Board of Public Works - Regular Meeting

Okay. Alright. Welcome. It is, 6PM on Thursday, 01/15/2026. This is the regularly scheduled Waukesha Water Utility Commission meeting. I would like to call it to order. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Frankour? Here. Commissioner Fowell? Here. Commissioner Curry? Absent. Commissioner Pyatt? Here. Commissioner Matthews? Here. Commissioner Riley? Here. Commissioner Bartels?

Here. Excellent.

We have

a forum.

Excellent. Thank you for confirming. All right. Let's move on to public comments. There is no one in the room physically. Any emails or messages that we should be aware of?

I do not have any correspondence from customers. Okay.

Thank you. So there's no public comment. We'll move on to approval of the minutes. Can I get a motion and a second to approve the minutes from December 2025? Move to approve. I'll second it.

We have a

motion and a second. All right. Any questions or comments about the minutes from twelveeighteen twenty five? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain. Unanimous approval for the minutes. So we'll now move on to action items. Action item five a, approve payments from the general fund and the improvement fund. So second. We have Riley and Bartels motion and a second. Okay. Commissioners, questions or comments on the vouchers?

I mean, the general fund and improvement.

I do have one I'd like to point out K. On the I can't find it here. Sorry. On the

123. It's a little further ahead.

Or Towards the fourth page. Oh, I got a new one. That's fine. So it is the one dated January 16, and it is check number 51873, city treasurer. That would be our first pilot payment of $20.26 for 774,000, $50 that we paid.

Thank you for pointing that out, Courtney. How many how many of those pilot payments do we make

this We we make three of those every year.

So it'll be in excess of $2,100,000 for the city? Correct.

That doesn't seem to be enough.

The Aye. Opposed? Abstain. Okay. Action item 5A unanimously passed. Okay. Action item 5B, approved designation of Waukesha State Bank including its investment branch Waukesha Investments, JPMorgan Chase Bank, and the State of Wisconsin Local Government Investment Pool as depositories for the 2026 calendar year.

So moved. So moved.

Second? Or did you want a second, Joanie? I'll second. All right. Is this you, Courtney?

Yes. All right. So water utility policy requires the commission to authorize I'm sorry. Requires the commission to authorize our cash and investment depositories annually. And we would like to recommend designating Waukesha State Bank, JP Morgan Chase Bank, and the State of Wisconsin Local Government Investment Pool, or LGIP, for 2026.

Waukesha State Bank is currently our everyday bank. They are our servicing bank. They are in a convenient location for us. We make deposits there daily. We have a contract with them through the city of Waukesha that was extended in 2015.

And they currently have excellent interest rates that we've seen all year long. JPMorgan Chase Bank is a bank that holds all of our electronic banking from customers that write a check. So if a customer is a JPMorgan Chase customer and they write a check to us And it used to come in check form, and then we would have to manually process those. It now comes electronically for us, and so we can easily upload all of those into our system for for all of the payments that come through from them. And so that holds all of those payments for the month.

And then at the end of every month, we pull the money from there and and deposit back into Waukesha State Bank. And our third banking is LGIP or the local government investment pool. And they are a very safe, low risk facility for us. Most government agencies use them. They hold all of our money for that we carry for debt, for our taxes, things like that.

So that is our third facility that we use for our banking. Approving this today does not hold these as our only facilities that we can use for the year. If we get something or we find something throughout the year that is a very good deal or something that we want to invest in, we will bring it back to the commission for approval. So this does not tie us into just these. We have had several people come in the last couple years.

And with the interest rates that we receive both at Waukesha State Bank and at LGIP, they can't touch them. So right now, we are in a very good position with where we hold all of our money. So I'm happy to take questions, but I'd like to move to designate Waukesha State Bank, including its investment branch, Waukesha Investments, JPMorgan Chase Bank, and the state of Wisconsin local government investment pool as depositories for the 2026 calendar year.

