the finding that the public will not be materially injured in the proposed vacation. With that, I can answer any questions. Any questions?

I would accept a motion. Oh, we need a public hearing. Oh, we need a public hearing. So I'll open the public hearing. Again, this is a public hearing related to... The one foot restricted area, no excess easement. And this does not include any trees.

I wanted to look at the spirits and say you could plant a lot of trees in that one foot.

Anyone else for public hearing close the public hearing and consideration of a resolution 8194 Move to approve 8194 second based on the findings moved in second it is their discussion All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. That's unanimous, thank you. That brings us to number 15. Angela? Aye.

Hi, Angela Manninen, budget manager. Item 15 is for the class and compensation. It's resolution 8195, which would repeal and replace resolution 8151, which was the last time the class and compensation was brought to council. So the class and compensation for fiscal year 27 was approved on May 26, 2026, for the positions for fiscal year 27. On June 23, it was brought back to council. And the recently, at that time, approved bargaining units of the police and blue collar were added to the class and compensation. So now, since then, there are a couple of positions that are being requested to be added. One is a public safety dispatcher supervisor title. This would not add headcount. It would promote two of our dispatchers to supervisors. There is also a request to change our police support services manager, which is currently an E3 position, to an E2 position as a support services assistant manager. We are also requesting to remove the title of dispatcher trainee, as it will no longer be used. And also both the police supervisors and the supervisors' collective bargaining contracts have not been signed at this point. And so those will be brought back at another point in time. Happy to answer any questions about the changes being requested.

Any questions?

I just wanted to thank the police department for coming up with an idea that's saving us money instead of adding to the budget. So thank you very much, our local police department there. Thank you.

Any other questions? I would accept a motion.

I'll move to approve resolution number 8195 to repeal and replace resolution number 8151 and also to approve the updated fiscal year 2627 classification titles and position ranges.

I'll second that.

Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. It's unanimous, thank you. That brings us to number 16.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. It is that time again. The Nevada Legislature will be convening for the 84th legislative session in February of 2027. And Boulder City has one bill draft request where we are allowed to submit a request to change state law. We have met as a city staff. We've looked over the past two years for opportunities. The city staff did not see, while there's lots of opportunity for change, we think, none of which related to us specifically as the city of Boulder City. We could not find any to bring forward to city council from a city perspective. We did meet with the Nevada State Railroad Museum recently. As you know, they're going to be opening our facility in Southern Nevada here, the Railroad Museum. It's a state facility that's going to be grand opening on September 19th. And the museum has submitted in the state budget to the governor's office for several positions. There are on this handout in front of you what the museum is submitting for. And there's hope that the governor will include these in the budget however, if the governor does not include them in a budget one thing the city could advocate for is for additional funding for staff for the State Railroad Museum here in Boulder City is a huge generator of tourism and additional Economic development here and I think will be a really great asset for our city and And Mr. Dr. McMahon is here to answer questions if there's any interest in that. We also have Warren Hardy. He is our lobbyist, so we retain Warren Hardy's strategies to represent us at the legislature session. And so if there's specific questions for him, he's also available.

I would love to have the very patient director of the museum people to come up and share what he thinks.

mayor can i ask one question of our city attorney first please you can is is this a a potential idea then that we're having this conversation that council put forward a bill draft request supporting these staffing levels is is that kind of the connection here or is

Yes, so we didn't have any ideas for the city specifically, but we found that the state museum could use additional funding, and the city has used its bill for this before. So before the facility was built, the city did use its bill draft request to request funding for construction of the museum. Ultimately, our bill did not move forward, but it helped start the conversation, and money was included in the budget for that. So it's proved successful in the past, so that's why we thought if the Railroad Museum's funding request didn't get approved, it's perhaps something that the city could help. Yes, it would be our bill, our advocacy, but we would be supporting the Railroad Museum.

Maybe a little horsepower behind that request then. Thank you for clarifying that. Sorry for clarifying it. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page as this goes forward. Thank you.

No problem.

I mean, this is an open discussion as to what we would consider as a bill draft request as well. But recognizing that we have one possibility, I would love to have the doctor come up.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and city council. For the record, Dr. Christopher McMahon, executive director of the Nevada State River Museum.

Teach us.

