Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning. What are you going Sorry.

Hi. Did you see this? Very sweet. Oh jeez. Wow. That's very Christlike and friendly and thoughtful and wow. That's just amazing. Trump like what? Don't follow my social media. Yeah, right. Unfollow. It's not hard.

Wow. People are crazy.

Good morning. Good. Good.

How are you doing? You are the best girl ever.

Well, I know, but you're so the best girl ever. Look at this friendly note card I received. Morning it out.

Sure. Sure. Got it out. I'm done. All right then. Bruce gets um every single week he gets a postcard from some anonymous person. Good morning.

Appreciate everybody being here and uh for our uh continuation of department updates uh budget uh preparatory uh information. So, going to call the meeting to order and Councilwoman Skugg is going to give the invocation and lead us in the pledge. So, if you'd please stand.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this u beautiful day of rain that our our state needs lots of water and we're thankful for it. Lord, we ask that you would be with us today, that you would give us wisdom as a council in our decisions that we um make. And I pray that you would be with the people that are presenting, Lord, that we would find what works best for our great city. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with justice for all. Clerk will call the role. Scog here. Jangula here. Bills here. Reynolds here. Rodriguez. Griffin. Five present.

Five present. Okay. We're going to start off with uh utility billing and alpha. You're up. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning. Um, morning Victor. All right.

So, good morning. Um, I work in utility billing. We build water, sewer, trash, irrigation assessments, industrial sewer, and less. Um, our miss our mission for the department is to provide the highest quality customer service by processing bills efficiently, timely, and above all accurately. We strive to thoroughly research and answer questions and regarding charges and services provided. Um here is our organizational chart. I have one accounting specialist two. I have three accounting specialist one. Four customer service representatives and a lead and then a supervisor as well. our FY26 goals. Um we want to move towards monthly billing. Um so we were evaluating the costs associated with that move and trying to determine ways that we can offset that. Um we also want to maintain our customer satisfaction. So, we had a deescalation training to help our customer service reps deescalate situations when they get a little bit difficult. Um, an increase our call answered rate. We did an evaluation to see what is affecting our call answer rate and things that we can do. We brainstormed to see what we can do to improve that. And then developing a progression plan for the team. Um we wanted to ensure we have procedures or our procedures are updated to facilitate training and then also we want to have a plan for the team so they know okay if I start as a customer service and I want to move to billing here are my steps

our achievements this year um we had a collaboration meeting with waterworks. It actually was um both teams where we did a training regarding the ACL meter reading system. Um we've also developed a monthly meeting for the leadership to discuss any sort of issues that might be coming up and solutions for that. Um so far this year we've set 162,786 bills out and processed 149,238 payments. Um, we've developed a small leak detection kit um to help customers if you know possibly identify if they have a leaky toilet. And then we've had our deescalation training as well. Our priorities for 27 um we want to finalize our cloud migration for our billing software. This is going to help us to get one step closer to our monthly billing. Um, on our irrigation bills, we want to reformat it so it has some frequently asked questions. That way, it could hopefully reduce customers having to call and wait on the phone to get their answers when it's already on the bill. We're trying to anticipate their questions. Um, we want to install a kiosk in our lobby allowing customers the access to sign up for things like electronic billing, um, autopay, things like that. Just a simple little just access to our payment portal. And then we want to maintain our customer satisfaction rate of 3.7 or higher. Regarding our budget, um we will not have any we did not request any additional staff for this fiscal coming

up fiscal year. Um our operating supplies, we need to replace our letter opener. So, we had to increase um our budget line for that by $3,000 to replace that. The repair man said that it would cost just as much to repair it than to replace it. So, that's where we're at. Bank fees. Our FY26 budgeted amount um was understated compared to the actual of FY25 of the 42759. So the proposed increase that we have listed is a correction to the baseline and then it includes the growth that we anticipate and then our contractual services um due to growth and the increase in postage. Um that is why we asked for an additional $30,000 there. It's reported that the postmaster general is requesting 23% increase. I know it's going to go up 5% starting July, but I I think he's going to ask for more later. The only other thing I have is um for anybody here, if you haven't considered it already, please go to na.billingdoc.net and um consider switching over to electronic billing. that would help us in reducing our costs when we try to switch over to monthly billing because then we don't have to pay for a paper bill.

Um, alpha count mayor president the the utility billing department reports up through me and I wanted to kind of dovetail on what Alpha's and Alpha by the way Alpha does an absolutely fantastic job utility billing. She manages it. she deals with the crisis. When you're dealing with people's money, you have to be very careful and cautious and thoughtful in in in working through the process. And she and her team do an excellent job. But on the billing um cost, she's already mentioned that mailing costs are going up, the preparation costs are going up, everything's going up with that one. What we've taken to the VA and we'll bring to council is a a um proposal that we uh list as an option uh to charge customers a cost for continuing to receive a paper uh bill or the option of going to free online billing and that will help us. We want to bring that to council for you guys to help uh add that your thoughts the and otherwise we're going to continue to see increasing costs that will be borne by the uh the consumer and this is a way of mitigating that. And the other thing I wanted to bring up, if anybody knows of um if you're aware of somebody who's struggling with their water um utility account um and paying it, please have them reach out to Napa Shares of Cares at the 2084676586. There's a possibility that they could qualify for some assistance. 208-467-6586.

Okay. Any questions? I have a quick question. Yes. Um I'm really curious about um your letter opener. Mine's just a sharp knife thing that opens letters. Do you do would you give a tour of your little area so I can see what you have? Yeah, absolutely. Anytime. I just I just am curious of how what a very expensive letter opener looks like. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. Now, and please keep in mind um we do especially during irrigation season, we open hundreds of letters a day, but um during irrigation season, it really doubles because we increase our customer service line by the irrigation customers.

Yeah, I'm sure you have a lot, but I'm just curious what it looks like. Yeah, anytime you want. Thanks. space usage. Yes.

Yes, we have code compliance.

That would be nice. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Because we Yeah, we are pretty squeezed in there. I have four people in one office kind of. So not an issue.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Right.

So there there is a possibility um I can work with Doug and put a a presentation together um where we can consider the option of perhaps we pass on those costs to the customer. Um I know right now we get a utility rate so we may pay a little bit less for those bank fees than we would with let's say another business. Um, but if we do pass it on to the customers, there there would be a change there. Um, but yeah, certainly we I I don't see an issue with working Doug and I can put something together and then we'll present that.

President, the counselor, we have actually looked at this and talked about this with the banking industry. Um, the cost to us right now is about 2.75% per transaction. That's for a credit card, a little less for a debit card. And if we can bring in like the the the check AC that you can do like you do to Walmart, you write a check, they scan it, and it gives a check back to you. That's even less costly. Um the the hesitancy has been that well the way we would do it is we would simply let the credit card company charge the fee and keep the fee and keep it off of our books. We wouldn't even bring it in. We wouldn't show it as revenue. We wouldn't show it as expense. We would just be external to us. the hesitant and we do this in development services and other places in the city because we don't want to carry those fees internally. Uh but the hesitancy has been because we're dealing with a lot of uh customers some older some on tighter budgets. So this is something we can do if that's the will of the council to to reverse that charge and I've thought long and hard about it. I would like to do it but hesitant because of who I'm impacting.