And those are the same that the city has. We may have a couple more, but I'm pretty sure we have all three of those.

Yes. We've had these same three now for years.

Correct. That is correct.

Okay. Other questions for Courtney or comments?

Won't be so close to Waukesha State Bank.

That is true. We'll have to hit that other one over there on the on the other side of town.

Are they still the banker friendly service?

They are. They're a very friendly service. Excellent. They have great rates. They have great they don't charge us a whole lot. So we we like them.

Thank you. Okay. All in favor of approving say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Abstain. All right. Excellent. That brings us to our final action item 5C approve the 37,930.22 change order to Meijer and Construction for regrading of the pond and the loading dock leveler for the new operations center.

Okay. This must be Matt.

Or Yep. K. So we had a change order from Byron for reiterating the pond at the site, and this was per the city engineering concurrence letter that they sent us. So that's after they review the plans, look at them, send it back. Hey. The pond isn't big enough. You gotta extend it here to conform with their, storm water runoff and capacities. So that was something we weren't aware of in the original plans. And then the other part of this change is for loading dock leveler. Mhmm.

There was money budgeted for the loading dock leveler. It was at $15,000. It did come in a little bit higher, $18,000, but we did have money in there. We do have an allowance, built built in. We have the contingency, the million dollar contingency in the original budget.

So we're not really gonna be going into that at all. We do have an allowance that has been built up from after their original bid. Some stuff has been changed, so we've gotten credits. We got a roughly $80,000 credit on the roof trusses because they were able to change the shape of the roof when we went from metal to rubber roofing. There was there used to be a step with windows and stuff in it, so they we were able to get a pretty significant credit.

So I think there's roughly a a $160,000 in the allowance fund right now. So we're still right on track for budget, maybe a little bit ahead of the game right now. But so the motion is to approve the $37,930.22 to Migrant for the regrading of the pond and a loading dock leveler for the new operation center.

At first, I thought it meant some extra grading for, like, the approach to loading dock. Could thirty second what is a loading dock leveler?

So it's the it's basically a ramp that a semi can back into. And then the where they would back to, there's a a ramp that flips open, and it adjusts up and down. So every semi is not the exact same light. So it's to get it to that that height of whatever if it's a flatbed or a semi so that we can get a forklift onto it to get the stuff off of it.

Thank you. How many docks do we have?

We just have one. Just one? Yep.

Do we have a forklift? We do.

Good. It's a

lot to move with the hand truck. That's right.

Other questions for Matt? All right all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain.

Unanimous.

Excellent. Let's move on to item six discussion items.

Discussion items. So I have a small update from Dan, and then we'll kind of just give a little departmental update quick. Dan said depositions continue with the lawsuit. They are continuing to gather information, and they are still waiting for the summary judgment, the decision by the judge. And, hopefully, once we get that, then we will get a court date and, know a whole lot more information on, and when we can get some decisions in from them for that.

For departmental updates, we did get a list of questions back from the Public Service Commission for our rate increase rate case that we have submitted. We did ask for an extension on that just because it is year end, and we are more short staffed, and we are doing training. So we have asked for an extension on that. We've made our final or we're working on our final furniture selections for the new operations center. We are also working on your end and the audit.

The auditors will be here March, and we are also working on the diversion report, which is the report required with Milwaukee Water. And Matt has update for his department.

So we we've had three water main disruptions since the last meeting. One was the day after Christmas. The other ones were on regular hours, luckily. We just have ongoing hydrant survey, valve survey. The PLC project is going, and we they started it last month. They're they're working their way through the stations, replacing the PLCs, so that that'll be a couple month project. And then Thomas started designing the new water mains for next year's this or this coming year's projects for the resurfacing project and the other main projects that we had approved earlier in the year. Can

you talk to, like, Alex just about which projects just double check to make sure because there could be a change in which projects are going be done. For '26? I think it may be in the future but past '26 but just say the mayor said something and then double check.

That is good to know about where cross talking with DPW frequently.

