The time is now 5.01. I'd like to call today's utility service board meeting to order.
 We'll start with our mission. The city of Bloomington utilities mission is to enhance the quality
 of life in our community by providing safe, sustainable, and high quality drinking water,
 wastewater, and stormwater services in a cost-effective manner promoting public health,
 economic vitality, and environmental stewardship. If any board member has a personal or financial
 conflict with any issues or individuals on the agenda, then please be sure to recuse yourself
 during those portions of the meeting. We will begin today's meeting with
 petitions and communications. Are there any petitions or communications from the public?
 Moving along, we'll move to the approval of minutes of the previous meeting.
 Are there any questions or comments on the minutes from the previous meeting?
 I move we approve the minutes of the September 22nd meeting.
 All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay.
 Minutes are approved. Next, we have the approval of claims. We'll start with the standard invoices
 for a total amount of six hundred ninety eight thousand two hundred and forty five dollars and
 fifty
 nine cents. Are there any questions or comments on the standard invoices?
 Yeah, I was looking at Jeff. I'm sure he would have one. I want to see if you got the same one.
 Okay, so we're playing that game, huh? Okay, so I have a question about on page three,
 the vehicle maintenance. No, darn it. Okay, and I know that that is our set rate as per the MOU,
 correct? I do, I pulled out some of my notes here and I looked at a request that we had made. The
 board had, well, actually I'll pull this up under old business. I'll pull this up under old
 business.
 So no, no questions on that. And then I just have one other set of questions on page eight.
 And I think, I think I know the answer to this, but I want to make sure.
 It says type our class two short sleeve t-shirts. We're not paying
 like, it's for Patricia Mary West safety threads. Are those like class two shirt? It's not that we're
 getting two short sleeve shirts for $800, right? I hope not either. Is it just that that's
 the classification? Like it says type our class two.
 Yes, it's a classification. Okay. It's not just two t-shirts. Okay. All right. Fantastic.
 Those were my two questions. Just one question on page six, and that's under the
 second and third John Deere financial. It's the same claim. And for some reason,
 we split this one up between water and do the 60/40, but it's on two different lines,
 which is pretty atypical. And I was wondering why we did that in this case.
 It looks all correct. So I was just wondering why we did it that way in this case.
 Any other questions or comments on the standard invoice?
 All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay.
 Standard invoices are approved. Next we have utility bills for a total amount of $17,559.81.
 Are there any questions or comments on the utility claims?
 Utility bills for October 2nd pay date. Second. All in favor, please say aye.
 Aye. All opposed say nay.
 Utility bills are approved. Next we have wire transfers for a total amount of $633,392.71.
 Are there any questions or comments on the wire transfers?
 We approve wire transfers for the month of October.
 All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay.
 Wire transfers are approved. Lastly, we... The real key ones were for
 toolboxes for the shop. So that's why they were spread out.
 What's that? They were for toolboxes for the shop. That's why it was split out.
 Okay. Yeah, it looked like it was for a truck and it was split like they weren't all on the
 same line. Usually we'd have water, wastewater, stormwater, and I was just... I just didn't
 understand why they got on two different lines. That's all. The amount looks correct.
 Okay. We just processed it to two different areas. Like there's probably one toolbox and
 another toolbox. Great. Well, I mean, it's the same invoice number. It's a 60/40 split,
 so that all makes sense, right? But it was just that it was on two different lines. That's all.
 It shouldn't be a big deal, but I was just a different way that we regularly do things.
 I'm just not sure why that happened that way. Okay.
 Okay. Next, we have customer refunds for a total amount of $545.76. Are there any questions or
 comments on the customer refunds? I move we approve customer refunds for October 10th.
 All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Customer refunds are approved. Thank you
 all.
 Item number five on our agenda is approval of consent agenda. Catherine Zager. Good evening,
 I'm Catherine Zager, utilities director. I'm presenting tonight's consent agenda,
 totaling $0.00 and 0 cents for non-chemical contracts. Our contract is with Water Solutions
 Unlimited Inc. for $9.50 per gallon for the 2025 supply of copper sulfate at Monroe Water
 Treatment Plant. Is there any member who wishes to consider one or more of these items individually?