Okay. So follow up, sir. Uh the other thing is is u uh when when you get on the phone with the city of Nampa water, it takes forever to get on. You have so many options and it I called the other day because I wanted to talk to somebody about an issue that an 85year-old woman that had your water turned off and I just wanted but it took me forever. Is there a way to streamline that ugly um the phone tree message? Phone tree. I mean that just I almost just hung up and said, "Oh man, this is terrible."

The we can certainly look at that. The difficulty there is we have some customers who are like can't you put it in your message so that as soon as I hear the information that I need such as um irrigation season or water will be full pressure beginning of May they hang up where other customers are okay your message is too long it took me five minutes to get through your phone tree in order to get to a person. So, we can certainly review that and try to get that balance because we do we have both arguments. Well, I know they're trying to explain everything of where to go, what to do. You need that. I know that. But yeah,

but my gosh, it just take forever to and I finally didn't talk to anybody and I just went, well, darn it cuz I had everybody's cell phone. I called them instead. But I wonder if we could fix that and maybe streamline that. Yeah, we can certainly review that because I think the more the minute that we are on that phone, the more we are c we are charged. Right, Doug?

They um I don't know if you know they have a a big TV and screen inside the um the uh utility billing building that looks and tells them how many people in line and how many people are on the phone waiting. Give them a cue. And I think if um if you have somebody that's elderly and needs to help, we're very very concerned about that. anybody met at that fact, but the people that are that struggle with the systems and we want to help those. It's just it's a difficult balance as Alfa said, finding what works for everybody, but obviously we're more than invested in trying to meet the needs of our customers. Um, and we want to reduce costs as well. Well, when you when you look at the the people in the queue waiting for from somebody to speak with, then that's that's you should be answering those within what a minute to two minutes depending on

depending on the season. Um, we usually within a minute or two, we we answer. However, during irrigation season when we get flooded with twice the number of customers, um, it can be longer. Sometimes it's been as long as five, seven Oh, wow. minutes just depending because I only have four customer service right uh team members and

we did that's where we added staff last year if you recall we added a supervisor over that group so we have five instead of four in that work now because we recognize the growth we're growing at a rate of 3 to 5% per year in accounts and we have been and this is the first new staff we've added since I've been here um so while you can say that's great to do cost control the opposite effect is that we are slower to meeting everybody's needs because of the growth in the population. And one more followup, sir. Um, what what does your department bring in in revenue?

Well, okay. So, the um the utility billing department doesn't necessarily bring in revenue. We we incur costs and we charge those costs. So, you've got um I think it's uh what 1.5 million somewhere in that to run your utility billing budget for the year. Yes. Now, all those costs are the the are for Republic services and for um administrative costs for the water, the wastewater, irrigation, and so forth. We take those costs and we allocate them back to water, wastewater, irrigation, and I guess that's it. Stewart, sewer. Yeah. Storm.

Do we do streets? No, not to no we give back to street. So we we take that that money that 1.5 and it gets charged into the utility rates that that people are paying.

Now on the public services side there is a bit of revenue because when we collect the uh garbage cans when public services collect them we act as their billing agent. We actually generate the bill and we do all the work. For that work we get a rebate of 18% from all of our public services costs. That's about two$2.5 million a year. We take 100 well 99.5% of that money and we give it back to the streets department because the big heavy garbage trucks are doing damage to the streets. So we take that revenue and we don't keep it. We give it right back to the streets for them to use and repaving and whatever, but we don't generate revenue.

Is there a re is there a way to uh put some of that back into the employees rather than send it out? Um I think that's a very good question. Yes, there there there is a way we have um it's the same with utility billing with and alpha please if I miss anything please yes

add add supplement my comments when we create the billings that go back to water waste or irrigation and so forth um any increase we incur in our budget is passed back to utility billing utilities that are build out in the rates that you approve later on so a water increase uh sewer increase those eventually factor in what happens in utility billing and other costs and so yes we can increase the wages we are careful to do so because of the impact even though it's almost immeasurable one one body on a rate of of $70 million is hardly immeasurable but we're very cautious about that impact and aware of it and that's why we've taken so long to add a new staff but in as we go if we go do go to monthly billing and there are pros and cons that we will need another staff the pros are you're taking people who struggle with bimonthly billing and we have a lot of collection costs because they can handle a monthly bill but a bonthly bill they may default on it. Then we have to send out water department to disconnect and then water department to reconnect. And so we're hoping that by going to monthly billing we can minimize the the number of disconnects and reconnects that we have and make the the flow of cash a little easier on the consumer. Monthly billing will also sorry monthly billing will also help streamline some of our current processes like the the collection process and um we are hoping to then be able to offer other s services like perhaps once we get stabilized in monthly billing doing a um like a what does Idaho Power call it basically where it's a flat amount each month and then each year we just a level pay. Yes. Thank you. Right. And the the cost of going to monthly billing is fairly significant because you're doubling our mailing costs, which is why we want to get ahead of this by converting to online billing, reduce that cost so that when we do convert, the the net impact us is is much minimized. But we want to

bring that before council and show you the numbers and get your inputs and thoughts on that. Um, but if we do go to monthly billing, we will need another staff there. And to to do that, we need to kind of look at the, as you've indicated, Councilman Bills, the the the the building needs a little bit of help. It's not it's it's a little we're packed in there like sardines right now.

Well, what I'm referring to mostly is about when they have four employees and and we have increased our population by about 60,000 over the last 10 years. We still have four employees and so customer service is going to lack. So I'm thinking take that take that what you need from the fund or the the the balance that we receive in reserves. Not reserve I mean pay and and and and get another couple of employees. So that doesn't hurt the general fund. It's an enterprise fund. Never mind. Well you are correct. It doesn't touch the general fund at all. It goes it would the impact would go straight through out in the billings whatever we do to the uh the customers. But we just added the one staff in 25

25 we added our uh customer service lead. Yes, customer service lead. So we can increase that. Um and I think what we should do is bring back before council the transactions, the number of transactions, the wait times. And if we can do that in the budget process and if council would like to have another staff out there, we can present you with facts and let you make a fact-based decision. This is the wait time. These are the number of calls we take on average. these are the uh ups and the downs and let council make an appropriate decision decision on on that. I was hoping you'd have that report about about that, you know, but um could I just go over there and look at talk to you about that or

Yeah, I I mean you can certainly come. You're you're more than welcome to anytime. Um yeah, we'll we'll put the report together and then we'll just have it there for if you want to review it and then I can share it with everybody else as well. um thing with certainly I I agree with you. We're going to need more staff when we go to monthly billing. It's the space right now. I you know that I can hire somebody. I just don't have anywhere to put them. Oh, I see. I So that comes back to the beginning with code enforcement. We got to work out space. So we're going to want the information. We're going to want to look at it from a budget, but the space issue uh we're we're going to need to

Yeah. confirm what we're going to do over the next short while. So, Alpha, thank you very much. Really quick, Alpha, can you remind me the timeline of going to monthly billing? We wanted to go to monthly billing and FY27. We've had a little bit of hiccups and trying to figure things out. So, my goal is FY28.

