Transportation Board - Regular Meeting

Boring, but we won't go there either. Anyway, thanks everyone for participating, and we'll open the floor to public comment. Is the chamber's Budgets when we That takes us to approval of the agenda. And I'm planning to pull item 4B for just to ask a couple of questions. I don't necessarily need a full at least, I don't need a full presentation. Other board members may. And I propose moving that down to be the first item under department business. It should not take more than a minute or two. Are there any other proposed changes to the agenda?

So I move we approve the agenda as amended by moving item four b off the consent agenda and moving it down to b seven c or seven a.

It would become the first 7A.

Halena The first 7A.

Halena Yeah. The first item under

seven. I second

the motion. Doctor. Thank you. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye or raise hand. Sorry. And all opposed? Motion passes four to zero. That takes us to the consent agenda, which just has the minutes left on it at this point. Is there anyone prepared to make a motion on that?

I move that the Board of Public Utilities approve the items on the consent agenda as amended, and that the motions in the staff reports be included in the minutes for the record.

I'll second. Thank you. Further discussion? Seeing none. All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Four to zero. That takes us to department business, and we'll start with item whatever the number is on it now, for me. And my questions, James, are how did we get so many discrepancies, and did we know about them?

Do we know there were issues, or do we know about a large number of these issues? How did we get here?

Yeah. So, chair Gibson, we have this sort of inspection every five years. With COVID, the last one we had was about seven years ago. And we had we had performed some independent surveys on some of the tanks that showed some of these items. So some of them, we we did have prior knowledge of. And and so we did find some of those they found in our prior reports of inspection. I gotta say the majority of them are showing up in our ten year plan on the tanks that we're looking at remediating and repainting, and we put a lot of these repairs off for those projects.

But

they they had never really looked at this close to things. They they always go through all the facilities, but I think the fact that we had put a diver in on our own dime in the inspections, they had to look inside the tanks that they they flagged these things. And that was that was a good part of them was, you know, our prior work that identified some of these things in the tanks. And a lot of them aren't, you know, they're not functional items. A seal that's not sealed, some things that we will eventually get to, but it doesn't compromise the water or any of our service. But I don't know if does that answer your question?

Well, partially. It sounds like you knew about some of these things and maybe didn't know about others.

Yeah. And then a lot of them are just came from the site inspection. They're looking at vegetation and some of the the floors of the tanks with respect to the the grade surrounding them. There was some cracks that had developed or some some air gaps. So a lot of them were found in in just the site inspection, things that have happened through the years.

Again, did we know about them, or did they have to tell us about them?

Yeah. A lot of them, I didn't think we realized they were you know, we had some shrubs too close to the tank and things like that. They have never brought that up before. And, you know, if it gets bad enough, we deal with them, but a lot of them were just things we hadn't been it hadn't been flagged as as something that would be a violation until this inspection.

Okay. We wound up doing this work as an emergency procurement. Had it gone through the normal procurement process, would we have wound up with the same likely wound up with the same contract? Or did the fact that it was that it's urgent have a have an effect on contract, contract price, what contractor we got, etcetera?

Yeah. So, chair Gibson, I believe we got a fair price that would competitive bid would've would've shown. There just happens to be a very good specialty contractor that does diving and tank maintenance in Farmington, and they would have definitely been the primary probably the only person in the state that would have would have been able to bid this work or team with folks. So I think we were lucky that we had an on call contract with a firm that had a relationship with these folks. So I'm confident that the price is competitive had we we had to go out there and compete it.

Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the board? If not, let's see. We should probably ask for public comment. And I don't see any public here. And do you have any online, Kathy?

Chair Gibson, there is someone online. If you'd like to make public comment, would you please use the raise hand function and you can use star nine if you're on your phone? I do not see a hand raised.

Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion or a motion? Would someone like to make a motion? Okay.

Did I pronounce it right? I move that the Board of Public Utilities approve task order number four with Souter, Miller, and Associates under a GR22Dash67B for potable water storage tank inspection and maintenance services in the amount of $149,212 plus applicable GRT and including a 15% project contingency and recommend budget revision twenty twenty six-forty one in the amount of $185,441 and forward to counsel for approval.

Second. Further discussion? Seeing none, Kathy, would you please call the roll?

Member Hollingsworth? Yes. Member Stromberg?

Yes.

Member Hefner?

Yes.

And member Gibson?

Yes. Motion passes four to zero. Thank you, James. That takes us to the highlight of the evening, the presentation of the DPU FY 2027 budget. Joanne.

Thank you, Chair Gibson and members of the board. So I'm going be presenting a two year budget tonight. We're going to do the proposed FY twenty seven budget and a projected FY twenty eight budget. So in March, you'll be asked to approve the f y twenty seven expenditure budget, and then we'll be taking that to council at the April. I don't have a presentation, so we're gonna go through the slides.

And so I will we'll take questions as we go through. So I'll I'll just kind of ask if you guys have questions along the way. I will take those questions as they come up. So I'll just give you a brief synopsis of how this budget was completed. So it all starts with strategic planning with senior management and the board.

And then we meet with our asset management team to develop our ten year capital or CIP plan. And those were presented to you guys in January and in early February. Starting in January, we started meeting with each of the deputies going over this current year's fiscal year expenses by job cost category. And we looked at where costs could be cut or where we needed to add expenditures. We receive a position control from finance, which is our FTEs, our salaries and benefits. And then we also get our IDCs, are our interdepartmental charges.

Those are

the costs that we pay around the county for legal, for finance expenses. Then we take all of that stuff, we start projecting revenue. And this year, we used a five year history to come up with our electric, gas, and water and how much we anticipate we'll sell and be able to calculate our projected revenue for FY '27. Sewer, what we did with sewer is we took the number of accounts that we bill and calculated based on those numbers. And then we, the last thing we did is we worked on our reserves, which is part of the financial guidelines that was approved back in 2016 by the board.

And we put that into our ten year forecast. And so we'll we'll show you guys later on when we get to the ten year forecast how that is projected into the budget. So we're gonna go ahead and start with our fund flows. So I think it's page 39 of your packet. So the fund flow is how we build our budget from the ground up.

It includes our revenue, our operating expenses, capital expenditures, and other financing expenditures by type. Just the layout. So the layout, you would have the 24 actual, starting on the left hand side, the '25 actual. Then we have our adopted '26 budget, our projected '26 budget. And then we move into our proposed budget for '27 with the variances for the cash and the percentage variances.

And then we have the '28 projected budget with the percent variances. All the variances are between the adopted budget and the proposed the adopted '26 budget and the proposed '27 budget. The projected '26 line that goes down, that's actually the cost of our or what we have to spend our expenditures. So it may be more or less. Those aren't actual dollars.

That's our actual authority, spending authority in that line item. So if you look on the page 39, it's the summary of all of our expenditures for each of our funds. And the total expenditure budget that we are bringing today for the Department of Public Utilities is $100,071,991 And then if you turn the page, this is kind of a breakdown of the entire department and it includes all our revenues, our operating expenses by each program, which is electric, gas, water, and wastewater. And then it gives us our operating income and loss. And then it lists our capital expenditures, and that's the total of capital expenditures that which is the 9.875 for all of our our programs.

Then we have all of our financing, which includes our grants and loans, any of the revenue transfers, and then that gives us our net income or loss. And then it breaks down into the expenditures by type. And so this is all the salaries, benefits, contractual services, materials, capital outlay and fiscal charges for the entire department. So the next page is our electric production page. And so you'll notice there's some new line items on this page that weren't part of their budget last year.

Those are dealing with Foxtail Flat, our PV, our sales to Sandia National Lab and Kirtland Air Force Base, and the PV sales to DOE and the best fixed charges that are they're anticipating. You'll also notice that in other financing, there's the 2,000,000 interest income transfer that we are doing from electric production to electric distribution each year. And that's based on the current portfolio that we get from the money that was invested from the Uniper settlement.

Joanne, before you leave that page

Yeah.

You're showing for FY or projecting for FY 'twenty eight a considerable increase in megawatt hour sales to lanel. And of course, that drives a lot of other things in the budget. Right. What is that based on? And how solid do we think that is?

I'm going to defer to Ben let him answer those questions. Thank you.

Good evening, chair, board members. The biggest driver of that is their planned installation and operation of a new supercomputing facility, high performance computing center. That's currently still in their plans. I don't know whether that's gonna happen or not, but we're planning for it accordingly. They will be operating the new facility simultaneously with their existing facilities, which leads to a big rise in power consumption and energy consumption for that fiscal year.

And how much confidence do we have that that's actually going to happen given our previous experiences with DOE projecting great increases in their electric demands?

The pragmatic side of me says I am hedging on the side of not procuring power for that until I have more assurance that it's gonna happen on schedule.

Okay. Thank you.

Were there any other questions regarding the electric production budget? So we'll go ahead and move on to electric distribution. Let's see. So electric distribution. So right now we have capital expenditures in FY twenty eight at $9,450,000 And so at the end of the packet, this is this is assuming we're gonna get a bond in '28.

And I don't know if you noticed, but in the packet, we have an option number two for this. And so we'll go over that option number two because it does have some effect on our debt coverage ratio. So we're going to kind of look at that and see where we go from there and get some feedback from you guys from the board. So we have the revenue, cost of power is in here, which is what we're anticipating from buying from electric production for the year at about $10,400,000. We have capital expenditures for '27 at 2,485,000.000.

And that's I didn't know. Do you guys have any questions regarding electric production? Oh, and we do have the $2,000,000 transfer from the the interest income as well included in here.

If no one else has a question, I'll ask one. Looking at FY27 proposed, looking at cost of power, FY '27 proposed is down a little bit and then '28 goes up substantially. What's driving those changes?