 Hearing none, if there's no opposition, these items will be approved as recommended by staff.
 Hearing no opposition, the consent agenda is approved.
 Thank you. Item six is request approval of First Amendment to Service Agreement
 with McAllister Machinery Company, Incorporated. Kelsey Thedonia.
 Good evening board members. Kelsey Thedonia, Environmental Division. This is an amendment
 to an existing contract we have and it is just to correct a small scrivener's error in the way
 the contract was first written. It is meant to renew for two extra years after year one. We are
 currently in year two and it is just to clarify the amounts that year two and three are not the
 same as year one and that is due to the fact that the work in the contract, the inspection and
 maintenance on these generators varies from year to year as outlined in the scope.
 So if you have any questions, please let me know. Any questions for Kelsey?
 Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? Yeah, I move we approve the
 service agreement amendment from with Macalester machinery.
 Second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Motion is approved. Thank you.
 Next we have request approval of first amendment to service agreement with Potomac Electrical
 Services LLC Hector Ortiz. Hello, good evening. I'm Hector Ortiz, Assistant Director of Operation
 and this is to amend the contract extending the expiration of the contract for three years instead
 of three months like it was. So any questions? Any questions for Hector?
 Second. I move we approve the first amendment to the service agreement Potomac Electrical.
 Second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Request is approved. Thank you.
 Next we have request approval of resolution 2025-20 for the salaries of
 appointed officers, non-union, and ask me employees for the City of Bloomington Utilities
 Department for 2026. Katherine Zager. Hello. I would like to request the review and approval
 of the 2025-20 resolution for the salaries of appointed officers, non-union, ask me employees
 for the City of Bloomington Utilities for 2026. This is to recommend to the council
 the changes we have proposed in our salary ordinance. In the packet there's an attached memo
 describing those changes. Additionally we have a slide that summarizes it. I think the next one.
 There it is. So I just thought this would be an easier way to look at it. You're welcome.
 So we are not proposing any new positions. However we are proposing
 quite a few changes to current positions. This is kind of added up after a couple of years
 as the new administration and new HR department had made adjustments using the crow salary study.
 We wanted to wait until after that had been implemented to propose our changes. So this is
 has I suppose piled up after a couple years. So we will be changing a total of I believe 10
 positions
 for a total of nine requests to the
 to to council and we would like for your review and recommendation of these changes.
 Happy to take any questions. I could review these with you if you'd like. Yeah.
 Yeah so Catherine are these these are reclassifications right?
 Yes. So did Crow recommend those these specific did they review our job descriptions and say yes
 these positions have increased in complexity and responsibility or do we do when where was
 the review done? So this review was some of the reviews for these were done during that time and
 some were done afterwards using the same rubric essentially. So some of the changes for example
 the top one the administrative assistant to the director is being proposed to be an office manager
 and it's because the existing job description didn't fully
 reflect all of the duties and responsibilities of the administrative assistant to the director.
 Once we added what the actual job was it was reclassified to an office manager. So that's
 an example of one of the changes it was enough of a reclassification to justify a change in grade.
 For some of them they're organizational changes for example the lead communications operator is an
 it is a new position but it's really a reworking of one of our communications operator positions
 to have additional duties such as dealing with some of these 811 requests that are new and kind
 of burdensome. They're also going to be helping with the now that we've reopened the walk for
 walk-ins they'll be helping as the receptionist for that so that will be kind of their lead
 communications operator. So it's a combination of either reclassifying after we looked at the job
 and the job duties and or organizational changes. For example the administrative assistant at the
 bottom that's a reclassific that is a change to organizational it to reflect our organizational
 changes. Previously the admin assistant in this role served one plant and now with they'll be
 moving from a four to a five because they will be serving all of operations.