The hiccups have been completing the software upgrade and um finding the space uh in the for staffing inside. But I want to go back to one other point. Alpha gave you a phone number where people can call to get CARES and shares help. I don't know that the council understands how that is funded. So there's what I think there's probably 350,000 or so left in that fund.

When typically we would take divert part of the money that Republic Service would pay to us. They give us like a $60 $70,000 rebate that they get from the government on uh the use of natural gas as a as a propulsion uh method in some of their trucks. And we would take part of that. But during the original COVID funding that came out in 20, we allocated about three no $450,000 in in three $150,000 segments into the CARES and shares program that will help the individuals who qualify uh get that $250 rebate. But that's a limited funding and the 350,000 will probably last us 3 or 4 years at this rate. But um we have no permanent funding mechanism for that as this stands. We just look for the opportunities and we divert funds there as we can to make that sure that that as the C and this this covers also the seniors who who need assistance um can go to this this program. But it doesn't

two programs. We have um a senior program that helps with $20 a bill and then there's also another one where a customer can qualify for up to $250 assistance. Okay, we got to keep moving. Thank you very much, Alpha. Thank you. So, uh, Alpha, I'm also proud to tell you that I have not had my water shut off since I last saw you. So, I'm doing okay without monthly billing, but I'm looking forward to having it. All right. Thank you, Tom. Good morning.

Morning, council. Thanks for having us. Uh, for the record, Tom point, senior public works director. And so I'm going to help co-present this the water and environmental with John Spencer, our water director. So order of business, he'll come up and talk some details about each of the budgets and I'll come back talk about public works as a whole and infrastructure. We added some some things in the end on deferred maintenance and needs we need to take care of right now. Some things about project management that we've done in the past. Um staffing needs and potential funding sources and then future goals for the department. So, I'm going to turn it over to John and he can take over. Great. Thanks, Tom. Yep. Morning, John. Morning, Council President and Council.

You're looking pretty distinguished this morning.

I tried. Uh, so we got a we got a lot to get through, so I'll try to get through it uh quickly and and respond to questions as we go. Um, so first we'll start with uh water and irrigation division. Uh the department overview is um we have our mission statement which is to ensure the city of NA's prosperity for decades to c uh to come by providing safe, clean, affordable and abundant domestic water, affordable and abundant irrigation water accompanied by excellent customer service. So the staff strives to do that every day um out there in the field. This is our current organizational chart. Um, we'll get into some of the challenges with staffing uh all of these positions. Uh, currently we have some operator positions open, uh, maintenance technician positions open, uh, admin position open, and utility technician position open. Um, um, but we'll get into some of the details later on. uh our FY26 goals. Um you know, it's it's critical that we meet EPA requirements. Uh the water water division does that. Uh we meet uh the 100% regulatory compliance uh goals that we've set. Um we've also have been working through exercising hydrants and valves. That's a a maintenance requirement for the system. Um on the hydrant side with the extra staff that we were uh provided two years ago, we have definitely seen an increase in the number of uh valves exercised. We actually increased our goal um because we surpassed it last year. Uh so we're on on on pace to get close to 10,000 uh

valves exercised this year. Um that's still less than half of all the valves we have in the city. Uh the hydrants have been a little more challenging. We've had some turnover in those positions. Uh I believe we have that that stabilized now and so we should see those uh hydrants flushed uh those numbers increase. So, the infrastructure we have is about $2 billion worth of infrastructure out there with the wells and pump stations, those 27,000 valves, the 6,500 fire hydrants, and over approximately 1,200 miles of pipe. Uh that's what we're maintaining uh every day. The new water tank has been completed and is operational. Um so that was a a a big push and a big task that was completed uh the end of last year into this year. Uh our customer service, we have three admin uh that take calls and as you can see we get about 3,000 calls a year. Um, and then of those 3,000, about 2,800, we send someone out to the customer to um, handle whatever the situation is. Typically, they're flooding calls of some type. There's also water quality calls, uh, low pressure calls. Those are the sorts of calls we get. Um, our operators take almost 1,400 samples a year to ensure that we meet those EPA requirements. Uh those numbers are going to increase with uh new EPA requirements that are forthcoming and we'll get into some of those as well. Uh you can see last year we did over 8,000 uh valves exercised. Again the hydrants were about 1,300 and uh we also deal with backflow

assemblies and so we certified over 7,000 of those. In uh 25 we served 12.4 4 billion gallons of water. Um 9.1 billion was irrigation and 3.3 was uh the domestic water. The water building is still currently under construction. Um the movein date for the the new facility portion is uh to be in June. Um once the staff has moved into the new portion, the uh existing portion will be renovated and that's a two to three month process to finalize the uh entire building. So just for some information um you know as we as we grow um we obviously uh use more water but what we've seen since 2008 is actually a reduction per capita both on the irrigation side and the domestic side for use. So per capita people are using less but overall we're still increasing but it it's just an interesting fact to see that people are looking to conserve water to some degree.

Also demographic changing. Yes, for sure. I mean we've had a tremendous amount of uh what would be one and two person household moveins looking at it from a real estate point of view. And that that brings about that change in demographic. Yeah. Just it does. Yeah. FYI. And I think also some of the the the water saving appliances as people improve their their houses and their um that those type of things. I think that has helped contribute to that as well.

Yep. So, we also uh on our water side, we still provide tremendous value to our customers with the with the water rates. Um we get this study done every year and currently we're still the second lowest in rates for water rates um throughout the region. Um including and this includes that 10% increase that uh was approved last year. question. Yes, council presidentson.

So maybe John or it could be uh Doug. So when we talked about covering some of those costs in conjunction with utility billing, is it the water rate that would increase to help cover some of that? All three water, irrigation, and sewer would theoretically increase, but the increase would be almost immeasurable because you're talking billings of probably 60 to 70 million a year. And if we're adding a new UB person or whatever, $100 and $200,000, you'd have a hard time quantifying that as a percentage, but it does flow through to them as a dollar. Yeah. So, where we're so low just from that standpoint, we should be Yes. We should be doing some type of incremental.

I completely agree. Yes. Absolutely. Get ourselves in balance on the there are deferred needs that could be covered with that use as as council looked at this. And I I completely agree with that. I think we are lower than we should be and we're courting some degree of future problem if we if we don't uh start now.