So as you know, Mr. Mayor, as a state agency, we are executive branch employees. Every legislative session in the year leading up to it, agency heads like myself put together budget requests that then filter up through the bureaucracy, ultimately landing on the governor's desk and And the individual who holds office at that time makes the determination what they want to prioritize and send to the legislature as their recommended budget. So when city staff reached out to me about this as a possible BDR on the city's behalf, I provided them the same information that I have sent as my budget request for staffing levels. Why this is a concern for the museum and potentially the city is we are, as staff said, a huge economic driver within the city. currently we are at critical staffing levels meaning we have reduced services we have reduced our ability to go and present classroom activities we have limited the number of school tours that we're offering to school students not just here within boulder city but throughout southern nevada and northern arizona And we've reduced our operations from seven days a week down to five. Now why that matters to the city of Boulder City is each day we're closed is people that are not staying longer. People who are visiting Boulder City, yes they come for the dam, yes they come to visit Lake Mead, but study after study shows people are interested in having cultural experiences during their holidays as well. And if they can do two things in Boulder City, like going to the dam and visiting the museum, they're more likely to stay within that community, patronize local businesses. That not only lifts our fellow entrepreneurs and business owners up, it generates tax revenues for the city, and that's not a burden on the residents. That's not taxes that they're having to pay for, it's being paid for by the guests to the city. And so as we're limiting our operation, it does have this ramification on the city itself. I think that kind of gives you the big picture, and I'm happy to answer more specific questions if you have those about what we're asking for and why.

What's your staffing for the Carson City Railroad Museum, for instance?

So as a point of comparison, the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City currently has seven additional staff members that this museum lacks. Most critically, those positions would be professional curatorial staff that manage the collections and provide lifelong educational programming for various age groups. They also have a more extensive maintenance and restoration for their railroad operations, even though they only operate on a summer schedule, whereas we operate year-round.

So you're looking at about seven people that are working with Carson City State Railroad Museum?

So they have seven additional, I believe their total, and I'm just going off the top of my head here, I believe their total is 13 or 14, where we currently have five and a half, about to have six and a half.

So that's where you come up with the, it would be good to have another six, quote unquote, or seven people. That's correct. So the way the BDR works, or where the governor's budget, it's in the governor's budget, the governor's budget if the governor's budget doesn't pass in total then we could have a BDR that would be separate instinct and allow us to lobby as it were that's not for me to answer that's that's a question for you as counsel I'm just here to answer any questions pertaining to the museum all right go ahead

So are the five and a half positions currently funded through the state?

Yes, all the positions at the museum are state employees. We have a unique funding model within the museum system itself. We are the only museum of the seven state museums that's required an element of self-funding. We do that through the sale of train ride tickets. That covers about half of our expenses as far as salaries, operating expenses, et cetera. The remaining is split between room taxes, which constitute the majority, and a small portion from general funds. So of that remaining half that we're not responsible for, it's an 85-15 split with 85 coming from room taxes, 15% coming from general fund.

Okay, thank you. Do you have volunteers over at the train station?

Yes, we currently have 120 active volunteers. They do provide a lot of assistance, concerns that, for example, guest services during particularly the week. How do I plan operating hours on somebody that may or may not be there? Educational program requires specific training on how to do things like meet the curriculum requirements through Nevada's educational system.

If somebody wanted to be a volunteer, how would they find out how to be a volunteer?

So that information is available on our website, boulderrailroadmuseum.org. You can also reach out to any of the staff. Myself, Tiani Marie will both help you and guide you through that process. And we're welcome anybody that wants to come and join.

I know you still need the employees, but maybe some out there, there's some volunteers in Boulder City. We'll take anybody. Just love to come help you. So that's why I was asking that question.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Are you yielding? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you for clarifying the volunteers. Do you need security there? That seems like that's an important pay position.

Ideally we would. The reason it's not being listed right now is I'm prioritizing the things that are most critical as part of our statutory obligations. And first and foremost among those are care of the collections, education of lifelong learning, and health and safety of our guests through the maintenance of the railroad equipment that we operate. And so health safety is always going to be the first and foremost. And secondary, we've made an obligation to the people of Nevada to care for these unique pieces of our historical collection forever and ever. And we need to actually be able to do that.