 So some of them were reviewed by Crowe and the others were done by City HR?
 Yes so all of the positions at one point were reviewed by Crowe but that was a while ago
 and these change like organized organizations change over time right and so when Crowe reviewed
 those initially those were they were reviewing the old job descriptions these new ones have been
 reviewed through HR and through their consultant so they have a consultant who looks at
 classification
 and benefits as well. Okay well you know I in my past experience in city and county government I've
 noticed sometimes people use this system to provide raises although jobs haven't changed.
 It was a problem at the county yeah because they had such a difficult time ever getting increases
 for their hourly people. The SOP was well let's change the classification but that turns the whole
 HR system upside down because then you really don't have a classification system so I just
 wanted to make sure that we're doing this with some external review and that we're that the jobs
 are truly getting additional responsibility or complexity that would earn the additional pay.
 Absolutely and for all of these there is either a change in duties coming or there was a change
 in duties in the existing position that needed to be accounted for. For example I think a really
 good
 example is our change so we have an engineering through utilities technicians and we are proposing
 to change that to two utilities technicians and then one plan central coordinator and so how that
 had happened is that over years one of the utilities technicians was taking on additional
 responsibility for our plan review as that grew and so as they took on more of that responsibility
 and more of those duties that position drifted away from a utilities technician position
 which is why it made sense to change it.
 Well thanks you know as we're looking for a rate increase it's incumbent on us to make sure we're
 using every dollar the right way yes and and one thing to point out and so there was a mid-year
 change last this year there was a mid-year change this year and in that mid-year change we removed
 two positions that we were not planning on filling that we didn't have used for one of those was
 the
 canine unit we decided to move away from the canine unit and so we are the changes that we're
 proposing here we've balanced with ones that we've removed as well.
 Thank you any other questions for Pat yeah yeah a few questions um first can you just remind me
 does does utilities go through the same process so that there's like a workforce committee right
 they renamed it the workforce evaluation evaluation and realignment committee I think work work WRC
 and so I know most departments in the city have gone like routed through that committee process
 that has also leveraged external consultants as you noted and kind of sought to implement broadly
 the framework of recommendations from the crow study uh is that process identical for city
 bloomington utilities or is it distinct in some way given kind of I don't know some of the unique
 aspects of of utilities the process is identical however I would say the only difference is that we
 don't share the same budget constraints as um the general fund I mean we share budget constraints
 but
 we are not the same budget yep perfect and my recollection is that so we already did a whole
 round of um raises that through last year's budget basically uh and then also implemented earlier
 this year or at least authorized I think we actually funded too um implementation of a step
 process five steps within each grade to have uh different levels recognizing at this point I think
 just longevity of of service whether that is from a prior role or in the existing role um and so is
 where we are now these proposed changes like I guess I'm trying to make sure I'm understanding
 where we are in the process so like I think the first round of reclassifications was based on
 existing job descriptions analyzed under a new framework and a new grade range then we did the
 step analysis and implementation of uh steps for each role and now there's an opportunity for your
 department and others to um also change job descriptions where that was appropriate or
 make the case for it which in some cases leads to reclassification correct is that that's all right
 okay that's a excellent assessment wonderful how it went down appreciate it
 I have a couple questions um thank you for all that information um so were there any um other
 positions under review that are not under consideration for reclassification um so I
 guess like was there anyone that requested you consider that they were not classified
 high enough in their position that you reviewed that you've not proposed as a change
 just in general or did people feel like when besides these positions when they were classified
 did they feel like that was the appropriate level so um I'll answer this in two parts so um one
 thing
 as um council member Flaherty was describing the um process one thing that we have to be careful
 to avoid is um utilizing this work process and I think you know um Kirk you also alluded to this
 as well is that we don't want to use the work process as a we're not satisfied with the results
 of crow um so we're going to try to use this to change it what this truly is meant to be is the