Okay. So then I know I'm interrupting but from the standpoint of replacing taking a hard look at the lines that need to be replaced etc. Do we know yet what that projected cost is? And can we divide that back into and what incrementally we would need to increase those rates to start uh systematically replacing those old lines throughout North Nampa and slightly south.

Councilman Council President Bills, um there's two two things that we're doing right now. We're finalizing the uh rate study um with FCS. So we want that completed here in the next month or so. We have that those numbers for you. Um we also are analyzing the um we'll say the deferred maintenance or the age of pipe and and going through that. There'll be further discussion in this presentation on some of that um some of that those efforts that are ongoing. Um we've we've started that process. We do need to get into uh further analysis of of the age of pipe is one aspect. We have to really come up with a uh defined approach on how we look at and prioritize uh especially water and uh domestic water and irrigation. The sewer we have a fairly good approach um but domestic water and irrigation we need to define that.

So we're working towards that. All right. I'll be a little more patient. Keep going. Thank you.

Uh so some of the the vulnerabilities we have um in water and irrigation, we we we still struggle with some um turnover. Um so that's a challenge. In FY25, we had 20 thou 209 domestic breaks and 840 irrigation breaks. Not all of these are due to age of infrastructure. There's a lot of there's a lot of different um types of brakes in here and leaks. Some are um service lines that are old, but then there's other service lines um that get damaged by um some of the fiber groups that are in there. So, there's a number of the breaks that that are contractor um a result of contractors, but these are all um items that we we have to manage every year. So here kind of gives you an idea of that age of infrastructure. Um so in the ground right now there's there's domestic pipe that's between 50 and 70 years old. We have about 40 miles of that to replace a mile of of domestic pipe. We're roughly at 1.65 million. Uh that's based on an analysis over the last 5 years of construction cost for replacement of domestic lines. the irrigation pipe over 50 years old. Uh we have for 8.42 miles. Um slightly cheaper to replace irrigation, but still at 1.3 million per mile. And then you can see that uh pipe that's going to be 50 years um old in the next 5 years. There's 72 mi of domestic pipe and 77 miles of irrigation pipe. Again, this is just providing you an age um an analysis as to the

priorities of replacement of pipe still needs to be uh completed. One item that we've we're focusing on is the downtown area. We know that's some of the older pipe in town and um it's also uh needs to be up upsized as well. Uh so we've met with uh NDC and economic development and making sure that we coordinate with any redevelopment that's going down there and um looking at where are the best options for us to replace waterline and also look at the road improvements that would occur uh simultaneously. So we're evaluating that right now and trying to get projects out on the water side. We're not requesting any new staff this year. Um, again, we've had some challenges just filling positions. So, what we are asking for is uh approximately $64,000 to help with a license and uh promotion policy that has been drafted and we're working that through HR and then finance. Um really it's a um all of our operators requ are required to have lensures and there's different levels of lensures to get um the more the higher level of lensure the more experienced and the more um efficient typically the the staff is. So having a policy in place to um provide some some additional uh wages for those lensures and uh potential promotions from those during the along those uh different levels of lensure. Um we would like to have that in place so we can u continue to retain staff. Um when we get to the water renewal side, water renewal

has been doing uh that to some degree and it has shown to uh increase the retention of staff and the funding would be would come from the growth um that occurs. So, the new dollars that are anticipated to come in from growth, some of the larger uh equipment purchases, um typically we do replace um our our water maintenance vehicles. That 142,000 um should be for three um vehicles, half ton vehicles. Um so, we're looking to do those replacements. Um we also need to replace our front end loader. So, we're looking to do that next year at 450,000. We have pushed that one back as it's not really been necessary, but um at this point in time, staff has has indicated that it is time to replace that loader and we've worked with Doug over at Fleet with that as well.

President, question. Yes, sir. Uh John, how much can you use from impact fees for purchase of vehicles or can you I council Rodriguez, we certainly could on but we don't it's not in our impact CIP for water. Oh, we did. We do have some plow trucks that we put in our transport transportation impact fee, but we haven't gone that route yet for water. We can

What are you anticipating when? Um well we've been talking internally we need to do a impact advisory committee here soon. So as soon as we can get the the team together then that's it's possible. Okay. So this this purchase of vehicles comes from within the water department revenue. Yes. It's coming from enterprise funds is what he's budgeted so far. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Re replacement um really needs to come out of operating Yes. and the billing side not from impact. Impact is for growth related. Well, that's that's what I was thinking.

So, the typical maintenance side we've got to just upgrade and do so through our operation of the those utility accounts. What I was thinking uh uh president was was maintain our level of of of vehicles and get new altogether. If if the growth is if the growth is requiring the additional vehicle, uh then we can do that through impact. Yeah, that's just what I was thinking. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

You um so that we put together a 5-year budget outlook um for both w domestic water and irrigation. Um one thing I do want to point out is that it it appears that you know our our fund balance might be slightly high in this this fiscal year. Um what's what's really driven that is we got we received those ARPA funds and so we used ARPA funds so that increased our fund balance and so now we're looking to uh use that fund balance um you know there's we'd love to use it all immediately and put put infrastructure in the ground but we do have challenges um staffing wise to to manage all of the projects and and further discussion on that will be coming. M president, it's worth just a small comment about the ARPA funding. Um we got eight $17 million. The vast majority of that went to public works. The water tower was primarily funded by that. But cities and communities across the the nation are trying to figure out how to make ends meet without those funding right now. And we're not we're not immune to that. So you'll see more challenges coming to our fund balance as we move forward. We have fun balance, but we have more needs than we have fund balance.

Yeah, it's great when Santa Claus shows up, but uh we also get used to what's come and then then there's a belt tightening, so to speak, or readjustment. So, keep going, John. Okay. Thank you.

So, there's also um I wanted to present some external I'm calling external budget costs. um really costs that uh are coming to us that um um a lot of it we we don't have a lot of control over. Uh Nampa Meridian Irrigation District has come to us to re-evaluate their contract that we have that's um from 1980 um and to re-evaluate how their administrative costs are are divvied out among all their constituents. So, we are we're working with them on on we have a a draft contract that legal is is reviewing and we will be presenting that to council in the coming uh months. But essentially, it it will increase cost to the irrigation department and ultimately our our citizens about $300,000 a year. Uh a number of these are EPA requirements. So, POS testing, uh, we anticipate about $22,000 a year, um, in this next fiscal year, um, due to those requirements. Um, there's a lead and copper improvement um, that's that's ongoing that will cost about $6,000 a year. Um, in FY28, one of the requirements for the lead and copper rule improvement is that we evaluate all the unknown service lines we have in the city. So, we've done an evaluation of the best we could to evaluate what we have. And we have approximately 8,000 unknown service lines that are on the customer side. we are still required to evaluate those and provide a determination to DEEQ and EPA on what that material is. And in order to do that, we did an analysis and it's

roughly $175,000 a year um looking at approximately 8 800 service lines a year by staff. Um and we have that requirement to do it within 10 years. Um in future years the uh DEEQ has presented to us that the EPA is coming out with a perchlorate testing. Um this is mandated by a federal judge that the EPA do this. So um there's really no recourse for anyone. So that that'll cost us dollars. They have not finalized that rule at this time but we know it's coming. Um DEEQ is also struggling with funding. uh a significant portion of their funding comes from the the federal government uh and through grants and through the EPA. Uh those have been uh are are being cut dramatically and so they are looking to evaluate their fees uh schedule that they currently have. They have not evalu they've not raised fees in um I think it's been close to 20 years. So they're re-evaluating that. um I'm engaged with them and we're going through these uh conversations about the this rule and these and this fee schedule, but we're anticipating those costs for for the city of Nampa to be approximately $200,000. Again, we're we're still going through that process. So, the ultimate uh cost will will be known as we we vet that process. So, done with water. Any immediate questions for on the water and irrigation side?