And will you collaborate with the Hoover Dam Hotel and the Chamber at all? we regularly do yes okay um also you know this is a really good bipartisan uh bdr if it does go through if we decide that's the route we want to take um so i think that that's a plus you know and we were talking about this earlier how we're looked at as a tourism town but there's a lot of education that comes here and i could just see you know the kids like you said coming from all over um being educated on the history of our trains and and um Also, enjoying the tourism while they're here, so as well, you know, if you're going to go for the Gusco.

Yeah, it's on our five- to ten-year plan. We do have security listed on that. It's there. We've also looked at private contracting, but ironically, private contracting costs more than actually hiring a state employee.

Thank you.

Dr. McMahon, we're thankful that you are in Boulder City and we appreciate your professionalism, really your passion about the history of the railroad and how it relates to the building of the dam and therefore the building of Boulder City. and the educational opportunities that are there. As I read some of these descriptions you wrote, without this position, and this is relevant to several of them, the museum remains ineligible for most federal and private grants. placing all financial burdens on the state for the museum's operating and programming costs and the state is stretched pretty thin for financing we all appreciate that fact so i think that just lends itself to the importance of of these positions i think we need to acknowledge that in our conversation that because one of the first things I was thinking in my mind was what about grants and what about federal funding and if we don't have the positions that make us eligible then not even an option. With some of the positions of the five and a half that we will have, are we eligible for certain federal types of grants but not other types or do we need these specific ones to be able to access all of them if you will?

So right now, the majority of the positions the museum has are support positions, things like custodians, groundskeepers, those types of positions. I am the only guest service position currently. We will have a part-time position starting next Monday. but otherwise I am the only guest service position that's full-time I am the only educator that's full-time most of these grants require that you have an individual person dedicated to education or an individual person specifically full-time dedicated to collection preservation and management we currently lack that and so we're ineligible for most the positions as it currently or grants as it currently stands thank you for clarifying that thank you thanks mayor

Thank you.

Thank you, and I appreciate you taking the time to even consider this. We're very happy to call Boulder City home. Appreciate it.

That brings us to our attorney and potentially our lobbyist.

Yes, if you'd like, Mayor and Council, I could invite Warren Hardy up to kind of explain why the bill might be an advantage for funding for the positions.

Thank you, Brittany. Mayor, members of the council, Warren Hart. There were some good questions at the beginning, and I'm not advocating for or against this proposal. I will go fight for everything I'm worth for whatever you decide you want to advocate for. But there's a good reason. There were some questions that led me to believe that maybe the council was thinking this is a little bit redundant, that we're going to go for the governor's budget, so why are we doing a BDR as well? And here's what I would say to that. And the reason I think if you are serious about this, a BDR request is a good idea. Certainly Mayor Hardy understands this as well as anybody, but the governor's budget is based on a recommendation that's going to be made by the economic forum in November, November 15th. That's the number he's statutorily obligated to build the budget on. And he will do that. At the beginning of this year, most of the conversations and really the data made it look like we're going to have a very tough fiscal year in the 27th session. That is looking up considerably. There's a weird dynamic going on in Southern Nevada where if you talk to people on the street and even analysts, it looks like things are horrible, but what's actually happening on the street is not that horrible. The Pew fiscal report even listed Nevada as one of the top states in the country in terms of economic recovery. Why that's important to this issue is the governor will build a budget in November, and that's the first forecast that the legislature is required to build its budget on. So he will build a budget based on that. then in may they will do a second report the economic forum will do a second report and that is either going to be less than or more than the november report last last interim it was less than there's every indication to believe this time it will be more than that means we will have what we traditionally call one-shot money money that is in excess of what the governor has proposed in his budget So, if the governor declines to include this in his budget because the money is just not there, there is a good possibility the money will be there by the end of session, and having a bill draft will put you in a really good position to be able to say, okay, we requested this in the budget, the budget couldn't accommodate it, now there's additional money, please move this to the front of the line. So I just wanted to give you, that's a long convoluted way of saying, this is really not redundant. This would probably give you potentially two bites of the apple. And we will do everything we can between now and November to convince the governor to include this in his budget, including the equity arguments with the Northern Nevada. Museum that will be job one we'll do everything we can but if it doesn't end up in the governor's budget this Potentially gives us another bite of the apple in May when the legislature looks at those new numbers and potentially Has additional money to spend that's all I wanted to say

possibly a little bit naive about the process. So if it gets put in the governor's budget, it doesn't mean the next year it could be, or whatever the next budget, right? Or does that mean, yes, that's a position, it stays there and we're good?