 job has changed right the job description is inaccurate um and those are those are the types
 of reasons why we would submit something to work with that said this is not the total of all the
 requests that were made um so the the way the process works at utilities is that um and the
 way that we run this so that we can get input from every division is that each division has a memo
 and then we take those and then try to make one for the utility and then try to really you know
 at each time prioritize what we can budget for um and so this is not a this is not the end of the
 list if that's your question thank you yes
 what are the sum total of the fiscal impacts i see them listed individually in many places
 but i didn't see a total anywhere easily yes um i don't i don't have the sum total of the fiscal
 impacts however um i will say that when this was initially done uh the full memo included the
 positions that we eliminated at the mid-year and including the positions that we eliminated at mid-year
 the total fiscal impact was less than nine thousand dollars
 um the the positive or the the additional impact minus the the removal the two positions got you
 okay thank you yes any other questions or comments for cat so to confirm if this is approved
 tonight
 and then is approved by the city council then this would be implemented in january or immediately
 january 1 okay thank you there's also another slide if you want to go to the next slide as well
 there's two there's the rest some of these positions are changing from part-time to full-time as
 well as
 some of the changes okay i move approval of uh resolution 2025-20 for salaries of appointed
 officers and employees all in favor please say aye aye all opposed say nay request is approved
 item nine is request approval of emergency contract with set environmental incorporated isabel
 curos hello isabel curos hasmat coordinator i'm here to present emergency contract with
 set environmental for the total of five thousand four hundred and two dollars with seven cents
 this was for emergency response at the monroe plant any questions yes what happened yeah we had a
 small
 two-gallon spill of copper sulfate at the plant it was a very rare event in which it it wasn't
 contained and it was close to the lake so because of that we decided it was better to call for
 emergency response as that's something that would be preferred by item so we we use copper sulfate
 at the intake tower that's where it is yes okay come yeah the one that sits in the water in the
 lake no no no no that that's the tower close to the tower there is intake tower on the memo
 that's why i asked yeah i can see how that can be confusing it is not sitting on top of the tower
 there is a small chemical building where copper sulfate and sodium permanganate is stored and it
 gets injected close to the it's it's it's close at the intake tower okay we have like a small
 little chemical storage there okay just for those two chemicals okay
 two questions number one um like with our i know we're doing the safety of like the water and the
 land but what about with our personnel that were exposed is there anything that you know any
 procedures or precautions that they have taken or what how does that work for this well it's
 different for each spill right uh for this one um nobody was exposed and there was no risk for
 exposure or for um or for it to be flagged as a public health concern um but because the proximity
 to the lake we wanted to call emergency response as um because of the importance of the lake of
 course
 and also because um we have to report spills that are uncontained so there's follow-up with item
 on the spills and it's it's a lot easier to do the follow-up when they know the cleaning
 it's done by third party thank you my other question is um so i know this is a rare occurrence
 but what can we do is there anything that we could do to prevent this from happening again
 yeah absolutely um every time there is uh an incidental spill uh we do you know after the
 response we do an analysis of what happened and we do a root cause analysis and we implement um
 identify opportunities to prevent this from happening again how far are we in that analysis
 uh it was already done it's done uh pretty soon after the incident so it's fresh on everyone's
 minds and uh what happened from this one is that there was there were some repairs that were being
 done and that led to some rain water to go into a main hole that was dry before and you know with
 the repair some of the chemical started to leak from evolve that we didn't know it was completely
 sealed so now it is completely sealed thank you it sounds like our hazards come from doing repairs
 at the water treatment plant that really justify the need for the water rate case to be able to
 make these repairs on the larger scale so that we're not constantly repairing we're just getting it
 updated fully okay thank you thank you you mentioned the oh yes proximity to the lake and
 that was a concern i kind of i didn't realize we had a lot of chemicals near the intake tower
 we have good containment procedures in place the tanks are stored in the building that has the
 tanks
 they have 110 capacity for containment so if they were to spill they would all have to be contained
 there after that if it's a big spill or if it risks the safety of the workers then we call