John, we appreciate it very much. Okay, Tom. Well, we're we got water. I will continue. Yes. Sorry, you're stuck with me. No problem. Water renewal.

Water renewal. Uh department overview. We have about 49 employees. Um two billion in infrastructure. Uh our our budget this year is approximately 46 million and that comes from we pay for that through revenue from rates and grants uh serving about 119,000 customers. This is our current organizational chart. Um these are our goals for this year. Um, we really strive to look at the preventative versus corrective maintenance. Uh, we are at a 50/50 right now. We'd like to be at 70% preventative. Um, again, we we continue to strive to get to that goal. Um, we're looking at we also inspect. So, this is where it we have a better process with gravity sewer where you can actually inspect the sewer lines. So, staff goes out and inspects sewer lines every year. Currently, we're at 46 miles that they've inspected, and so we should meet the goal of the 72 miles this year, but that that provides us a a good way to prioritize needs on the sewer side. Um, and then we also look to clean uh the pipes that need to be cleaned out and so far we're at 80 48 miles and so we're on track to meet the 84 miles of cleaned pipe this year. Um, and then the replacement of pipe or the CIP process that we do. Um, currently we're working towards building an in-house uh crew and we'll get to some of those details here. Uh, some of the accomplishments, uh, the MO pipeline was completed, uh, that was needed for the reuse permit. Um, rotary press is underway. The headworks project

is underway. um the digtor lid and clarifier repair and recoding. Um we received uh some awards and so it's it's it's been a lot but it's been a good year. Um we manage u maintain almost 1,900 uh equipment units out there at the plant. Uh there's approximately 40,000 samples um that are taken out at the plant uh every year. Um, and then also there there's in-house engineering and and replacements that are done by staff uh all for to save uh costs. The sewer um system has about 450 mi of pipe, 13 lift stations, and about 10,000 manholes, almost 11,000. So, the new headworks um is is proceeding um and so it should be completed by the spring of 2028. Uh the city of Nampa's recycled water program received the the reuse award for the Pacific Northwest uh for that reuse pipeline. We also had a Pacific Northwest Collection System operator of the year, David Allen. Also a Southwest Idaho Laboratory operator of the year, Jordan Trevino. So, we're very proud of those accomplishments that they've achieved. Um, the staff does an outstanding job. Last year was the first year we took the reuse water and put in the Phyllis Canal for the for the irrigation season. Um so we could evaluate how the system was working and work out any bugs. And so um we'll be doing that again this year.

How did how did the irrigation district fare with that? Cooperating working council and council president Bills. Yes, they've they've been cooperating. They've had uh we haven't had any challenges with them. Um I think they enjoy the water. Has it I mean it's helped them, but also has it worked far as the redistribution as far as their canals can handle only so much. So the water's got to go.

That was one of the questions we had if they could handle the peaks and the and the lows and they were able to handle it just fine and it was worked out perfectly. They were, in fact, I got a a text from Pioneer Irrigation District um commissioner president the other day saying, "Great work getting this water. We're really going to need it this year." So, they're super happy about it. Excellent. Yeah. Excellent. That's a real kudo in my mind as far as what's been done.

Uh and and yeah, big help, especially in the drought times and so forth. Yeah, that's great. Okay. And so this is a study for the it's the same study that we do, but this is on the uh sewer rates. So we're about at average uh across the region. Um one thing that this study doesn't take into account is those um cities that have not yet done the work to meet the EPA requirements that are that are coming up. So, we anticipate some of these rates to to mod be modified as those cities have to expend those dollars to upgrade their facilities. So, this was some of the evaluation we did on the sewer pipe. Um they anticipate that 3.5 miles needs to be replaced in the next 7 years and that can cost between 10 and $20 million. If we if we do continue to proceed with our own in-house lining crew, that that number should decrease significantly um with the pipe that we can use that cure in place um process. If we have to do open cut to replace damaged pipe, those costs are are usually a lot more.

Question president.

Yes. Um, has there been because of the increase of growth, has there been uh a disruption of flow because the amount of sewers that's being I guess flushed and or is there a backup that takes longer to get to their sewer plant? Councilman Rodriguez, uh when when growth comes in, the the sewer lines that are put into place um are put in in such a way and and assized in such a way to accommodate the flows that are that are anticipated with that growth. So currently there's not been a challenge with um flows to the plant uh obviously and then the plant has been uh upgraded to handle the flows that we anticipate.

Okay. Thank you president. Yes, John. That flush tank removal is that also on the seven-year timeline?

The the flush tank and the manhole repair is not necessarily on that seven-year time frame. they those are just um items that need to be addressed. Um the the manholes we we need to do a that that's one portion that we really don't have a great evaluation on the um on the priority. Um so as we were going through this uh analysis we we found some of the gaps in our analysis that we need to work on and the manhole one was one of them. The flush tanks are not critical but they do need to be removed uh from the system.

Thank you. And then um you know beyond 7 years there's approximately 72 miles of of sewer line that would need to be replaced or or using that cured in place process. So with the with the proposal um this this first item the pipeline and crew this was introduced to council last year um and so we're con we're continuing with that process. Um we we uh are working through that process and uh appreciate the continued support to get us to having that crew um available to do uh cured in place pipe replacement uh next year. There's a couple positions within the the water renewal division that we'd like to modify. There's a halftime position in the lab. We'd like to convert that to a full-time position uh just due to need the need of the samples and the requirements um for sampling and and testing. Um and then we're looking to convert a lead position into a supervisor position. Um and that's that's due to the size of the the the group that's out there. uh it made more sense to split that into two groups and have two two supervisors rather than one and multiple leads. So, we're asking for that. Um again, as I described with water, this lensure and promotion policy, we're looking to get that approved and have a line item for um funding that. Um once again, this would the funding source would come from the anticipated growth.

Council President Bills, can I ask a question here?