So thank you, Your Honor, Warren Hardy, for the record. Getting in the governor's budget does not mean it will become law. Sentiment in the legislature, it goes back to Senator Hardy and I's service that the legislature ought to prepare its own budget. So the legislature looks at the governor's budget as a suggestion, as a list of his priorities. That really essentially is a third bite of the apple for us because if it's not included in the budget, we still have an opportunity during the regular budget cycle to push this priority. So no, that's a good start. If it's in the governor's budget, that gives us a story to tell and that helps a lot. And that'll be our first priority.

So if the bill went through and passed, how long would these positions be guaranteed, or is there no guarantee past the original time, like however long that is?

That's a very good question, because really what we're talking about in that gap funding that is more in May than it does in, is traditionally called one-shot money, which we don't usually commit to ongoing expenses, which is another reason to have it included in the governor's budget if possible, because if it's included in the governor's budget, it will be viewed as an ongoing expense. So this really creates a number of bites of the apple for us. And if this is a priority for the city, it gives us the strongest opportunity to actually see this through. But we would have to push for it in that second cycle as an ongoing expense because we don't want, obviously, to fund these positions for one biennium. We've got a good story to tell in that regard with regard to parity with Northern Nevada.

Thank you. Why don't we ask for more employees? It seems like if Reno gets more employees than we do, why not ask for the same amount of employees?

It's my understanding that that is what was in the budget request. The request that's being submitted to the governor through the director is for more employees.

Okay, so he feels that's adequate for his, for Boulder City.

I don't want to speak for him, but it's never adequate. I know. But it's, you know, you get as much as you can get.

But because it's already been asked, we can't increase it.

There's very, and I should let the director speak to that, but the governor usually gives very specific direction about what the budget's supposed to look like. I can tell you, knowing our director, that he is going to advocate strongly for what he believes. I don't wanna say regardless of what the governor says, but the governor's gonna be aware of what our needs are regardless of what the parameters are.

Thank you.

Are the BDRs put in buckets, entertainment or different, what would his chances be? Is it just him against every dollar that's out there? Or is there budgets or buckets for each activity?

That depends on the legislative priorities. I can tell you that when we looked in 2009 when we were doing the massive budget cuts in the state, there were massive cuts proposed by then Governor Gibbons to our museum system, which the legislature pushed back on aggressively. So each legislative session and cycle, the priorities change. But there are generally global conversations about what are we going to do for mental health? What are we going to do for education? What are we going to do for culture in the state museums? We never get around to the culture in state museums conversation unless there's a surplus. And I am cautiously optimistic that we're going to be facing a surplus this time because of the way economic conditions are trending. Not a big one, but enough to be able to have the conversation. And I think those numbers will look better by November when the governor is right down to what he has to build his budget on. So the timing is potentially good.

Well, I know the governor loves Boulder City. As he should. That's yet another check. And he'll be here at the grand opening, I think, so thank you.

And I will tell you, based on my conversations, the governor does understand the need for parity between northern and southern Nevada. That's our strongest case on this, is that you built this beautiful facility. We expect that your anticipation is that it's going to be worthy, you know, the staffing is going to be worthy of the building. independent of all the things that it does for Boulder City, which we will point out, this is for the state of Nevada. And that puts us in a strong position. Thank you. Thanks.

So we have, thank you, Warren. So we have that presentation that we could have as a BDR if the council so chose. Is there any other BDR that staff or anyone else is entertaining?

Staff does not have any additional suggestions, but the council's welcome to discuss any other opportunities and we can look at those.

Any other desires?

I don't know if this would be appropriate or not, but the hotel, they had the budget cut, and I don't know if they go into BDRs or how that works, but is that something that could be considered as well?

for our For the Boulder Dam Hotel the historic hotel. Yes Well, the city can always seek state funding for different things the state Hotel earth. Sorry the the Boulder Dam Hotel I don't believe has historically received ever any state funding this the city does provide funding to the hotel Okay, so here's what that route would be to look for more grants or something like that for the hotel.

I rather than the BDR.

I don't believe, because it's not a state facility, I don't believe it's received any funding.

Okay, thank you.