Oh, so the project it's the projected kilowatt sales, that the increase in kilowatt sales from 27 to 28.

Well, it only goes from 123.4 to one twenty four. That's a negligible increase. And yet you're showing a cost of power that's like a 25% increase or close to it.

Well, let me

I think

I'll let I'll let Ben answer.

If I may. Sure. Sure. The

if you

let me make sure I understand the question. You're asking about the change in the cost the unit cost of power for moving from 27 to '28. Is that correct?

Well, I'm actually asking more about the total cost because that's what we see here. The best. But it appears that the unit cost has gone way up because the actual sales is about the same.

So FY '27, the cost estimate for that for this coming fiscal year is based upon forward curve projections at four corners plus a premium to get it to to us delivered from marketers. That's what those costs are. They're looking actually pretty good right now. We're seeing prices, as you know, we you just approved, recently a new power purchase agreement with Tenaska Power, which we just confirmed and completed today. That could finish at, what was the price?

25.

$25.85 per kilowatt hour for the month of March. The price does go up there. The forecast is showing a rise up into the $60 range this coming summer. And then that pattern kind of falling off in the winter and then rising again in the summer is what we are seeing in the forward curves for FY '28. The main cost driver on a per unit of energy is Foxtel Flats and the battery.

They're expensive resources when you average out the the solar is inexpensive, relatively speaking, not compared to this Tenaska deal, but this is kind of a funny, funny time for Dubai power. But when we look at a long contracted resource, it's a good price for the solar, $37.88, I believe, per megawatt hour. The battery on the other hand is a $111 per megawatt hour equivalent. So you add those two together for the amount of energy you get from PV, charging the battery and getting the energy back out of the battery, comes out to an average in the mid to high $70 range. I think around $77, kind of where we are with Mercuria right now.

So that's the cost increase that we're looking at there. From that's the biggest contributor to the cost increase for FY '28 over the low prices that we're seeing for market purchases in FY '27.

Okay. Thank you. I don't see any other questions right now. Thank you, Joanne.

Okay. So we'll move on to gas distribution. One thing from the adopted '26 budget to the projected '26 budget is the therm sales. It was brought last year, about 8,400,000 therms would be sold. And as we all know, it's been a very warm winter.

We're not anticipating selling that many therms. We're looking, based on our projections, about 6,600,000 therms, which obviously drastically diminishes the revenue that we projected. So it's looking at about from about 8,400,000.0 in revenues down to about $5,900,000 in revenues. So when we looked at the proposed 'twenty seven budget, we took all those numbers. Again, we used a five year average and we're looking at about 6,800,000.0 therms being sold in '27 and about 28,200,000.0.

That's kind of where we set the next two years at our sales for gas. So we have about 135,000 scheduled for capital expenditures in '27. And we're looking at a net loss right now with our '27 proposed budget of about $280,000 in that particular budget. So did anybody have any questions regarding our gas projections?

Just one Go quick ahead.

Good. Thanks. One quick question on that point about decreased use of gas. I see the revenue goes down, but why does the cost of gas go down? I see that the revenue per therm goes down, so why not as much, but

Okay. So yes, that's a good question. And I had that question today. And so Richard and I figured that out. So the adopted budget at 3.4 is where we calculated with the 8.4. And the projected is still the projected that's our our budget that we are are spending. It's not the actual dollars that we have spent. And it's a little bit higher because we have a I believe it's like a contract. Is it a contract with UNM to do some study for us? So that increased that with a budget revision. So that's our expenditure budget. It's not the actual amount that we are projecting to spend. It's what we have to spend.

So at some point, presumably, the actual spend will go will be less? The so mean, if we're projecting, why isn't why aren't we projecting it lower?

Don't think we have projected the 26 expenditures yet.

Okay. So it's not so the cost of gas there under '26 projected is actually budget available, not projected. Is okay.

Yes. Okay. Thanks.

Any follow on? Follow? You know, with gas, there's different components in our gas rate. You have, you know, the meter, kind of the service charge, monthly service charge, and then, we have a operating and administration charge of based on therms and then the cost of gas. And the area that this fund's getting hit because the cost of gas is passed through, we true that up every month.

It's the operating and admin that's related to the therm sales that we are woefully falling short. And that's the challenge. You know, if we have what we did with the electric rates on the last time was we looked at trying to put the monthly service charge to cover admin and interdepartmental charges. I think after this warm winter, which is, you know, basically on average ten ten degrees warmer, we're not realizing those therm sales and we're falling woefully short on our revenues this year. And as, you know, you'll see tonight that we're gonna propose some increases in this fund, and we'll have to look at how to allocate those increases.

But I recommend we move a little more towards what we did with the electric fund so we could avoid these shortfalls when we have a warm winter. I mean, we just know that things are more variable now, so it's hard to predict with any certainty what our sales can be.

Sorry, Filer. Are you suggesting that we would add a service fee that would kick in if and when sales are particularly low?

Would it Or respond to

the sales or or no? It's not responsive?

I think we need to adjust our Just the sales. Charges so that It's always included. Fairly allocate those fixed costs.

Yeah. Yeah. Fixed costs. Okay.

It'd still be a cost of service approach though, not yeah.

Okay. And member Huefner, Richard pulled up through December 31 our revenue sales for gas, which as of December 31, it was $960,780. Any other questions? Okay. So we'll move on to water distribution.

Water distribution is the sales of water and we adopted about 800,000 gallons sold. We're looking at more like seven sixty, so it's a little bit less than we had adopted or projected. And so in the '27 budget, we're looking at about 760,000 gallons of water sold. Looking at our operating taking our operating expenses from our revenue, we're looking at an operating income at about $31,079 We have capital expenditures at about $1,235,000 Water, like Faial had said, we're looking at taking a rate increase for gas. We're also looking at a rate increase for water, which we'll we'll discuss more when we get to the ten year forecast.

And so did anybody have any questions regarding the water?

Don't see any.

All right. So we're going to water production. Water production we kept flat from where we had adopted in '26. We kept that same number in '27. We're also looking in '27 about $15,000,000 in potable water sales to the ski hill.

So that's included in our projections for 'twenty seven. We're looking at an operating income of about 62,000 and some capital expenditures of 3,600,000.0. And in water production, we are looking at about 2,600,000.0 in grants and low interest loans from the water trust board. And some non potable water projects also are being funded through the water trust board or getting loans and grants through the water Trust Board, which was part of the CIP, which when we broke it down last month. Are there any questions regarding water production?

Would you repeat what you said about water for the ski hill?

We with I believe with the Hemis Mountain project that they're doing right now, they're we're looking about selling about 15,000,000 gallons of water to the ski hill over the winter.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome. Any other questions? Okay. So we'll move on to our wastewater treatment and collection fund. It looks we've adopted about 400,000 of treated and it's projecting about three sixty eight.

So we're kind of keeping that flat for '27 and '28 as far as how we calculated our revenue for those two years. We're looking at a capital expenditures of about 2.185. And we have about 2.185 in capital projects. And about 1.7 of that, we're looking at some RIP loans since that's the rural infrastructure program loans. So about 1.7 of that would be covered with that low interest loan.

Are there any questions on the water treatment and collection fund? Okay. So we'll move on to our administration. So our administration is everybody that doesn't fit into those categories. So it's like our meter reading, customer service, admin, engineering.

And so it's all split in between the different divisions. So it includes their salaries, their benefits, contractual services, materials, and the inner fund which is the IDCs. And then these are all allocated out. All of our administrative costs are allocated as an $8.59 allocation through the different funds. And so you'll see that in the previous slides where these costs are allocated to those different funds.

So you see there's some decrease in administration. One of that is because we moved we have one of our SOSs in administration, and we moved them to finance because that's actually where they should be. And I don't know why it was never moved before. So that position is moved into finance. The other change is the one overfill position that we use for the electric distribution superintendent position for Dennis' group.

So that was moved into electric distribution. Some of the finance, you'll see that we have a 16% decrease and a 54% decrease in professional services, and that is the $2,000,000 that we had for time of use and the residential demand contract with Tyler Munis. So that's where that big drop in that is coming from. And so one of the questions we had was in my report that I put with the board packet was 11% increase in salaries. And so we looked at that and part of that is coming in from '26 when we budgeted.

There's been 29 promotions within our department and six of those that were promoted of those 29 were actually double promoted. So there's an increase in that. That's not necessarily in the 27 projected because, again, remember, it's what we have approval to spend. So when we start looking at that, we may end up having to bring a budget revision if there's any need to increase that expenditure because of those promotions. Were there any questions regarding the administrative side of this part of the budget?

Any other questions regarding the fund flow? Okay. So we'll go ahead and move on to our full time, our FTE summary. We kind of discussed a little bit when I went through admin. We're proposing no change in the number of FTEs that we have.

We're still at 107.65, which includes 3.65 for temps for engineering. And we moved from three adopted overfills since '26 to two, again, for the superintendent in electric distribution. So you'll notice there's that change in electric distribution from 14.6 employees to 15.6. Now, the point six is coming from a shared engineer that we have budgeted for electric that's shared between electric distribution and electric production. And then you'll notice the point four five, two five, and three zero in gas, water, sewer, water production, and wastewater treatment, and that's clay.

Clay's salary is divided into all those different divisions that he covers. And so are there any questions regarding FTEs? Okay. So the next several pages in our board packet was our CIP. This was going this was brought to you guys earlier this month, so I'm not gonna go into this unless there was any specific questions that anybody Holzman: had.

So moving

on You to could just do the last page. I wanted to talk about the

Yeah. That means you're asking about the rev the rev Oh. Sorry.