Yes. Um John on this with respect primarily to the three pipeline construction crews but also referentially to the remaining what would this do to the totality of your budget? Would it increase? Would it decrease? Would you shift funds from construction? Did this pay for it? What how much would this actually increase your net costs? Not the revenues, net costs. So, the analysis that was done last year um showed that we were expending about $1.5 million a year for the cured in place uh process when we have contractors in that would get us about a mile of pipe. So, we deferred for 2 years that cost so that we could then fund it. And uh um that 1.5 million is the is the dollars that we would be using to fund the crew, the equipment. Uh moving forward, there would still some of the there would be some money that we'd still need to budget for some of the repairs that the the cured in place could not handle, but overall it should not increase the budget. That was the the goal of introducing this crew. So without going into deep detail, if you if that was a 1.5, pardon me, how 1.5 miles the Kieran, I can't remember how much was that in in terms of miles of pipe you you deferred to get the $ 1.5 million in revenue.

So we were we were putting in about one to two miles, right? So if you go internal and you bring those three staff on for the same cost, how many miles can you do? We anticipate being able to do three to five miles. Okay. Thank you, President. Yes. John, how much turnover did you guys experience last year?

Councilwoman Jangula, I don't have the percentage of turnover in water renewal. I know it was reduced from previous years due to uh the work that Andy Zimmerman has done with um this lensure and promotion policy. So I know that the the retention has increased and and turnover has been has decreased. I just don't know the the percentage. Thank you, Council President. Yes.

Uh John, I'm having trouble with the lensure and policy as uh and it's costing $76,000. Why Why do we need that? Why can't our HR do that? Councilman Rodriguez. Um we're working with HR on uh this policy and working with finance on funding the policy. Um but that those dollars would come out of water renewal and water to fund those the lensures. Um you know if you if you bring in um staff that have there's there's various levels of lensures. There's one through four in both water and wastewater. Um so um providing the ability for staff to increase or take those tests um and get those lensures only helps our system because they're more efficient. They're more educated. They have they have better uh understanding of the needs of the system. And so we're looking at ways to compensate staff for achieving those lensures that we really want staff to have. We want we really want staff to achieve those levels of lensure. Um and when you when you achieve that lensure then there's also a promotion that can it doesn't it's not an automatic promotion. There's have to evaluate levels of experience and skill and knowledge um that this policy really represents. follow up. So what you're paying for is certifications of of excellence, I guess, but the re-evaluation of the employees salaries. Uh I think we already do that and so I think we can reduce that amount and make better use of that money or just my opinion. What do you think? So, the the

way we got to those numbers, um both on the water and water renewal side, um Lindsay and Andy went through their staffing and looked at the potential um for staff to achieve those different lensures and potentially achieve um a promotion. And yes, this works handinhand with HR to do those evaluations. It's not um in a bubble in in water renewal or water. Um so they went through that evaluation and and these are the numbers that they believe we can achieve within um the next year um with those lensures.

Let's add something here. So I think what you're asking HR internally analyzes what the wages should be for us using the data from other cities and then this this $76,000 is just the funding that we would pay the employees when they achieve those licensers. Oh, okay. And it helps retain the employees. And this is super important. I want to bring this point up for the for our water departments because all the demand in the valley even outside of the city cities. So, we got the Meta, you got the Micron and all the those folks and all their water systems. So, they're they're in high demand. So, we need to make sure we're funding that this program.

So, that's going right back into Okay, I like that. Thank you for make a comment, counselor. The um we have made closed the gap quite significantly on wages. We need to keep moving because we we have been a training ground for other municipalities around the city. We train them, get them certified, and then if we don't pay them enough, then they get a job three, four more dollars an hour somewhere else. So, this Yeah, this is this is better. I I thank you. I I I needed that information. President, yes,

I was going to email you later, but while we're talking about it, with those lenses, if we invest in that, is there some sort of a contract that comes with them so that if they obtain, they have to stay with this city for x amount of years? We we have looked at that and we find a lot of legal hurdles in doing that. So um we we're trying to pay them the wage, build a good culture, do what we can to do to keep retain them, but legally we really run into problems when we try and contractually obligate them to stay based on a certification pay. So the answer is no.

Okay. Thank you. Um and and we currently do still see challenges on the water side. We we offered um we've offered three operator positions that were declined due to salaries. Um that would have filled our operator uh side of things and would help would have helped things, but it it was really challenging just due to salaries. Um, well, bottom bottom line, I'm going to interrupt because our time's going, but the bottom line is, uh, council, we've we've got to treat our utility system, uh, competitive in the valley, and we've got to it it's, uh, 24/7. It doesn't ever stop,

right?

And we've got to have folks who are uh, trained. We got to acknowledge their additional training thereafter continuing education. Uh at times uh your team and people are behind the scenes. People don't notice it. They don't get the congratulations. They don't get the thank yous and uh we certainly need to acknowledge it and we need to keep competitive. We need to have a good work environment so that we have people here who say I appreciate getting I get up and go to work and and candidly uh sometimes we just forget some of those who are behind the scenes keeping the lights on so to speak. So we're we're grateful for for the supervisors but also for everybody who's in the field. So, uh, in all cander, we're going to support, we're going to figure out a way to support because public works, we need to make it a priority. Um, there's other things that have all the fluff and a lot of a lot of event everybody can get excited about. Some of this stuff people don't get excited about. They don't see it. Gosh, if somebody shut off their water, sewer, uh the toilet didn't flush, not because their toilet didn't work, but because we put stop gaps in there or we didn't do our job, you guys would hear about it. They would be screaming and then when you're doing such a good job, did it did they come by and tell you, "Thank you." No, you know, it's not glory work. Candidly, there's tough days when you got to get in the water and in the goo and and so forth and and fix a problem. And so, I just want the team to know that uh it's appreciated. It's not shown at times. And this council's got to step forward and help in in these matters. So,

thank you for that. Let you keep going. Appreciate it. I'll I'll speed up a little bit. Yeah. Well, we got uh 20 minutes left, so

Okay. So they have the pipeline crew which we discussed. Um it's about a 60% savings to do it ourselves. Um so this is the proposed org chart with the construction team um moving to a supervisor and a full-time lab analyst. Uh we do have to replace an existing back truck. These get used every day by staff um for a cost of $85,000. uh some of the EP economic opportunities. Um you know the $248 million upgrade that there's the capacity up to 2040 that equates to three materns coming into the city or one amalgamated shure plus capacity for commercial and housing growth to 2040. Um the ur reuse water has a potential for uh industrial use um which can increase tax base and jobs. uh the Purdum Eustic sewer main uh Doug in a previous meeting went through the the funding sources and the long-term benefits uh of that project. So I won't go into that.

Yep.

