Draft: WMAC Meeting Minutes 

June 20, 2013

Attendees:  David Crosby – Chair, Len Sekuler – Vice Chair, David Hearne, Paul Lauenstein, Rory McGregor – Secretary,  Chris Pimental, Sarah Windman

Guest: Eric Hooper – Superintendent, DPW

1.  David advised that Mike Bossin plans to resign from the committee

2.  Minutes of the April meeting were approved as amended.

3.  Eric will submit a proposal for a new water rate increase to the selectmen for immediate consideration.  Increasing the base rate by $5 could generate an additional $100K in revenue.  He will propose a both a modest base rate increase and a modest increase in the summer rate.  He also considered different breakpoints in the rate structure but will not include this in his immediate proposal.

He has assessed the impact of the last rate increase, which has been in effect since January 1, 2012, on FY 2013 revenue.  Revenue is running at a higher rate than originally projected. In this meeting he reported that the revenue for the current fiscal year could be $2.7 million. 

The long-term goal is to generate annual revenues between $3.1 and $3.2 million in order to cover operating costs and finance projects in the town water master plan. Pipe replacement on Brook Road and Massapoag are major projects that are starting up and will cost over $1 million.

Eric has a more detailed proposal on water rates that will be considered along with the WMAC proposals itemized below.

4.  David Crosby asked for final input on his summary report for the 3 options debated by WMAC for long term water rate structures.  We agreed to include our current water rate structure as a 4^th option.  The 3 proposals include:

a) Rates based on household size

b) One uniform rate

c) Ascending block rate based on gallons consumed per household per day with only 3 blocks, two of which are the lowest 10% of consumers and the highest 10% of consumers.

Paul Lauenstein asked Eric if the town attorney had reversed his determination that water rates could not be based on household occupancy.  Eric said the town attorney has not provided any further feedback.

Len  Sekuler asked how much difference there would be between summer versus winter rates in each of the three proposed new rate structures.  Paul Lauenstein recalled that the committee voted in March (5-2-1) to support up to a 40% spread between summer and winter rates.

David Hearne will compute impact on users in different quartiles for each proposal.

5.  Groundwater levels are up due to recent rains.  Monthly pumping for last month has been low.  Unaccounted for water is around 10% for the first half of the year.  Annual pumping will come in under 500 million gallons.

Discussions with Norwood for the emergency water connection have started at the elected official level.

Eric will consider a line item in next year’s budget that will allocate some of the excess revenue, if there is any, toward a “rainy day” fund to be used to balance the budget in case of revenue shortfalls or unanticipated expenses.

6.  Projects for pipe replacement on Glendale/Glenview and Massapoag will commence this summer.

7.  Next meeting is Thursday July 18th at the Community Center at 7:30pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Rory McGregor