Yeah. The revenue revenue transfer shown. So

if you go to page 92, it's our revenue transfer budget options. And so with the revenue transfer, we're anticipating a $900,000 shared project with Public Works to work on Fairway. And so that will be taking if approved, and we'll also present that to council in April.

I just wanted to make a point about revenue transfer. You know, these these monies are generated from the 5% charge on gas and electric revenues to our community. And we're reinvesting those dollars into the water distribution. We can't some years we've done electric distribution, but we try to keep it within the community. We're not doing it in water production where it's a joint asset and, you know, joint cost center for between the lab and the community.

So we try to keep those dollars generated in the community, put back into the community. And through the partnership with Public Works, this is really important because this gets renewed each year. I think we're gonna come back next month with once the audit's completed about, you know, having that revenue transfer done, but it's it's been a very productive program that council supports so that we can follow the public works projects so our neighborhoods are only dug up once and traffic control costs are shared. You know, there's a lot of efficiencies in gather. But I wanted to point point out our strategy of why we're doing that.

Primarily, you know, that follows the public works projects and try to keep that money within the community.

Thank you.

Thank you. So the next section is our graphs that starts on page 94 of your board packet. The first page is our electric fund. So this includes electric distribution and electric production. It lists our operations and expenses, maintenance expenses, our revenue transfers, revenue proceeds, the IDCs, our debt service, any projected cash balances, our CIPs, and then the last one which is that one line that kind of goes across is our recommended cash reserves.

And all of these numbers are coming from our ten year forecast, which we will hit in a few sections. Were there any questions regarding this electric production graph?

I'll ask one. The cash reserves are supposed to be basically a percent of operating expenses. Operating expenses here are in the blue, and those keep going up. But the recommended reserves are basically flat, which I think they actually go down slightly. Why do they go down when they're a percentage of the operating expenses that are going up?

Okay. Let me we looked into that, so let me just get to the section that I had that in there. Okay. We looked at that and the electric production reserves stay flat, and that's due to the expenses are to net out every year. So electric production, what their projection revenue is and their expenses at the end of the year should almost equal zero.

And considering that this is an electric distribution, electric production fund, it's looking at the reserves in its total. So it's not just looking at the rates necessarily. So it's kind of a flat part of it and it's probably the largest part of the electric budget is electric production. And so in a lot of electric distributions, revenues and stuff are staying flat so it's not really increasing our reserves. Because there's different components to the reserves.

It's not all just rates, it's operations. There's capital improvement, the rate stabilization which is part of it. So that's kind of how we were able to understand and I'm not sure that explains it or not, but

I'm afraid it doesn't I don't yet understand it, which doesn't prove anything, but just because I don't. But I don't think that hit directly on the question that I'm trying to understand here.

Yeah. It's hard to explain without looking at like what the total calculations are for each of the different components of what the reserve should be.

Which we'll get to in a few minutes.

We'll get to it in a little bit, yeah.

Okay. We'll look forward to a further discussion then.

Let's see. So we'll move on to the gas graphs. And these are just visuals, more visual of the ten year forecast. Again, it has the same components of electric fund. It includes all the like what our anticipated rate increases are. So are there any questions regarding this graph? And we'll kind of look at this a little more detail when we get to the ten year forecast. Then we have the water utility. So this includes water distribution and water production as one fund. And then the wastewater fund.

And then we'll move on to the customer impact. So so on page 99 is our projected monthly bill for residents. So it's an it's a ten year history. So it's eight years I think it's eight years back in fiscal year '27 and '28. I did '27 and '28 based on the projected rate increases for the gas and the water.

And it's looking at an average electric use of 500 kilowatt hours, gas at 75 therms, water sale at 6,000 per household, and the sewer. Electric and sewer right now have a rate going into FY '27, So those I'm using those rates that are already adopted. And for '27 versus '26, it's looking at about a 7% increase in the average bill. And '28 with any proposed rate increases would is looking about 4.2% change in the bill. Are there any questions regarding this part of

If you look at the bottom line, 7%, 4% doesn't sound too bad. But the if you compare to what was projected last year, every rate every cost, this is this is cost rather than rates, goes up except go and goes up significantly, except for gas, which went down considerably from last year's projection. Is that because of the NIEMEA contract?

I believe so. They're discounted contracted rate right now. Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay. So here we go to the ten year forecast. So on page 101, this is looking at our electric funds. So it's all of electric production and electric distribution in one page.

I think we'll go ahead and so oh, yes. We should look at the reserve target. So the reserve target down below is what is in the graph. So in '27, it's looking like for our reserve target for the electric fund in total is 27,000,000, and then it it drops a little in '28 to 25,000,000, and it stays pretty flat in that aspect of what our reserve should be for our electric fund. And that is the those are the numbers that are shown in that one line item that's that's flat. And so those are where those numbers are coming from and from that graph. Now if we go into the electric production fund.

Excuse me. Before you go past the electric fund page. Looking at the reserve targets, and this is true of all of these in varying amounts. If I look, for instance, at the projection for '28, last year it was projecting a reserve target of $20,500,000 Now we're up to 25,000,000 Some of the others vary by not quite that much, But I didn't look at each year. But that seems to be a pretty big variation in reserve target. And if we're trying to hit a target, it's kind like a moving target.

Yes.

The, you know, we actually, this says our ending reserve balance, the '27, if everything worked out, would actually meet last year, the target that we had last year. But it's $4,000,000 short for the target that this proposes. That makes it really hard to figure out whether this reserve really is the right way of looking at things, whether our formula is right. I'm wondering whether this policy was the reserve policy was adopted ten years ago. Right.

I'm wondering whether that should be revisited perhaps. And do you have any thoughts on whether that should be at least deliberately looked at, if not revised?

I know Failo and I have talked about looking at this and stuff, but I'll let I'll defer to you on how you

I'll just say that on the reserve targets, there's a, I don't know, five line item components that roll up into this. And think we can bring that back at the next meeting how that each of those were calculated. And that that'll probably give us a little more information about is the policy working or not. I think I think it would help to look at it over the ten years and see where the plus and minuses are.

Okay. Yeah. I would be interested in that anyway. Okay.

Yeah, we calculated all this based on that financial guideline. So, you know, it does include like operation reserves and rate stabilization if necessary and debt service reserve. That's kind of the one that we can't really change too much because we've entered the debt so we have to be able to pay that back and our capital expenditures and contingencies. So we can definitely look at that. You're Thank welcome.

So the next page, which is 102, is our electric production fund. When and I'll note that when we calculate our operations reserve for electric production, when we were calculating that, we do not account for transmission Laramie River.

And what was the issue?

Purchase power.

Oh, and purchase power. Sorry. When we calculate the operations reserve, those aren't calculated in that percentage for one hundred and eighty days. So this is our ten year forecast for electric production fund. Because we already at we're close to hitting that target of our reserves in that fund.

And we do have unrestricted, which is the Uniper that we have invested. In the electric distribution fund, The 27 proposed rate increase percentage of the 8% is already adopted. The remain remaining percentages are proposed. And how we kind of come up with where we need to sit with these percentages is from this page. We look at our projected revenues and what our projected expenses are.

And then we look at our net cash flow and then we look at the reserves. So when we're looking at rate increases, we're trying to get to where our cash is at a positive so that we can move some of that cash, the unrestricted cash, from the unrestricted to restricted. And so if you notice in this one, on all the projected rate increases from '28 on, we're not able to move any cash from the unrestricted to restricted until 2035. And that's in order right now to fund the reserves at the guidelines that we have at this time. So when we're looking at that, that's how we kind of look at where do we need our rates to be to meet all of the expenses and capital projects and our reserves.

Are there any questions on this section?

Well, I'll ask another one.

Sure.

And this is true basically all of them. What was projected last year for rate changes was considerably lower than what is projected here And in many cases, it wasn't too far above the general inflation rate. That doesn't mean we accept it just because it's close to the because it's close, we've got to do better than that if we can. But these are, for the most part, all of the utilities are showing rather considerable rate increases that are considerably higher than what was projected last year, considerably higher than the inflation rate. So if you look at effect on our customers, which is really the bottom line here, it's that's a substantial change or set of changes.

Can you outline in any quantitative way why those why we have such big changes? I know you have said and will continue to say, oh, personnel costs have gone up and this goes up and that goes up. But I haven't I'm not haven't yet found in here or heard in discussion anything that really tells me why such large increases are deemed not necessary yet, but are part of the current projection anyway.

Yeah. Well, like for example, when we get to gas, the projections that last year were looking at 8,400,000.0 therms in sales. So the revenue was projected at higher. And we're not anticipating that we'll be selling 8,400,000.0 therms in gas. So our revenue is projected much lower than was calculated last year at this time.

So that drives where we end up in our cash at the end of the year. And so our revenues have to be high enough. And what was anticipated last year presented to you guys, particularly in the gas where it was 8.4, and we're looking at about 6.8. It's that's a huge difference in revenue sales. That's not true for all of them, but but

The well, each one has its different

Components to it.

Right. The and that's something I'm trying to understand here. Of course, the flip side of this is you're just you're projecting, we'll increase the rates so we get a certain amount of revenue. Maybe we ought to be looking at here's a reasonable rate. How can we get the job done with fewer expenses

to

keep the under control?

I agree. Yes. If you look at electric distribution fund, our beginning cash flow is at negative 9,800,000.0. And so we're starting the year with a negative. So and that is it's it's kind of towards the bottom under net cash flow that the bold it says beginning unrestricted cash and you'll see we're sitting at a negative 9.8. And then our end of restricted cash with our cash flow that we're projecting of $98,000 bringing us still to a negative of 9.7 in this particular fund.