Uh some of the ongoing large projects that we have um we have the Nampa water garden. It's primarily fund there's a EPA grant for 3.5 million. Uh IDQ has provided $440,000 for design and another million for construction. We have pending uh donations, private donations, um potentially over $3 million worth of private donations. We're still working with foundations and additional grants. Um and then I uh ITD is looking to provide us a lump sum for their wetland credit so that we can um maintain and have personnel maintain that facility. The design is about is 100% so we're doing the final review on the plans. We're currently doing rightway uh negotiations for the pipeline. Uh permitting for this project is nearly complete and we have a conceptual parking lot and pathway plan that depending on on funding uh we'll finalize here um in the next few months. We're looking to adopt a bridge. Uh so we're evaluating the condition of a bridge near Pek, Idaho. This is a a an opportunity that Eltac presents. I just got a letter from uh the city of Pek. They're supportive of us adopting this bridge. So, we're looking at the condition, grant funding, relocation costs, and then a potential savings for the wetland project to put this bridge in rather than constructing a brand new one. A headworks project is ongoing. Uh 44 million total in cost. We spent about half of it to date. Um that 2027 is incorrected. It's 2028 that we anticipate completion.

uh perm sewer. Um we've gone through this at the last council meeting where we're at with this project. Uh this is the phasing for that. I think everyone has seen this. Um we do need to work continue to work on evaluating bioolids disposal. Uh disposal to landfills is not sustainable. A long-term solution is needed. Um the EPA is out there and I know they're evaluating bioolids currently. So I I don't think it's if I think it's when we see regulation on this. Um so we need to determine potential cost savings or revenue source solutions. Environmental resources and capital projects. Um so our our environmental resource um group um they they have been working on about 33 million in FY26 on capital projects um storm water system planning and permitting. Uh they do the construction erosion and sediment control for the city. Um environmental in uh engineering reporting permitting and research. Uh and then also there's a a group that does the plant engineering. Uh this is the organizational chart. Um we we're the goals are eliminating consultants. Um and our environmental compliance group does that extremely well. Um our the PM group does the planning and construction for at out at the plant. Uh so we keep all that in-house and then also we meet the uh environmental permits compliance. So they the the accomplishes are they complete all permitting and program management inhouse eliminating all

consulting costs saving about $345,000 a year by doing that in-house. We manage over 200 million in capital water renewal projects. Uh these are some of the projects that are currently being managed. Uh they also helped out with water and irrigation projects. Um there's also a strong component of public education. It's part of the permitting requirements that we have. Um our environmental compliance group does an outstanding job um with the with the public education component. Again, there's no new positions requested. We do have that line item again for retention uh and and recruitment within this division. Now I'll turn it over to Tom to talk a little bit more about project management and some of the deferred maintenance. Thank you

John. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you John. Okay, I've got 15 minutes or less to close. So want to So for those who have been um at council for a while, you might remember five I'm going to look back five years ago. Um, you know, we were a lot smaller team, six project managers, one inspector, one contract administrator. One of the things that we asked council back then, could we start doing stuff more in house if we if we did less consulting and we pro promised that we'd be able to deliver more projects and have a delivery. So, you can see the progression over the past 5 years, how what we've done with that. We've increased our team to 12 project managers, two inspectors, one contract administrator, and u at least doubled the amount of production. So the the team is very busy and uh I when I walk through the floor I just see a lot of activity and I get a little concerned actually because they some they have 10 plus projects per project manager now which is a lot for for them and so uh you know we're talking about we need to do more work and that's one of the things I want to bring up is that we're kind of at capacity as far as what they can accomplish and also on space. So I want to get into some of the numbers for you here in a second. Um, so with infrastructure challenges, we've we've heard John talk about some of our aging infrastructure. I want to talk about current needs, so things that we think are failing or near failure, deferred maintenance. John talked a lot about the not being able to inspect every asset completely. So, I'm not going to cover that that much. Uh, staffing needs and potential funding sources. So, so these are big numbers. Can't It's first time that council's actually seen these numbers. you've been asking for us to, you know, over the years we've given you the water. This is how much we need in water. This is how much we need in transportation. You know, seven years ago, I was saying we have a $14 million gap per year in transportation, which is still there and it's still growing. We've done a good job on transportation on funding through grants and impact fees on congestion and safety projects.

But our pavement maintenance is mainly what is in this number on pavement. So, this is we're not just talking water anymore. I'm combining transportation water into everything. So, um, John mentioned we've got a pretty good idea on sewer lines, what needs to be replaced. So, 13 miles of that at 20 million. Irrigation lines over 50 years, water lines over 50 years. So, again, we can refine that number down a little bit. This is your worst case number. That's just based on age. One of the things I asked the team to do is take the age number, overlay it with u risk of failure. So if it's a north side or a different remainder of our arterial, let's focus on that and then you know bring in soil condition past breaks and run that through GIS. We can come up with a priority system and try to hone that number down. Um payment conditions so payments already failed or poor. We got a lot of uh failed payment on Ontarios in the core of our downtown area. Those were all failed and residential roads. And Crystal's talked about culverts. So that's that's your culvert number on what we see immediately. So, $245 million. Um, so deferred maintenance, we looked at it. Well, what's coming up that would be needed in the next 5 years? And we came up with this that's Yeah. would be over 50 year old in the next 5 years because it's a rolling clock. Every every year things get older. So, um, you can see the numbers there is about $362 million. So, you add those two numbers up, we're looking about, um, $600 million in in needs across the city. So it's it's a very large number and um like I said we're work John talked about we can on the water side of stuff let's put it put together a planning matrix to figure out what to makes most sense to try to get that number u a little bit better for you and then one other the thing on the disclaimer we did not add in the storm water infrastructure because we have not done a master plan on that yet historically we've just funded about $450,000 annually to go

take care of storm water issues but that's a whole other um thing we need to add in. We have not done that yet. So Tom, quick question. Yes. So GIS wise, we know where every catch basin is in the city. That's correct. And we know what type of storm bed is sitting either in the ground or swells or overflow ponds, etc. Yes. From all that's gone on, there's obviously stuff that before the GIS stuff started happening. So we're able to identify right. Yeah. So so so you got that part in hand so to speak.

The question mark is is life of those beds and or issues forthcoming. Is that what I'm understanding you say? Yeah. So when I say master plan, it's just taking all that data and and compiling it into a a document that the team can use to help identify the total amount they need to spend and then how much each year we would spend. Right now what we do is we when we plan projects for storm water or any of our assets, we we sit down annually, look at all the GIS data, talk to operations people, what's working, what's not, use our camera inspection, and then try to get the worst case one done first. And that's what we program. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Yep. Okay. So, this is a scenario. So, let's say that there was $25 million new um into infrastructure. That would be another another 10 to 12 projects we could do in water and transportation. We talked to the team about what would that look like for project managers. So, we need two two of those, two inspectors, some more public communication, um and then some business support and right away. So the but part of the issue just like you talked with utility billing, we're we're capped out on the second floor. We've got every space t taken with what we've already asked for. So if we're going to add, you know, start adding more infrastructure into our program, we'll need to add more people, but we need to look at a building. And so these are all discussions that we did not put in the budget this year, but I'm just kind of forecasting for the next set, the next one that we need to be looking forward towards that.