I mean, hearing what I'm hearing, you know, and if you go by the theory, if you build it, they will come. So we could hope, right? We've built it. It's beautiful. It says state on it. I mean, we can't say it any more simply than this is a state museum. We could hope that it will come and that they will come. I know the people will come. and I know the interest will come in it. So it seems to me that this would be something good for us to ask for. I mean, I'd love to see that not just be a vacant, non-utilized, beautiful, facility i mean it already is an asset on the corner there it's beautiful you guys have worked so hard at getting this to be a reality i i really feel like we should get behind it to make it a functioning reality at the level that it should be functioning is that a motion to do a bdr

like to make sure a motion yeah is there a second i second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed thank you it's unanimous thank you brings us to public comment This can be on any subject up to three minutes.

Adam Schultes. And after seeing that presentation, the company, I think it was FCS or PFC, anyway, about the utility increases, the Gulf Water use was eye-opening. It was astronomical. I mean, I just couldn't believe it. And we're paying for part of that. So I did a little studying I did this before 88% of small towns in America have two golf courses But most of these towns are not in the southwest They're just not in the southwest. I hear from one assembly member to cut cut cut That's what SNW a is saying, of course But the problem it is let's take our two golf courses and make them desert. I mean, it's an easy fix Scottsdale, Arizona has a number of them, and Scottsdale, Arizona is a mecca for golfers all across the country, if not the world. This just makes logical sense. Thank you.

Thank you.

Again, Eric King, longtime resident. Thank you all. I wanted to make a hopefully cogent appeal to you on the ecotourism aspects of tourism. where it seems there's a lot of attention paid right now on tourism, how to make that work capacity exist in hotel, so forth, things like that. Very sensible conversation. And so having the golf courses, there is potential there to do more I guess you would call it innovative strategies as to how to make those golf courses work fiscally in terms of water budget and so forth. And I'll just throw out some numbers here. I mentioned the airport runoff. Again, I'm going back to runoff because everybody wants to kind of become water Nazis, I think, over the next few years because of, you know, whatever you want to call that. But people are going to get very conservative probably in their addressing of water, and yet... Every municipality I'm aware of, certainly in Southern Nevada, ignores storm runoff as potential resource. So I'd like to advocate for that, and in particular with trees. I'll just keep it in numbers of trees that the airport runoff alone, if you take those 530 acres or so, that'd be 3,900 trees. Take mesquites, for instance. Every year, that could be somewhere put on, say, Clark County land. You guys have a very large township. If you took the city hardscape, that is 112,000 trees per year just for stormwater runoff that currently goes as fast as possible to Lake Mead, where 600,000 and 60,000, put them together, 660,000 acre feet of water gets burned off every year in Lake Mead. It used to be 880,000. Now it's smaller surface footprint, so less burns off. Still, it's a lot of water. And if you take the total township, one of the largest, maybe the largest in Nevada, I think you guys have, 745,000 trees for one annual rainfall falling on your land. It's an enormous amount of trees. That's six times what exists in the valley over the hill here. That's one year of stormwater runoff. So I was asked to find some water a while ago. It keeps falling out of the sky, more here than most places in southern Nevada because of your elevation. And your population doesn't use much of it at all. So thank you for hearing me on that. Ecotourism could bring you a lot of money. Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment?

Good evening again, Mayor, Council, staff, ladies and gentlemen left. Brandon Smith for the record. I just wanted to do a quick shout out to Gary and his team for his relentless pursuit of keeping our lights on for all of Boulder City. Circling back to agenda item 11, It's a big pill to swallow, 5% year over year over year. I think maybe perhaps a more reasonable way of looking at those increases might be that I think we should just concede to the fact that nothing's getting cheaper. Parts, water, electricity, it would be it would be stupendous if our rates could actually go down, which I'm pretty sure that you guys have already nominated that that can't happen. But I think the struggle here is for our fragile community members, where 15% could potentially break them. And I think circling back to this tiered status that we should be implementing in a much more controlled and aggressive manner where our smallest users are getting charged the least, whereas our biggest users are getting charged the most. It's just like taxes. You know, you make your money, you gotta pay your taxes. You have a bigger home. You got to pay more I think that's reasonable and I think it's something that you guys really need to Focus on going forward to protect our our more fragile community members From from having to sit through summers without air conditioning winters without heat and It's it's really important. I also think that in the big scheme of things I would like to see this council Recognizing