I don't suppose the there's enough corporate memory here to explain how we got to such a large negative cash balance.

Yeah. I don't have that information. I'm assuming some of it probably is from the years we didn't have rate increases might be part of that. But without going back, I I'm not sure where it started, but I can look into that.

I mean, that's more a curiosity question. It's here. We got to figure out what to I do about

mean, yeah, it is that is that's where we're starting '27.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay. So we'll go ahead and move into our gas fund. This one we'll be bringing a rate increase in the next couple months. We're proposing a 9% rate increase for '27 and '28.

And with our reserves, have well, I guess we should our restricted our unrestricted cash with gas, we're starting at a a negative 2,400,000.0. And we have about a million well, we do have a million dollars in reserves. Our reserves target for 'twenty seven is $2,500,000 And getting to a positive cash flow and in order to start funding our reserves, we're not looking at being able to refund to fund the reserves for gas until about 2033. We would hit our ten year target in 2036. Are there any questions on this fund?

I don't see any. Go for it.

Okay. So now the next page, which is page 105, is going through our water fund, which includes water distribution and water production. So it's the water fund and its total. So in this water, we'll also be bringing a rate ordinance to you guys in the next couple of months. Potable water for '27 and '28, we're looking about 8%.

The same for non potable at 8%. And so we're looking at our unrestricted cash at about one point it's a negative 1,200,000.0, and we have about 4,600,000.0 in reserves for this total fund of water. And so our reserve target is at 11.4. And so we'll look at funding it, but it's we wouldn't be able to fully well, we we won't be able to fully fund it in ten years even with these rate increases for this entire fund. We would be able to start putting some money towards the reserves in 2033 with the target reserve in 2036 at 13,000,000, and we can get to about 8,600,000.0.

Are there any questions on the water fund? I'll move on to water distribution and then if there's questions. So again, with the 8% increase for '27 and '28 is what we're projecting. And water distribution fund, we are start we have no reserve balance right now. It's at zero.

We're looking at the net cash flow of 3,900,000.0 of a loss in 'twenty seven, and our unrestricted cash is starting at a negative $1,600,000 In order to be able to fund the reserves, we're looking at not being able to start putting into the reserves until 2034 and only being able to put $1,500,000 in reserves of this estimated $6,000,000 that's projected based on our financial guidelines. Are there any questions on this? Okay. I'll move on to water production. We're looking again at an 8% increase for both '27 and '28.

Our net cash flow for '27, we're looking at a negative 932,000. We start our unrestricted at 431,000, and we have about 4,600,000.0 in reserves, and it's calculated about 5.9 for this year. We would be able to start funding based on the current rate increases that are presented starting in 2033, and we would be able to fully fund the water production funds reserves by 2036. Any questions? Okay.

We'll move to the wastewater fund. Right now, the 7% is already an adopted rate. We're looking at 8% in 2028. We're projecting a negative 9 and 77,000 net cash flow. We have about negative 367,000 in our unrestricted cash.

Our reserve balance is 652,613. And with the projected rate increase through 2036, we would be able to start funding our reserves in 2032, and we could fill fulfill the reserves by 2036. Are there any questions on this part? This is the last one. So on wastewater or any other questions?

No. Okay. So the next section is our debt coverage ratio. And I'm gonna actually have Richard go over this because he worked on this, and I feel like you get a better answer from him. I'll learn this, but I want to give you guys the right information. So I'm gonna let I'm gonna have him present this section of the budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Gibson, members of the board. This slide looks at our debt coverage ratio beginning in 2027. For ten years, it goes out to 2036. What we're looking at under debt service is all current debt service due by year and also includes proposed debt service that would be added onto our annual debt service amounts if we do take on additional loans or bonding. The different tiers that you see in the middle, that's that's all the debt service that's due well, including the proposals I mentioned.

The senior lien tier, that's our 2,010 bonds. And so senior just means that that's our obligation to paying that base first and then each tier after that, so on and so forth. So if say, if, there's a situation in which we were no longer operating as a utility and we have to pay all of our debt, that would be the tiers that we would have to pay in. So senior senior would be first. Then it looks at our total operating net revenue for each year, and then it comes up with our debt coverage ratio.

When we looked at 2027 last year, our debt coverage ratio was projected at 1.54. Now we're anticipating that being dropped to 1.15. DPU's strategic goals set a reserve target of 1.3 or greater every fiscal year. So you'll see this is the first year that we're not meeting that 1.3. And then in 2028, it goes down to 0.85.

The reason for those drops in '27 and '5 back to '28, we had originally projected 1.63. Now that's 0.85, so about half. The reason for that is the decreased revenue, which Joanne mentioned in electric, gas, water, sun and sewer, which is has reduced our projected operating net revenue, which is lowering the debt coverage ratio, and then there's also the increased debt service. So in f y twenty seven, that's the first year that we're paying debt service on the wastewater treatment plant. So that's due now coming up, and that's $1,300,000 per year just for that one loan for that one asset, I guess.

The other thing that this is taking into consideration in FY twenty eight is 8,500,000.0 in bonding for electric distribution. So that debt service will also be payable in f y twenty eight under the current assumption. So debt service is going up. Revenue is going down, which is reducing debt service coverage ratio. And it looks like we'd hit it in 2029, but then in 2030, a slight decrease.

And then it starts going back up to 1.71 in 2031. And that's all basically as a result of the proposed rate increases that we just discussed. And there is another option that Joanne will be going over just a bit for electric distribution, which has a different scenario for electric distribution being that that's a larger portion of the bonding. So if you recall in the capital plan, it's 8,500,000.0 in 2028, 9,900,000.0 in 2030, and then another 2,500,000.0 in bonding a couple years down the road. So that second option sec second scenario looks like some some different options for that, which we'll go over in just a bit.

Questions?

Okay. Sorry. I just pulled up last year's tables for electric distribution, for example. And maybe I'm probably missing it entirely, but how come our reserve target, for example, has gone up by 2,000,000 about? We had a 9,928,000.000 projected for 27,000,000 and this year, it's 11,000,000 or it's, yeah, dollars 11,965,000.000. And then also, just looking at other numbers like begin unrestricted cash flow last year was only a negative $174,000 versus $9,900,000 this year. I'm just confused at the massive swings looking at the same table from last year to this year.

Okay. So when we did when we calculated our reserves, we did not include rate stabilization for electric and water. That was not included in last year's reserves. So that is included in this year, which is what is driving that increase.

Well, last year, we did have the rate increase that I thought was

We did have a rate increase. But in the reserves, there was no calculation for rate stabilization because there's different components of the reserve fund. And so there was operation reserve was calculated, the debt service, and then we have in that we also have retirement reclamation that one's fully funded. That's for San Juan and Laramie. We had capital, but there was no rate stabilization calculated into the reserves that I could find. So we did calculate that in this year for electric and water.

So that would swing it by 2,000,000?

Let me pull give me one second. Let me see what the

Yeah. And then and then, you know, just this whole notion of net cash flow, that swing from a 174 k as a negative versus $10,000,000

On which one?

I'm Well, say for electric distribution fund beginning unrestricted cash this year is negative $9,900,000 Last year it said negative 174,000. It's just just a huge number swing. That's all. I'm just Oh, okay. Confused. Sorry. I'm probably missing something obvious, but I'm not sure.

Okay. Okay. So when we calculate rate stabilization, the reserve portion of the reserves for rate stabilization is 3,500,000.0. And that's that's part of the driver on the electric rate. The difference in that from last year to this year.

Chair and members Hollenworth, I think that's I had offered that we'll do a little more breakdown of the reserves and bring that back. Okay. And we can get a little more analysis on between the calendar years.

Okay. Yeah. Because, you know, the projected rates last year to to were projected to increase, what, 8% in '27. That's what we have. But only 5% in '28, '29, not '7. And to be as low as 2% in '31 to '35, not five to three. Anyway, just, I don't know, a lot of swings. Yeah. But

I think looking at the reserves next time will help understand that portion of it a lot.

And the big discrepancy in that unrestricted cash, I guess I'm just not understanding the origin of that either.

Unrestricted cash, where

do we

We can look into that. I know we we had talked a little bit about that, but I don't let me get an answer for you on that and why there's such a big difference in what was presented last year to what we're coming up with this year. Okay. You're welcome. Were there any other questions on the debt ratio as well? Any other Yeah.

Nobody else has any. What we said when we had this discussion about what the policy should be, what the policy target should be for debt ratio. I think we were told that lending institutions like to see 1.3 or better, which last year, that's what we were projecting that we would have on a sustaining basis. What you're showing now for '27 and '28 is significantly below that. And although, yes, it's supposed to improve eventually, but things the further out they are, the more speculative they are.

What effect would this lower debt service coverage ratio have on our ability to borrow or the rates at which we would be borrowing?

I do not have the answer for that. I can get you an answer on that. Yeah, we'll have to get back with you on that. We probably will need to bring probably ask Helen for all we know.

We did to put together these tiers and repayment schedule, we did use the county's bond consultant that gave us what projected rates we could anticipate, you know, as far as I think it was in the 4% range for tax free municipal bonds in the repayment schedule. The difference between this year and last year is we didn't have electrification plan, and we didn't propose any bonding in electric. And I think we're seeing there's challenges in doing that. And I know this alternative, maybe it'd be good to present that next, is is the, you know, the capacity based on our rate increases. We'd had that discussion.

We need to have a few rate increases to build our cash up so we can do bonding. We might need to go a little slower. That That may be the conclusion we come to in studying this. So did yeah. Why don't you go

through Well, that yes.

And show how that moved around.