It was just a meeting late yesterday.

You had a meeting today with them. Right?

That was the planning commission. That was

Okay. What

what is the PLC again? Those replacements

Programmable logic control. Okay.

Thank you. Runs the tells the function to turn on

and off. Yeah.

Okay. Next was SCADA.

Yep. Okay.

That is all we have for items this month.

Questions for Courtney or Matt?

Is that picture are the pictures in that? In the image. Did

Dan have any idea about when we might hear summary judgment? That's still just looking until they get down depositions. Okay.

Until until they hear back from the judge. So they're just waiting on the judge for that summary judgment. Okay. So so.

Sounds good. Alright. That moves us on then to information items. New operation center update. Wow. So

they made quite a bit of progress from the last time. I mean, it probably doesn't look like a ton on picture, but you can see now all the whole the steel structure, this is the whole office portion of it. So all the steel framing is up now. They're gonna start putting decking on that shortly to make it look like a roof. The installation is up on the roof now for the roofing membrane.

So all the corrugated steel, the steel decking is up there. We're supposed to start on that this week. The wind and cold might delay that a little bit now, but it is starting to come along. All the the water lines are so there's a hydrant back here and over there. And the service to the to the building are all installed now. This one is pressure tested and passed. They pressure tested these lines today. That passed, so we're gonna take a back t sample tomorrow on that stretch. And then our water will be in. They're still working on sewer some storm sewer and then the sanitary lateral.

The gas is into the building, and I believe the electric the permanent electric is it's not into the building, but the transformer's there, and they have temporary power ran off of it. You can go to the next one. You have that. The masonry. So you can kinda see in here some masonry block walls.

Those are, like, the lunchrooms up here, training room. This is, like, the locker room in here, and then there the lab and some other walls with the masonry needed to go in. The reason that this section of roof is left off of it is because there's the precast panels make the floor for the upper mezzanine. So all this area holds all of our electrical and HVAC units there. So they added all the blocking because that's what supports the floor.

So Monday and Tuesday was the original plan to set precast plan floor panels. It is supposed to be, like, a high of two degrees on Monday, so I don't know what that's gonna do to their schedule. But they're pretty they feel comfortable with their schedule, and they're still hoping for a late October finish date. I think if another one.

You blame Janbury on that. If it's gonna Janbury happens, it's

gonna turn really It's gonna be freezing. Yeah. Just a couple more pictures of the backside. So this is that pond that had to be regraded. That had to be extended out, and that was the basically, just had to get more capacity out of it. Oh, sorry. That's fine. This is some lean to covered storage in the back. I don't know if that was on the last month or not.

But Yeah. We talked about it.

So then, hopefully, the next their next week or two, they'll be putting the the roof deck on the office part, setting these precast panels, and finishing that roof. The roofers are there actively. They're trying to get the they put the Styrofoam down first, and then the rubber membrane goes over top of that. So they're working on that with the weather. The framers are there, so they'll start studying in all these x.

So it's just basically steel posts that hold the whole structure up, and they'll fill in between the posts with the steel framing to close in that front office part in the next week or so. They'll be in there starting with that. Okay. And then the the interior plumbing hoopers in there, they're putting all the roof trains in so that when they do get the roof on, the water has a place to go, and we're not creating more problems for ourselves. And then they did start installing windows, the backside of the building. They have the casings in, and they'll be putting the glass in. So it's moving along very well, I think. But any other questions? Questions?

Any plans for a back patio with a grilling pizza oven and things

like

that? It's over here. It's right there. Okay.

Excellent. Okay. Well, that's good news. That's exciting.

Yeah. There you can kinda see this is all, like, the the masonry wall. Okay. This is the lunchroom right there, training room there,

and then locker rooms will be a dividing wall for the women's, and then

just a couple other rooms back in there. But

Oh, it's exciting.

Alright. Insert.

Gotta turn the page here. K. And you sorry. Would that have AC and everything inside it,

though, too? Or Not the office. Well, the AC. But the shop. The shop will not have AC. No.