 emergency response they're very quick to come to site for this particular one when we call them
 they
 were there to clean it up in less than two hours so they're very very quick so we do have spill
 procedures spill response for incidental when i say incidental i mean spills that are not posing
 a threat to the to our workers um and they're manageable which it's from the spills that we've
 had is the the majority not that we have one every week um but uh yes we do have um procedures in
 place physical containment the building is engineered to provide for containment yes okay thank you
 cover sulfate i'm not familiar with it is it is it uh have toxicity or is it caustic or what's the
 what's the danger it's uh it's acidic so it's corrosive um that would be the immediate one and
 then um for spills we have to take there are thresholds that we need to take care of whenever
 it depends on each um chemical that we need to take care of and that would be a reporting issue
 to item or to the appropriate channel this was a very small one it was a two gallon one
 approximately
 any other questions for it's about oh yes and hi chris wheeler city legal this contract is just
 is very recent it's being routed right now for approval so your motion i would like it to be
 pending controllers approval thank you thank you
 i can do that
 all right i move approval of the emergency contract with sct environmental
 pending city controller approval all in favor please say aye aye all opposed say nay
 request is approved thank you thank you
 next old business i think we have old business from the board yes so now i'll bring up my question
 earlier this year when we were talking about the mou and the charges to fleet
 we had a discussion you guys did some drilling into the data and i believe where we had left it
 at the march 25th meeting that there was 120 000 that we had to do out
 repair work that we had to do outside of fleet and we were going to you guys were going to
 get us some further information on this just in terms of when we are ready for when it's time for
 the mou that we were going to know what expenses we were paying out to them what are the charges
 that we're having to do outside what would those charges be that if we didn't have fleet do it
 it and we just did it on our own what would we save and then i didn't so we originally talked
 about this in mart or excuse me february we were given a report on it in may and then i asked again
 in april is where the status was so now we're at october and i to my knowledge i went through the
 notes i didn't see that we've had any report on this i'm bringing this up because we just made
 another payment we're also going to be in negotiations with for the mou and i would like
 us to be prepared on these fleet charges that we seem to just constantly every year hammer on i
 really would like us to have our ducks in line as to what value what we are getting service there
 what would be a better benefit to go elsewhere um not only for pricing but also for timing of
 when we we fully fully fully understand and appreciate the need to service you know the
 police cars and other things that are there for public safety but we are also here for public
 safety and so if we cannot if if we're second or third tier and we're still and we're paying a
 first tier rate i would like to know i would like us to really have this in place before we get to
 that mo you point so it's just kind of my friendly reminder that i'm keeping track of my board
 follow
 up and we're now we're now in october so that that's my old business so thank you yeah i can
 give you an update on that we are really close to finalizing that summary so we've been working
 with
 the external vendors if you will and we're getting real close to finalizing that okay yep that's
 fantastic and i'm glad it's i'm just glad it hasn't been lost oh it's not been lost and it's just i
 do
 hope that we see some potential changes in that so thank you it's just been harder to collect the
 data than we thought that's all so pardon it's just been harder to collect the data than we thought
 it was going to be so oh i get it yeah i just want us to be ready and if we can't pull those
 numbers together and now almost it'll be a year from you know like we we've got to spend a little
 time making sure we are getting that ready we're getting ready fantastic thank you any other old
 business from the board old business from staff no new business any new business from the board
 new business from staff nope we didn't have a subcommittee report
 to report so uh staff reports all right um got a couple things uh first we'd like to welcome
 rachel gray who has just joined us uh rachel gray is the new administrative assistant to the
 director
 placing frank um and then i also wanted you to mark your calendars for thursday december 11th
 from 11 a.m to 1 p.m uh we will be doing our cbu holiday luncheon
 december 11th from 11 a.m to 1 p.m thank you and that'll be here yes that'll be here
 bring your appetite
 yeah it's not one to miss never been an issue with me
 all right that's all i've got awesome uh lastly petitions and communications any petitions and
 communications from the public hearing none do we have a motion to adjourn meeting is adjourned
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