Okay. So we're we're gonna skip over the statement, the schedule of funds for now. We're going to go to page 142, which is option two for the electric production I mean, electric distribution. So in this ten year forecast, everything's the same except for what's highlighted. So in the grant loan bond, what is originally presented to you is the 8.5 in in in getting a bond for the the entirety of the 8,500,000.0, which if we get a bond in 2028, the debt service is due in 2028, the first payment.

With this projection, we're looking at, in 2028, doing 4,000,000 and trying for a grant for the 4,000,000 and pushing off the bond until 2029 of 4,500,000.0 rather than the 8,500,000.0. And so you'll see the highlighted below is the capital paid with debt or grants. And then if you turn the page to one forty three, we're we're looking at the same chart that you were looking for with our proposed schedule now. And '27 stays the same because our revenues are projected at that. They're we can't do anything with our with '27 right now.

But by pushing off and getting a grant for 4,000,028 and getting the bond in '29, you'll see that the debt coverage ratio for '28 went from point eight five to 1.34. It also brought up the 2030, I believe.

Mhmm. Yes.

Yeah. The 2030 debt coverage ratio there as well. So that's an option that we were looking at too.

Just to add to that, chair Gibson, one thing that wasn't highlighted on the ten year forecast is you'll also see debt service is reduced quite drastically in f y twenty eight. It's almost cut in half, which you will see on the debt coverage ratio. Debt service has gone down, which has also increased our total net operating revenue and then brings that debt coverage ratio back up.

Where is this grant coming from and what's the probability we're going to get it?

I will have Dennis talk about that.

Yeah.

Sorry, Dennis. Caught you off guard. We

did try to get a grant this year in December. It was a grid resiliency grant. We applied. They said you should have applied for one called power, and I inquired about that. We had just missed the deadline to apply for that one because we had applied for the other one. And we don't know if they're going to fund it, but if the state funds the power grant again, we're going to apply for it and hopefully these people will be a little more kind to us with that application.

Okay. As we all know, hope is not a strategy.

The Yeah. Hope is not a strategy, but we always hope we can find $10 on the ground, and that's about what I'm working here at, see if we can find some money falling out of the state.

Okay. Thank you.

Alright. Any other questions on that?

I don't see any.

Okay. So we'll kind of go back. So we'll go back to page 112, which is our schedule of funds. The schedule of funds, I understand doesn't usually be as brought to you guys in February, but we actually were able to get it done because it helped us kind of do a lot of other things. So our schedule of funds is our fiscal year cash projections. It's the reserves based on our financial guidelines. So it outlines the cash, the reserves, and the reserve targets for ten years. Don't really know how to go over it.

Joanne, what page are

you on? I'm

sorry. Doctor. 112. I'm sorry.

Say again?

112.

112? Yeah. Actually, there's there's a

because we went forward an hour ago.

Yeah. Little discrepancy between

Oh, do I have a

You have and I have.

Oh, okay. Tried

to number

my cases.

Okay.

And so I'm struggling to find it, but I think I just did.

Okay. Yeah.

Think so. Now I'm on it. Okay. Thank you.

Alright. So this just takes our beginning cash. This first page is looking at the different sub funds and it's taking the beginning unrestricted cash. And this is numbers coming from the ACFR that was just published at the January and approved by council. So these are the numbers that are coming and then it looks at our beginning cash that was projected.

And so it's basically this first page. It's a lot of work to put this together but it basically comes back with our projected ending cash unrestricted in FY '27 for each of the funds. And then as you go through the next page is showing our projected ending cash that's restricted in '27 And then the reserves, the same targets that we have on the ten year projections. And as you go through, then it breaks it down into so then here on this next page, on page, I don't know, 114. I have 114, but it might be different on your guys', I'm sorry.

So this is the difference. The operations reserve, which is one hundred and eighty days of budgeted operations and maintenance. And so these are the amounts. It kind of breaks it down into those different reserve targets for each one. So we have like the debt service reserve. We have the retirement reclamation reserve. That one is only in electric production, as I said before. That is for San Juan. And that is fully funded. So that one is already fully funded.

Then we have the capital expenditure reserves, which is what was kind of calculated into Richard's presentation on debt coverage. And then we have the rate stabilization fund. And so this is again for we have some calculations for electric and water. And then the contingency reserves. The contingency reserve is the single largest equipment with a potential of failure that we include in that.

And then so that's how it's kind of broken down into the different targets that we're looking at and that are included in our ten year forecast. And then two pages later, then it kind of breaks it down even further into each of the different electric production, electric distribution, and all the different sub funds. I don't know if you guys want to go into more detail with this or if we wanna kinda look at this in more detail when I bring back the reserves and the guidelines.

Since we're going to be discussing reserves later, it may be better to roll that discussion into that later discussion than now.

Unless there's some questions, then we can maybe cover them in that discussion or if there's anything.

No? Does anyone want any more detail now? No. Okay. I don't see any, so

Okay. So then the last part of the the packet is their financial guidelines. And so we just included that for you guys to have that. So that is the end of this budget presentation. That's a lot of information. So we're open to answering any questions that you guys may have or anything you want us to do or include in Marches because this is just a preliminary. This isn't final. I mean, any changes and stuff, we will work into the March 1 for the final approval to take to counsel. Yes. Matt?

I guess I have a question that is sort of the big picture. So we're looking at '27 and '28, really. The ten year is just to help us think about that. Yeah. And I'm trying to figure out how we should consider option two. I mean, that's for impacting '28. Mhmm. And so we'd love to find some money laying on the ground.

Exactly. Sounds like a great plan,

but we can't count on that. And so do we think about option two when we think about doesn't impact '27, but it does start to impact '28 quite a bit. So how how do we think about that? Maybe that's more of a question for for Faila and Robert.

Yeah. Yeah. I think the I had asked Joanne to put this alternative together so we could see the impact to the policy of the debt coverage ratio. And, you know, I I know in electric, we did the rate increase. You said we need to build some cash before we bond.

And that's what this model showed. You know, the 4,000,000 on the ground really doesn't matter because that's in and out. At some point, we need to do the EA four power line. That's what that is. Whether we can do a grant or bond it, but we need to look at maybe we can only do 3,000,000 a year so we can maintain that debt coverage ratio while we're building up our cash balances.

And that that's kind of what we modeled here to show you that that unfortunately, we looked at trying to figure out how to get '27 on target. But with the wastewater plant, that $30,000,000 loan that we're making payments in '27 and in that reduced water, you know, some of the reduced revenues we showed you, you gotta have those operating revenues to support that ratio. Okay? So we we're going into next year with those negative balances from the gas and water funds that are not, we're just not having the sales that we anticipated. So there's, we have a lot of look moving pieces in this budget.

Tried to gently move those rates to support that. But I think when we look at doing our rate increases, the cost of service approach is the way to go, but it's we have a lot of fixed costs that are built into our operation that we need to be able to cover. So like we did with electric, we're moving that direction, but it's it's done in two steps as well to it because we we our current rate increase did halfway. Next year, we start the other half, but we gotta realize a year of that revenue before we start seeing the results of that change. So so we're always kinda in a catch up mode.

But, yeah, if if the board would like us to maintain that ratio, I think I'd bring back, you know, a little slower capital spend on the on the bond side of things. I think it's difficult while we have water trust board and some of these other programs where they're actually loaning us money with no interest and have grant components. You know, our last our last project that we got on the 14 inch line on five zero two by the airport, we actually got 90% grant and 10% loan. I we can't turn away that kind of scenarios because a number ratio is not quite fitting. But I do pretty confident the repayment schedule of that 10% over twenty or twenty five years, whatever, is is very minimal in the scheme of things.

It's it's the electric side, we're not having that. There's only this one grant program. The state just started to fund this. We don't have a good history yet of how to get get into those programs. I think they're frankly have just been developed.

When we got the guidance, they said our initial meeting was apply for this grant. And then when they they got more interest than anticipated and later steered us to another program. But they were delayed in making their decision, so we didn't make that round in December. But it's evolving in that field as far as state funds. There's been no federal funds and, you know, I'll report later too that even FEMA funds for our electric undergrounding is just not there. So

Yeah. I guess my my question is framed around there's a lot of moving parts in trying to figure out which ones we can influence and which ones are out of our control. Mhmm. 27 or 28 are coming on. And I think one of the discussions that we've queued up is looking at electric production, and it's more in '28. We've got about a million dollars to hydro production. And so as we think about the budget for '28, is that the best place to invest a million dollars? And trying to figure out if we're losing revenue, but we're gonna invest a lot in there. Is that I think that and that's that's not such an issue for the '27 budget. Mhmm.

Items got moved, the fleet electrification. So I might propose that we at least just visit the reserve discussion in March at work session so it's not like you need to make a motion in March 18 that says reduce this and that and make it work staff for type of thing.

Well, if we can if we there's still quite a bit on that agenda. Let me take a quick look.

We do have the NMED Yeah. Chromium. And we have

the the department annual report and the annual water system update and the UAMPS presentation.

UAMPS is that one got rolled in by surprise for me. They're not ready for anything.

Oh, so that's not gonna happen either?

Right.

Okay. Well, that helps in in

terms of time. In water presentation we could discuss moving it if we need to. Yes.

So we could have a significant follow on to this meeting after we've all had a chance to absorb this more because it's a lot to absorb when you get it on a on a Friday. Or for those of us who've been out of town, we got it a little later than that. And then we didn't have much time to put Joanne through her paces before tonight to answer all the questions. So if we could, at least it seems to me that we ought to have some discussion and particularly about reserve issues on March 4, then that would be helpful. Okay, thank you. I think I'm seeing everybody not in agreement on that.

