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REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 11, 2013
<br /> statistical regulatory leap frog where everybody puts the rates from one year and says see we are
<br /> fine and then three or four years down the road when they haven't done anything, we have
<br /> moved up significantly, which it is an interesting number I tend to look at the rates as proposed
<br /> down the road when you combine sewer and water rates, I maintain we will be for a normal
<br /> household somewhere in the neighborhood of$150 - $200 dollars a month. That's something
<br /> that is going to leave us scratching our heads and it won't be you and it won't be me, it will be
<br /> subsequent Councilmembers and subsequent employees who say what are we going to do to
<br /> correct this. The time to correct it is now, when we find ways to make this a less expensive
<br /> program and a more efficient program and if we simply follow this line out the way it is, we will
<br /> be in a big, big problem. Bigger than we can imagine today, so I can't emphasize how much I
<br /> think it is important to get it under control now and the get the rates workable, so that it is a
<br /> finished product despite what this consent decree is. Other people have worked successfully at
<br /> it. Something that is not going to leave us uncompetitive and scratching our heads, that's not a
<br /> legacy that I want to leave.
<br /> Councilmember Dieter: The rates that Dr. Varner brought up earlier at the committee meeting
<br /> just flow into this. He was saying right now, so that's the big concern I have of catching up,
<br /> catching up, catching up, and then at some point when we are not here,maybe Oliver will still be
<br /> here, but were not here, it will be a big issue and I don't want him to have the burden of that.
<br /> Councilmember Dr. Fred Ferlic: I agree with Dr. Varner this is an unsustainable business model,
<br /> so that is what we have to look into this as a business model, and that's what our Council is
<br /> going to do and we are going to work with you and we can come to a good conclusion on this.
<br /> Councilmember Henry Davis: Thank you, I have two, three actually, why are we always
<br /> constantly grouped in with like a Mishawaka/South Bend thing when we are dealing with our
<br /> numbers? I would think that it would probably put us at a different average, whether up or down
<br /> if we are grouped with another city.
<br /> Eric Horvath: Oh, yeah I am sorry the utilities one does do metropolitan districts. This
<br /> particular one is just showing the actual rates of each of those individual cities, but the South
<br /> Bend/Mishawaka one because that's a national wide index they don't do each, if they do them I
<br /> didn't have access to that. They may very well have South Bend, you may be able to buy that
<br /> report,but for the reports that I was able to get on line, this is the metropolitan district.
<br /> Councilmember Henry Davis: Just for the sake of certain numbers or exact numbers, I would be
<br /> interested in, I don't know how much it would change, but deal directly with South Bend, I'm
<br /> sure, but I don't know how much they would deal with South Bend in a Mishawaka model or
<br /> conversation,not that I am over there,but I would be interested in seeing where we are directly
<br /> at when we are dealing with our city. The other deal, we always seem to be compared to Ft.
<br /> Wayne. When Ft. Wayne is significantly larger than you know us,by land mass and population
<br /> and I'm wondering why are we always higher than Ft. Wayne. I just noticed that, on these
<br /> slides.
<br /> Eric Horvath: I can't speak to specifics on that, but I will say this knowing Ft. Wayne's system,
<br /> it's significantly different. They've got these huge CSO ponds that were built a number of years
<br /> ago at their Waste Water Treatment Plant and so that holds a significant amount of flow right
<br /> now and it helps them balance that flow better and we just don't have any room to do that. We
<br /> don't have any place where we can build a multi-million gallon storage facility. So the South
<br /> Bend-Mishawaka metropolitan rate, I think is probably pretty close when you find if you were to
<br /> separate South Bend from Mishawaka because when you look at the water and sewer rates they
<br /> are really similar, we are at $55 and they are at $59, so I'm guessing the rest of the utility rates
<br /> electric, gas are probably pretty similar too. The other thing that I wanted to point out is so on
<br /> the projections that we have done to support the $431 m and the increases that they have
<br /> projected every year for the next 16 years we did put what the average residential user rate would
<br /> be in and John can go over that, but at the end of the plan at 2029 it's $95.43 cents I believe is
<br /> what the rates was. The last thing, if you could jump to the chart (referring to the power point) a
<br /> couple down, right here, this will show us in relation to those other population of 25,000 and I
<br /> know it's really hard to see, because we wanted to get them all on their, and what I did was, I
<br /> compared us, I took the 2013 rates and didn't increase them at all, even though a number of these
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