No. It's okay. Let's see here. Utility performance report and administrative activities.

I listed that in discussion items. I apologize.

Oh, that's okay.

Did a little early this time.

Alright. That's alright.

Sorry about that.

Any other questions about utility performance? We're moving water. Okay. Let's move on then to the financial report.

Okay. So as we talked about, we are working on year end in the audit. So like every December, we do not have full financials for you because we are working on getting everything tied up for the year and all of that. We hope to have them next month, but I'm I'm not certain on that just because we are doing some training and and learning. And so we wanna make sure that we obviously have everything in before we before we do that.

So we will that will be a to be determined. So this graph here just kinda shows our consumption for the year. It is actually a two year look back, but also our consumption for December and also for the year. We actually ended the year a little higher than we thought we were going to, two and a half percent above what we thought. Part of for December, the increase there, we had half of the city was billed two days longer, so there was a little increase there.

Irrigation is is, up a little bit. And then we also, if you notice, have commercial, which is about 28,000,000 gallons over budget. I think that's probably a continuation of the, you know, bounce back kind of from COVID. And, also, we had a property that had a cooling tower go down. And so they went from a few 100,000 gallons a month to millions of gallons a month that has now been repaired, but that did make a big impact on on consumption for 2025.

What is that?

Asking. Do you remember?

You probably can't say just because we can't give out Yeah. Information regarding

It was can chat.

Got you. That's right.

That's all.

No. I appreciate that.

So next line, our next item we have is our cash. So we started the month at $48,100,000 and we ended at $50,000,000 And so as you'll see there, we have an issuance of the long term debts that $2,100,000 right in the middle of the screen there. That is our reimbursement from WIFIA. So that is everything that we're doing with the operation center. We submit them for reimbursement.

Other than that, pretty much business as usual for the end of the year. And then finally, we have all of our projects for our transmission and distribution. As we talked about last month, all of the projects are complete, for the year. The exceptions would be Arrowhead Trail. That is the one that we needed the eminent domain in that that area to to get an easement, which the city attorney and is working on.

I believe they're close to getting that all done, so that should go this year. And then we have that Highway 59 was a two year project. So, the 2025 piece is complete. We will have another piece, on it for 2026. So other than that, everything is complete for the year. Believe we have all invoicing from the city for everything except potentially one for a very minimal amount of money. So everything is in and and good to go. So project wise, we are are are good.

When will we get the 2026 list?

So that'll be next month.

Next month.

Yep. K.

Yep. That'll be with the January.

K. Alright.

Pretty good. I don't just a comment. I don't think, like, a lot of people understand that that with your money, basically, is building this building. It's forty years to pay it back from the day you starts the day you take the money out, which is different than most loans. And then it's also at you want me to sign the interest. Maybe the last one.

Yeah. It's a a total of thirty eight year loan. Thirty eight. Okay. So and it does end in thirty eight years, but it is an average of 1.16% interest. So the while the interest rate does fluctuate, the average throughout the whole term is 1.16, which is an excellent rate. You know, almost unheard of. So Right. So it's a great great thing for the

have have first 19. First of GM transition and job search sort of thing that we just can't make a move on that until we at least have a date for the trial. And even after that, just some uncertainty. So other than that, I think the operation center, GM transition, and just keep pushing water for 26. Right?

Alright. Courtney, Matt?

Hey. Excited number of times you say just keep pushing water.

Right. I do. I'm gonna trademark that. Oh, because we don't pull the water through the system. Right? We push it. Right?

They push through. Yeah. We push it from there.

Yeah. We just keep pushing. Oh, you pull water?

I'll just turn on the faucet. Okay.

Alright. Commissioners, anything? Courtney, Matt, Ellie?

I don't think we have.

Alright. I guess, if there's nothing else and if there are no objections, we are adjourned. K. Alright. We're and it is, $6.25. Nice. That definitely is a record.