Okay.

Or at least nobody objecting. Okay. Do we have anything else to ask or discuss on this issue tonight? If not, I think we're finished. Thank you, Joanne. Thank you. You very much. Richard and all your colleagues.

Everybody. It takes everybody.

Yeah, I know it does. Okay. That takes us. To item seven b. Dennis. The White Rock substation transformer project. Dennis.

Kathy, can we pull up the graphic? I've always felt that artwork helps, and I tested this on staff yesterday, and it seemed to keep them all awake. So I thought I'd we've talked about the White Rock Substation and the transformer since the August. And this Google Earth photo shows the transformer that has now been removed sitting next to the T 1 switchgear. It was transformer number one that failed.

And, in the bottom right corner is a little garage where the communications from SCADA come to and the DC power, that serves the transformer two switchgear comes out of that building as well. And Transformer 2 sits in this picture to the left of T 1, and it is adjacent to the switchgear building. On the backside of the switchgear, the feeders, all three of them come out of the switchgear and go over to a point between the two switchgear buildings to a manhole, and then the feeders come down to a switch by the fence next to the RV park. And that's where the pair of blue lines come in. So they took advantage of that open space and they ran the feeders exiting the substation switchgear through there.

And the AC power for the air conditioning unit in T Two's Switchgear Building, the DC power that provides power to operate the breakers and the relays come out of that little shed in the same path along with the SCADA communications. And they come right through the middle of the area that the consultant said, we need to set the new transformer because the new transformer is so much bigger than the old one that came out. Now when we were looking at the transformer and how to expand the cement foundation for it, I knew that civil engineers really, really like soil testing before they design a foundation. So I made the mistake of asking for a soil sample here to find out is the rock three feet, four feet, five feet deep under the surface of the ground. And we found it to be 30 feet, and it's very loose soil.

And that's why we have been delayed for so long is the civil engineer that was doing the foundation work had to come up with a plan to support a transformer that weighs just under a 123,000 pounds without all the stuff that we're gonna put on it. And we finally got a design out of him. And then when we found out where he was putting it, we found that, oh, everything is going to t two, which is the only thing serving the city or the community of White Rock right now, goes right through the middle of that area. And not only do we need to move it, we need to move it while keeping it serviced so that switchgear n t two works. So we came up with a plan.

We'll follow the fence with the green line and run the SCADA AC power and DC power in the same trench to the t two switchgear while we back feed the DC power to the breakers and relays out of t one during the cutover period. Now we're still trying to get the foundation done for the transformer, but I wanted to show you where it's gonna have to go and why we're having to do all this work. Then because we're gonna do it right and do oil containment because that's the standard nowadays and that's the right thing to do, we're gonna have a big tank 20 foot by 20 foot, four feet deep under the transformer pad. And that's what's the black lines are representing. The transformer's gonna set on one end of that tank on top of four piers that are 21 feet below the surface of the substation, four feet in diameter.

So we're going down to the point of where they actually hit some kind of sand and clay mixture that they feel will support the transformer itself. And that's represented by the large yellow dots. Those are the four piers in a 20 foot by 20 foot tank. The smaller don on the top, that's a much smaller pier. It's only 10 feet deep, 36 inch diameter, and that's gonna be a bust support because we had we gotta come from the top of the photo with the conductor to the high side of the transformer at 115 kV, there'll be arrestors and a bus support structure coming across there.

But in order to move all of this communication cable and power cable and dig the pit to put the transformer pad on, we needed to get a task order with Sambros, who, we have task orders with that's done some workforce. They've been working on that, manhole on East Timmies coming out of the last switching station that we wanna energize soon. And they came up with the task order that is being presented to you tonight. But before we get to that, are there any questions on what we're doing in White Rock Substation that I haven't explained well enough? Because I've I've been talking about it for months, but I figured most of you don't understand it.

And if I wasn't actually out there, I wouldn't understand a lot of it myself. So I wanted to give you a graphic of what's going on. And this was something I threw together yesterday. Go ahead.

So I guess the secondary is bus connected. The the trend because we're replacing t one.

Yes.

Okay. And that's direct coupled bus connected to the switch gear on the inside? Yes. Yes. And so the new transformer is going to have a bus secondary, but it's and it's going in the location of where the new pad is. So how are you getting from the new pads to the switcher? You're going to create copper bus work between the two?

We're going to run three five hundred aluminum circuits from the transformer down to the ground around this pad, take out the little cement porch at the t one switchgear because it's gonna be in the way, and go up to the point where the transformer is currently been connected to the switchgear building. So that's part of what Sambrosa is gonna do is run the conduits and bury them and cut out that little porch where we step into the t one switchgear.

Okay. I'm missing something. 500 KC mill aluminum?

Yeah. Three per phase. Or yeah. Three per

phase. Okay. So 1,500 KC mill aluminum per Yeah.

1,500 is the total. That will give us the capacity of the transformer into the switch gear so that we don't have to have somebody tear it down and redo it as the load increases in the area. We're gonna help go ahead and do it right the first time. We do have the 500. That's what we run all over our primary circuits. And so it was gonna be easier to just run three per phase.

Okay. Thank you.

Actually, that's gonna be 500 copper. We have some of that. That's right. This is gonna be the 500 copper, not aluminum.

Okay. So that's just over a thousand amps. That's

Yeah. Seven sixty It's supposed take the whole rating of the transformer.

Right. Okay. Thank you.

Just a simple question. The the cost of drilling for the large piers, that's gonna be a separate task order?

That's gonna be a separate task order. I have no idea what it's gonna cost to drill.

That was my question. Okay.

At one time, I've I had one done about this depth, one of them, and it was, like, 30,000. Okay. It was not cheap. It's a very specialty piece of equipment. But what I have found in Northern New Mexico and Los Alamos specifically, it's probably going to be considerably higher than 30,000 per hole. I hope it's not. I'm hoping that we can get some really good pricing, but I I'm scared of what I've seen around here for cost.

Okay. Thanks. Thank you.

Other comments? Questions? I appreciate you doing a graphic here. Yeah. May we may not need to know this from a policy or decision making standpoint, but for all us technical people, it's interesting to see exactly what's going on there.

Yeah. I thought about it over the long weekend and thought, need to draw something. And I had a few minutes and threw this together before a staff meeting yesterday afternoon and had some suggestions from Ed. Everybody stayed awake, and so I thought it might work for you.

Thank you.

Oh, you're welcome. But in order to do all this work, Sam Brose worked with Mariano Montoya and came up with an estimate with hopefully plenty of room to work with. They put a lot of time in on moving dirt that I hope we don't have to use. But they're gonna drill these piers, and they have to put a steel casing down for the bottom 17 feet. And assuming that that sand is not going to hold back, they'll probably do something like sono tube cardboard for the top four feet.

Then that will all be removed for the tank to sit on when it comes in. So they're going to have to do a lot of excavation work for us as well and run a lot of conduit, six inch conduit for those circuits. So there's going be a lot of work for them to do. And that's in addition to the conduit just moving the current stuff to the second transformer that we have to keep going so that they can start the excavation and drilling the piers. And so all the detail is on the task order that's provided to you and we can pull it up on the screen and try to answer any questions if you have any.

Any questions from the board?

The timing is all in hours here, hours there. So what is the total time we're talking about to get this completed?

We want this done as soon as possible.

Yeah.

So they're gonna start hopefully next week if you guys are agreeable moving the conduit for this ACDC and SCADA. Then we hope to have a bid package to bring to you for drilling of the piers, and we'll have these guys work in coordination with whoever gets that. Okay. And we actually had to go out for bid again because none of the drillers wanted to quote the work unless they went through a general contractor. We're presuming it was for insurance purposes.

And so Sambros is actually going to try to work with a driller and provide a package for that, which would do it all for us. But we'll see. Okay. We did get some interest and questions. I don't know if we've gotten quotes, but we got interest in questions for more detail.

Thank you.

So are you going to be done before the Atlanta tie line is done or vice versa?

It depends on how much rock they hit. If they hit rock like we did, we may still get this done. But they are laying out material. I was out there today and we're trying to figure out how we're gonna line up with their last pole. But until they set that last poll, I'm not going to make any assumptions. I made assumptions already. But they are working at it. They had a poll go down in the wind this week and had to pull off to go do that. And I haven't I didn't see anything when I was out there today except the material they have on the ground, which is a positive thing to see.

Finally. It

was a a great relief.

Well, it'll be a bigger relief when we have some backup power feed arrangement for White Rock. I mean, my my my fingers have been crossed for a long time there.

Every time we hit a hurdle on getting this transformer in such as where's the foundation? We gotta have a foundation. I have been very concerned because everything's hanging on one transformer and one transmission line, and I'm very, very concerned because I drive around White Rock, I see a lot of houses that I don't wanna see go dark. Fortunately, this team that I worked with was able to get an emergency agreement with PNM so that if we did have an emergency, hopefully, we could have power back the next day with a mobile substation.

We share your concern.

I understand that. As local residents, I'm sure there's a chance one of you lives in White Rock or if no, you know people that live in White Rock.

Well, a third of our customers live in White Rock.

Well, Joanne lives in White

Rock. Yeah.

But she spent so much time here over the last couple of weeks. She wouldn't have noticed.

Okay. Any other questions? Do we have any public comment on the subject? Okay. Seeing none, further discussion or motion?

Okay. I move that the Board of Public Utilities approve task order number three, AGR 24Dash04D for the purpose of White Rock Substation Transformer Project with Sandbrose Corp. In the amount of $299,719.24 plus applicable gross receipts tax for the term of one hundred and twenty days.

I second.