Um, I'm going to interrupt you. How much square footage do you need? Um I had I not sure yet. I'm gonna have to How much is how how much square footage is the top floor that you're on right now? Does anybody know that it's in here? That's not something that we All right. There's nobody real estate in development in the room other than the bench here. So let me just think here. So that there for the $25 million we got one there's uh two four five

what we got to know. So the bottom line is uh come back to me please um and identify if you're going to add x number of people or you need certain things how many workstations and to fit those workstations in. Yeah.

What square footage do you need? and and we need to do it because we got a building coming empty here soon. We got another building that sits half empty all the time or 3/4 empty. So, council's desire is to look at shuffle boarding some office space and other uh facility needs and identify it. So if we're if this issue and other issues are coming, we got to start thinking about how does that program in and before we get rid of a piece of property or a building, then we need to know uh what are the needs and how are we going to shift things. Yeah.

So we're looking at uh some that have been sitting, some that aren't are underutilized, some that are used by groups that we don't need to continue to subsidize those groups. So, we need we need uh good information from you. So, yeah, and I apologize for not having that number. I just wanted to bring this up, council president, to see if there's a desire for us to start planning towards this. If we're going to look at funding more infrastructure, we need to do that analysis and we can. Correct. Yes. We got to know what that is so that we know. We don't want to hodge podge and you know, somebody's over here, somebody's over there. you know, if we're going to have to do something and move a department somewhere, then we want to do it succinctly and properly. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh potential funding sources. So, you know, we've there's been some discussion on levy override. We don't you know, we there's options there. We're not um that's we'll take council direction from that when when and if you want us to do that. Uh we can also look at rates. You know, John talked about we have some of the lowest rates in the valley on the water side of things. Maybe there's some things we can do there. Um, we can certainly look at impact fees. Again, we've, you know, some of our impact fees on the on the wa water side are low. You know, our sewer and our irrigation are are probably right where they need to be. So, there's some things we can do there. And then the registration fee for transportation, that's, you know, there is a lot of different ways to fund transportation. Some of them are not easy and and very political and hard to get figure out how to do. We've looked at all the codes and collectively thought registration fee that there's a code that allows us to do that. We've talked to you that in the past and we are continue to work continue to work with uh other Canyon County agencies about this topic and we want to bring this one back to you this year. So that'd be great. Yeah,

I would encourage yourself and your team obviously to continue to dialogue with Doug and finance and uh so it's really coming down to say what issue other words if we did if we ran an override how much we gain what that cost is versus user rate side of things and it may be a hybrid it it may be uh but candidly we've got to put some energy towards that over the next uh short few months and know you know for council to have the information and make a decision if we're going to do something in that direction. Um and that you know it's just important for us but we got to deal with the infrastructure candidly from my perspective. I know council has full counsel has to weigh in on on the whole issue. We got to get the facts for

for council. Sure. Um, president. Yes, Tom. In that additional deferred cost in the next five years, the 362 millionish, how much do you already have in fund balance out of that dollar amount? Um, let's see. John, do you have those numbers? You can get them. You can email them to me. He's got them in his packet, I think. Well, let's not take the time. You find them. Email them to all of council if you can look while I keep going through the slides. He'll probably answer by the end. Thank you.

Um, okay. Okay. So, I I want to talk about future goals for the water and some of the things that been talking to the team about. So, as we talked about with the reuse, that's great. We got irrigation water. We got a drought coming. We got some options. So, that's the highest and best use is actually pay back that investment is industrial customers. And that's our next next push is to find a rate structure for industrial water, help find some customers. uh you know large you can't use it on egg but you can use it on cooling and industrial processes. So and that those types of industries bring a lot of value in tax base. So that's we're going to try to target that

do the planning for the pipeline and the tanks also try to um get a master plan and get some grants going to try to pay for some of that infrastructure. So that's one thing you'll be seeing us work on. Um and then you've already we already talked about the wetland and and how we can selfund that. We're going to continue that with some other projects for some flood water recharge projects. So, just taking some of the the water that generally seven out of 10 years goes to the Boisee River as uh flood release. There's about um 500,000 acre feet that flows by us. We've been talking regionally on places we could put that and then do groundwater recharge and that would help our irrigation systems and um also uh peaking ponds. So that help what we're planning on the golf course is to put a peaking pond to help with the um the peak demand on and off on irrigation so we can store water when we need it and put it back in the system. So these projects help our system but we can also get funding from them and we've been very successful from Idaho Water Resource Board. They're they're very supportive of us. In fact I had one of their um members come up and say when is NPA going to bring in another innovative project for us to fund. I'm like, well, I was just waiting to have them. We're working on it. So,

well, that's great to be asked.

So, and then the water reuse association, we got water smart funding. Um, got conservation folks, environmental foundations, and then a new one I want to spend a little bit of time on that we've figured out the formula on how to fund some of these water projects through private donations like John talked about on the wetland. We can take all that water quality benefit and and water conservation on on quality and volutrically calculate it and then put that out there and say, "Oh, do you want to have take this as a credit for your facility because they need these large companies have water goals?" They actually buy that credit and we've got a way to actually volutrically calculate that now on these projects. So, that's we'll it's a pretty cool thing and I'm pretty excited about. But I think we could put it on an RFP on some of these and get some good competitive funding coming in. So any questions,

council, anything, council president? Yes.

Just for sake of time, good morning. Thank you. Just for sake of timeline, September 4th is the last day that we could put something on the November ballot. Uh, I would highly encourage if we're able to get a time well before then, likely June, to discuss our levy override options, numbers, uh, the cost per citizen if we are able to gather that, uh, and then potentially a public hearing in August if that's the route council would like to go. From what I've seen and heard and wrote down today, I think the only option would be a a permanent levy override. However, we have many options. In my mind, a permanent levy override is something that we should be looking at rather than a bond for a 20-year bond for the specific amount because this is uh uh a counter that's going to keep clicking in the foreseeable future, at least this next 5 years and 5 years beyond that. So, permanent levy overrides what I'm thinking. Doug, if you could prepare what $50 million of a permanent levy override would be costwise per uh household in the city of Nampa. I think that's a starting point.

What was back from there? 50 million at once or over time?

Overtime permanent. 50 million each peranuum just so we can start just based off the numbers we saw today. It's going to be $50 million per year for the next 5 years and then it really will be 60 to 70 million per year after the next 5 years if we look at the 245 and the uh 364 number that we were were given. So I just like to look at that. I know it's going to be a significant amount but at some point we need to present something to the voters and maybe that's in November and if they are close we whittle down for May. Uh if we're way off then maybe we have to re-evaluate completely but we just need to be thinking timeline because it is a time crunch.

Okay, I can do that. Yeah, we'll work with Doug on that. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Thank you everybody for being here this morning. Meetings adjourned.