Okay. Moved and seconded the recommended motion. Kathy, would you please call the roll?

Member Hollingsworth? Yes. Member Stromberg? Yes. Member Hevner?

Yes.

Member Gibson?

Yes.

And Member Knockley is absent.

Okay. Motion passes, four to zero. Thank you for your work on this project. We're all concerned about it, And nobody wants to see White Rock go dark. Okay.

That takes us to board business, which begins with a chair's report. Having been out of town for the last month, I haven't had too much opportunity to get in too much trouble here locally. I would like to thank Matt for pinch hitting for me. We elect him and then I run out of town. The trial by fire. You have anything to report as an acting chair for a while?

We all survived your absence. But don't leave us again soon.

Well, actually, my travel schedule has just gotten a lot suddenly more complicated than it usually is, too. I'm starting to resemble some of the, some of you folks. So you may get some more opportunity here. Doctor.

Well, stay tuned.

Doctor. Which leads me to kind of remind everyone to please keep Kathy informed of expected in availabilities over the next few months. You know, we plan meetings and agenda we take that into account or try to when we plan meeting agendas, who might be available and who not. So please keep Kathy informed a few months out in advance to the extent that you know things if you can. Not just, oh, next week.

Otherwise, you just might see something planned that you would like to have been here for or vice versa. Okay. I really don't have anything of great substance beyond that for a chair's report. Does anyone have a board member's any board member reports? That will take us to the utility manager's report. Philo.

All right, Chair. Think my first item I talked about White Rock and think Dennis covered everything I had written here. I'll go next to Elkridge. We're pretty close to having all the green tags issued by the Construction Industries Department. And our latest challenge is getting the actual homeowners cut over to the new system.

I had a meeting with Elkridge today. We only have 22 homes on the brand new system, and we have about a 150 more to go. So we emphasized to them that they need to be available for work after hours when people get home from work or around Friday be available in Saturday. So we will see they said they're gonna start doing some door hangers and trying to get people scheduled in on after hours and weekends. Recruitments, we still have quite a few going on.

Interviews have been conducted for customer care specialists, and we had a first round of interviews for senior management analysts. There'll be another round next week or the following week. Timo Martinez, his employee, has been with us for many years as a lineman, got the supervisor's job. And so we're currently recruiting for his vacancy. So we're kinda move moving people through the ranks.

And then we have advertised a deputy utility manager for engineering and electrical project manager and electrician, water operator. We had interviews for and working on offers on that one and still trying to find an engineering aid for utility locates. The crew's doing those right now, but it'd be more efficient if we could get a locator. I wanted to next talk about the ECA negotiations. There's been a couple different fronts going on that I can mention.

Through our subcommittee work, we engaged Kutak Rock. They're a law firm in Washington, DC. And I believe they have a long history with the county through most of the old ECA periods. And so they're looking at trying to assure the protections we have in the old agreement gets transferred into the new agreement. And they developed a memo that we can share with DOE's attorneys, and we finally got a meeting scheduled for next Wednesday to go through that.

So hopefully that will be a productive meeting and we can work on closing in the details of it. On a separate track, Ben and I have been working with the NNSA site office and their consultant, Exeter, on their contract values and projections. Exeter does a lot of to the project, but I guess timing wise, they feel it's important to get that going. Then chromium plume, we'll have a presentation by NMED, but there's quite a bit of issues floating around with the lawsuit that I forwarded to the board members. I think it was about a week and a half ago or so.

And we're you know, basically, there's this simmer three well. They found concentration of chromium above the NMED level. However, the well hasn't been completed as far as well screens, bentonite plugs, and concrete casing that goes along with each well as it rises. Those are still under construction. Once it's completed, then they take samples from the two different well screen levels and test that to see where the plume may exist.

But there there is a presence higher than the groundwater standards. More to more information to come on that, which is probably more in the May timeframe before we'll know that. But next month we'll have NMED talk about the adaptive site management process, which will be important to understand before we move on to other remedial measures that go with that project. And then the 18 inches waterline in 2 Mile Canyon, staff submitted the permit to Lantel. They usually have a three to four week type of turnaround for their permits.

Then we're also due because it's in the channel, we have an Army Corps permit that we'll submit next week for that project. And it's a difficult site to access. One of our on call contractors that we have worked with for many years is up for the challenge, and we'll be bringing that task order and budget revision at the next regular meeting in March. We talked about the tanks with Sodermill already. Then I wanted a little update on PFAS, that class action settlement suit that we're in.

We had sampled all of our wells except for the PM 34, and five. And because 4 And 5 were under renovations with all the control upgrades that we had planned for. Those are one of the wells we're able to operate today and hopefully within the month, the second one. And we'll get samples in before the March 31 deadline for PFAS. And then the PM3, there's no way to get a sample from that.

We do have samples, historic samples, but no new sample. And that's just the situation that this well shut down because vicinity to chromium plume. And we've been working with all the other county departments on DP Road for site plan for the A16A to have a county staging area. Think you saw that in the capital plan, it was like 35,000 per fund to help with this. And that that money is essentially just put together so we can help with some of the site development.

There's some grading to do and maybe a concrete pad to pour when when we do receive approvals for that. And lastly, vertical switchgear, we had an update from Lantel today on that project and substantial completions. The equipments are coming in as planned for mid May and final by the June. The $3,300,000 budget they proposed is coming in a couple months earlier, and the estimate to complete is at 3 just under 3,100,000.0. So they found some savings by saving in time and doing some self perform work on-site versus bringing in contractors.

So a little good news, not I still have a hard time with this project, but at least it's not over. So with that, I'd stand for questions. Thank you. Questions? Eric?

Thank you, Chair Gibson. I have a few questions. You mentioned in the Elkridge community, there's 22 homes connected. Have any of those homes experienced any costs that they had to pay for upgrading code violations, whatever?

Board member Stromberg, not I wouldn't say directly. I mean, I don't know if I don't know the answer specifically. I do know there was a couple of homes where they had to replace a hot water heater, for example, because it it was aged out and didn't meet the current codes. But in the past, Elkridge said they would offer to make pay for that and then have the upfront and then have the homeowner reimburse them repayment in program. But I don't I don't know any of those details of I just heard that there's a couple potentially that may have been in that situation.

Yeah. It'd be it'd be interesting because there there were some public outcry about, you know, we didn't we were told that we weren't gonna have to pay anything. So I was kind of wondering.

So I think I think the fact that most of the green tags have been issued, that those appliances that may have been outdated or, you know, those those should be behind us.

Okay. Thank you. Next next question. When do you speculate that water might be flowing up to the ski hill?

We were hope the hope would be beginning in November Okay. Of this year.

Then last question, appreciate you bringing up Foxtail Flats. I go to the Foxtail Flats regularly, the website, and the last update was December 2024. You know, wouldn't it be nice if they would update their website? And then I also regularly go to the Desere website. And Foxtel Flats is not listed as a project

Right.

On the Desri website. Do you have any idea why they're not listed as a project?

I asked Ben the same question today. Ben, you might mind answering that one.

Board member Stromberg, chair. So let me make sure I understand your question. You mentioned the Foxtel Flats website. What which one are you referring to?

Is that

from You

know, that's a great question. I typed in it's foxtailflatssolar.com, I believe, is the is the website. That's what that's what the search shows up.

I can't say I visited that, so I can't comment on that. But I will check it out now that I'm aware of it. But I did ask the question about the developers' Desere's website and the inclusion of Foxtel Flats or the absence of the inclusion of it on their Desri projects web map.

Well, there's also a map, but there's also a list.

Yes. They don't add anything until they're in full construction is their policy. So come May, we should see it pop up.

Come May in this year?

Yes. April April, May, you

know, few months from now. I'll be Okay.

I'll be holding them to that.

Okay. I thought I saw some things on Desiree that were under construction, but I'll I'll check that. So okay. Thank you. That's it for me.

Okay. Anyone else? I've got a couple of file, though. Your recruitment update didn't talk about the deputy utility manager for electric distribution, I don't believe. Is that

An offer is being prepared, but I can't say right now.

Well, was just curious where we were on that. Okay. The ECA extension, assuming that DOE agrees to that and PPAs, those will have to be done in March. Are we going need to do those at our work session? Or can we will we be waiting till the general meeting? And is there still time to get them through counsel by the end of the month?

We'll have better idea once we can get approval from the DOE on the extension and the timeline of that. Whether we need to do a special meeting or not, I don't know yet. Okay. I just it shouldn't take them more than a week to put it together for us. Hopefully, we can get that to you timely. Okay.

I hear a lot of hope tonight.

It's out of my control.

Yeah, well, then we have to deal with the emergency. Oh gee, this has to be done

in the next week. And, alright. And that's why we requested it last week. This

so we can

have it timely.

Sometimes I think we ought to let the lab go dark occasionally and then remind them of how important we really are. Like on April 1. And last question, on this g on these geothermal projects, did they ever have transmission access or is this something that they started the project without having that and now they're running into that lack of foresight or did something go wrong along the way?

It it depended on the project. So Cove Cove Fort is number two. So they had the initial one. My understanding is they had rights but didn't fully exercise them and so the portion of the second phase expired and so they had to reapply. With Radotherm, that's a complete new project so that they didn't have it. It's right next to a big wind farm and the transmission's there. It's just getting beyond the transmission service at Pacificor.

Okay. Any other questions? Yeah.

Eric?

So, Terry Gibson, I I'm looking at the Desri website right now and they're listing 13 projects in construction.

He didn't say completed construction. I think he's meant full mobilization, which is April 30. So is that what you mentioned?

Is that okay? So I misunderstood that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Seeing nobody else with questions, we'll move on to the county manager's report.

Okay. Chair and members, just a few things you might be interested in. I don't recall the dates, but there's a press release that talks about we're gonna be closing the aquatic center other except for the Leisure Lagoon. And we have secured a lease of Pinon's Pool down in White Rock for an alternative. It's not gonna quite be open yet, but, just take a look at those dates if you're looking for pool needs. And it's gonna be exciting. Replastering of that pool is way overdue, and it's also gonna have all new tile, all new decking. It'll have new touch pads and screens for the the races and things like that. So it's it's a modernization as well. But well, it's it's hard to do, but it needs to be done.

I wanted to mention that our Fire Station 4 project, which is a rebuild of a new, fire station next to the existing fire station. It'll be to the west, I guess, of the existing one. We're getting close to bidding that project, so we'll know how that comes in. February 26 is a special meeting with between council and the school board. They're gonna be discussing, the potential project of developing the property on North Mesa School, which is to the east of the middle school for housing.

And it'll be a presentation by our housing manager, Dan Osborne. He's gonna talk about the infrastructure study and all the costs involved with the infrastructure, which is why I mentioned it to see. It's quite expensive. I think it came in, like, about the estimates are about $11,000,000 worth of improvements. So we'll be seeing how we can program that in the future, but it is something we'll have to see if we you know, what the timing is of being able to move that forward.

And, I will mention we are in the final stages of, selling our bonds for our broadband project. So we will have the money in hand to start spending towards, and so the next step would be, actually getting a schedule of all the different phases. And so at some point in the near future, next couple months, we should have actually a plan of where we're gonna start, what areas we'll do, and a schedule, of the phasing. And it is a just a reminder, a combination of using existing counting conduit, some new conduit areas, micro trenching, and then overhead, especially White Rock where we know we have basalt and other things that it's just not caught it's just not feasible for the timing and the cost to kind of have that big unknown factor. But the entire project should be around three years, but it's they're giving a range of three to five, but they wanna be on the shorter end, and they wanna light people up as phases are completed.

So that means the phasing is not not so much gonna be what neighborhood I live in, but it's gonna be what neighborhoods are closer to where you can, you know, bring in the connection and the service. It can't just so it's sorry. I remember Hollingsworth. It's probably not gonna be Veronica first. Yeah.

You know?

So we'll probably be last.

Anyway Yeah. So there you go on that. And then the last thing I wanted to mention was we just came off of a meeting with DOE EM one, Tim Walsh. He came into town, after just a few months on the job, and it was a really pleasure speaking with him. Manager, Shelton, joined us, and we talked a lot quite a bit about Chromium plume.

He's got a background in construction and civil engineering, so he was kind of really excited to kinda talk about the specifics around things like Chromium plume and other things and wells and whatnot. So look forward to talking to him again. Chair of Reidy, vice chair Herman, myself, and intergovernmental affairs manager Danielle Duran will be going out to DC the week of March 23, and we'll meet again and talk about some of those priorities. You may have seen in the news that there's been some fines from an MED to the, imposed on, DOEEM. And we are in the process of kind of looking a little bit at some of the priorities around MDAC, MDAT, or TA 21 and kind of, reissuing a letter from council's perspective on sort of what our cleanup priorities are because, we have a little bit of a different understanding and priorities of as being local community.

So we'll be working on that and communicate trying to communicate that to secretary Kenny as well at the NMAD. And I just say that in preparation of whatever the presentation is coming up to to you all. And yeah. Is there anything anything else I can tell you about of interest? I'll stand for questions.

Any questions? I guess you're off the hook tonight. Thank you. Councillor Herman.

Thank you, Chair. So we had a council meeting last night, regular session. It was actually very quick. One of the things I did want to highlight since we were talking about the budget here this evening was that last night we recognized the Finance and Procurement Division for their continued accomplishments. They have won just a ton of awards.

So that was great. Let's see, passed in the consent agenda was the approval for the short term power purchase agreement with Tenaska Power Services that we've been talking about here. Also passed, there was the public hearing as county manager mentioned for the issuance of the bonds for the broadband and that past seven to zero. And that really was about it. So, any questions for me?

It looks like you're off the hook, too.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. We don't have anybody from the Environmental Sustainability Board available this evening,

so

there won't be any report there. They did tell us they wouldn't be available, so things happen like that. That moves us to item eight gs, appointment of a board member to the county audit committee for 2026. And we'll start with do we have any volunteers?

Maybe I can not volunteer, but say I did it last year, and it was just two meetings and one side meeting. It wasn't too painful. And it was nice to see the perspective of how the utilities fit into the larger county. So it was illuminating. I think, Eric, you did it in the past also. You know?

It's not too bad.

Yeah. No. It's Two meetings and two side meetings?

Two two meetings and a side reading.

And a

side reading. Oh, okay. That's too so bad. Yeah.

There used to be three meetings a year and they were in person. So it has become less time consuming over time. So do we have any volunteers? Or we could have volunteered Charlie.

Yeah. They split there's there's a kickoff meeting, and then they do the work. And then three month three, four months later, it's so it's probably, what is it,

midsummer and then late fall. Yeah. Yeah.

You get plenty of notice when the meeting is. Yeah. I don't know if people can't make it whether we then appoint somebody else or how we do that at that point if we have to substitute. I'm sure we can somehow.

Well, Matt, when you, when you did this, did they actually send you meeting notices? Because when I did it, the only there there were no notices whatsoever. It was just on the Outlook calendar.

I got it. I got an email notice. You did? Okay. Yeah. Yep.

That would help. Yeah.

It was pretty painless.

Peer pressure and

Nobody volunteering?

No. I think I sort did.

Oh, you sort

of did. Does

that mean you wanna be sort of appointed?

And and and somebody else make the decision for me.

Well, if you're not going to object, we'll probably make the decision for you.

I'll nominate you. Is that what we need a formal

I'll second.

Well, let's see. There is a A motion. Let's see. So actually, there is a motion here to do it rather than just Chair's appointment, which I think we've done in the past, too. So interesting way this is phrased, nominate a board member and then appoint them all in one motion.

Does anyone object if I just appoint a board member to do this? Okay. Member Jen Hollingsworth, you are appointed to be our representative on the audit committee.

Aye, captain. Okay.

Thank you. Now you can start scheduling your foreign travel to avoid it. Yeah. Once they tell you when the meeting meetings are.

Nice. Okay.

We're on to status reports. Are there questions, comments, etcetera, on any of the status reports? Does this mean everybody's happy or nobody's read them? Well, not okay. Not hearing anything.

We'll move on. And that takes us to the ticker file. And we've already had some changes to the March 4 work session. No UMs presentation. And what happened well, the is the EV final plan just delayed or what's happening with that?

Yes. I learned today it's delayed and we're gonna do the regular meeting in April. The first meeting, April 1, is spring break, so we need to move it to the regular meeting in April. Okay.

We do know at some point we're going to have to do an ECA extension and PPA, but we don't know right now whether that might be the regular, the work session or the regular meeting or a special. Is that our current state of uncertainty?

Yes, sir. Okay.

Well, we'll deal with it whenever it comes. We'll have, we have to. Okay.

There was one thing on that page that I noticed, Robert. I think we had the briefing on the broadband business plan. And I think that was at member Stromberg's request. And I

think Anne had set up a one on one.

So I don't know

if that resolved it.

Yeah. I was looking at that on the ticket file, and I'm gonna see if Jerry's available tomorrow because I've been out of town. But if y'all if no one else is interested in that, we can take it off the the file. I I looked at the looked at the website and all that stuff. All the information that I'm really interested in isn't on the website. So but thank you for sending me that link.

Okay. So that's a that's a maybe. That may go away. Okay. Anything else that right now for either of the March meetings?

Any changes to propose? By the way, we think our monthly agendas setting meeting will be Friday the twenty seventh, but we're not at all sure of that. So if you have other changes or things to propose for the tickler file, let us know as soon as you can and we'll try to deal with them as soon as we can. Okay. Moving to April.

One change that will happen is that I am going to be attending the April 1 meeting by Zoom. And we had planned to do start the utility manager's performance review in closed session either before or after that meeting. That's that is not impossible to do with a Zoom participation. But depending on other people's availability, I think we would likely just delay that and do the initial work on the performance review in association with the April 15 meeting and then the final at the May 6 meeting. But that depends on who else is available or not.

And Jen looks like she's got some concerns there.

We actually are in Australia for work the week of April 15.

You're missing that week. Okay. Well, that's part of why I'd like people to really let Kathy know what's when you're what you know of your travel schedules because, you know, we'll certainly try to schedule things so the most people can be here if we can't have everybody. Or we'll figure out how to take some written input or something. Okay.

Anyway, that's coming. And we know on the April 15 meeting, now we'll have the EV study presentation. We forgot to mention on the fourth, we're gonna have some more budget discussion. On the May March 4?

March 4. Yes.

The important thing there. Back in April, anything anyone wants to add? So, Jen, you're not expecting to be here on April 15?

That's correct.

Okay. Moving to May. Anything there? Probably too early to look beyond too far beyond that. But if you look starting on page 175, we have the parking lot.

That's the stuff that's highlighted, at least in my written copy, highlighted in kind of a purple. There are a whole bunch of things there that we'll be trying to get some of them scheduled. So they someone that may move into earlier meetings as time permits. And of course, things like the real ECA when it finally gets to us. When they decide to actually make a presentation, if they do.

And there's things that are hung up on that. Anything else right now that people know they would like to see as an agenda item? If not, we'll ask for public comment one last time. Is there any I don't see any in chambers. Do we have any online? Excuse me. Okay. That being the case, we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.

Recording stopped.