All right it's time to call our meeting to order this utility service board for May 4th of 2026. Our
first item on the agenda is communications and petitions. Is there anything from the public? Communications
or petitions? All right just a reminder that 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. Our vision is that
CBU will be the leading municipal water utility organization in Indiana. And just to remind our board
members, if you have any personal or financial conflict or any issues,
or individuals on the agenda, then please be sure to recuse yourself during those portions of the meeting.
All right, the first item then is approval of minutes from our previous meeting of April 20th. All right,
it's been moved and seconded to approve the minutes of April 20th. Any other discussion?
In favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, the minutes are approved. Next is standard invoices. Review
invoices for today. I have a few questions. Yeah. OK, on page three, my first question is city of Bloomington
fuel charge. And I guess just thinking more about our fuel this month with gas prices that are up, how
are we charged?
when there's a delivery of fuel, and then we pay that rate until there's another delivery of fuel, and
then that's our rate. How do they determine our charge for fuel? That I don't know. I just know they
track it by batch number. So I'm not sure I think about what the price is really cheap. Like, oh, at
the end of the month, it's $4.99. So everybody pays $4.99. Or when you got your biggest loads,
it was $4.23. And so we pay $4.23.
At some point, could you inquire about that, please? Thank you. OK. Next question. Environmental Systems
Research Institute, also on page three, the small government enterprise subscription. What's that? Esri.
So Esri, that's our GIS. Oh, OK. Different letters. I didn't know that. Thank you. OK. And then my other
question. Let's see here.
Well, OK, on the page that my numbers cut off, but toward the back. And yes, it's page eight. Stantec
for the contract revision number two for rate design. For the water, I wasn't exactly sure what that
meant. So there's a couple of pieces to the water rate case. There's one, the revenue requirements need
to be defined. And we have a consulting company in Crow that defined our revenue requirements.
And then for proper cost of service study, we need a company like Stantec to dig into the details and
say, Kerr was saying we need this much money, and Stantec does the cost service study to say who's going
to pay their share. So this is just paying them for their continued work. This is the work they did
to get us prepared for the rate case that we're months into? Yes. Yes. OK. OK, thank you. I wouldn't
say it did the work they did to get us prepared. It's work they've done throughout, yes. Since that
we need to prove this is why we need this money.
Any other questions on standard invoices? Is that for a CDL requirement or something like that? Okay.
Just didn't have a dirt of that one before. And then for the entities that we have to do outfall sampling,
do we recover that cost from them or do we cover that for them on their behalf?
for outflow testing, like when we test for outflows, like do we recover that cost or charge that to
the entity or do we cover for him? Oh, okay. Cool. Thank you. Anything else on standard invoices for
approval? Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
Standard invoices are approved. Next are utility bills for the month. Total there is $19,952.34. Any
questions on utility bills? I move that we approve the utility bills. Second. All right. It's been moved
and seconded at all. Any other discussion on those? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
OK, utility bills are approved. Wire transfers in the amount of $667,091.43. Any questions on those?
I've got 606.
$7,091.43. I move that we approve the wire transfers. Second. Okay. Any other discussion? All in favor
of wire transfers, say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Wire transfers are approved. Next is customer refunds.
Discussion on customer refunds for this month. All right. I move that we approve the customer refunds.
Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, customer
refunds are approved. Next is the special check run for stormwater fees to the county.
Discussion. Yeah. It's for taxes. Is this like property tax on these places? No, it's just a stormwater
fee for these locations. For these sites? These sites are in the county. Okay. And so it's their stormwater
fees. So it's labeled taxes because I think they're normally charged with property taxes. Okay. But
we don't pay those though.
All right, any other questions on stormwater fees for our facilities? I move that we approve the special
check run. Second. All right, it's been moved in. No, yeah, special check run. Moved and seconded. Any
other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion carries then. And next is the
consent agenda. Director Zeiger.
Good evening. I'm Catherine Zegar, utilities director. I'm presenting tonight's consent agenda,
totaling $23,300. The first contract is with commercial service of Bloomington Inc. for $5,125 for the
main building server room mini split replacement at Monroe Water Treatment Plant. Next is with Course
in Fire and Security for $3,175 for annual plant equipment inspections at Blucher, Dillman, and Monroe.
Last is with First Appraisal Group, Inc. not to exceed $15,000 for the appraisal of easements for six
properties associated with the Dillman Relief Sewer Project. Is there any member who wishes to consider
one or more of these items individually? Hearing none, if there is no opposition, these items will be
approved as recommended by staff. Hearing no opposition, the consent agenda is approved.
Thank you. Item six on our agenda is to request approval of the service agreement with Electric Plus
for the Monroe plant. Hello, I'm Dan Hudson, capital project manager for the city of Bloomington. I'm
filling in for Hector. He's not here tonight. About a year ago, we went under contract with a company
to do maintenance on our large
high voltage and medium voltage equipment. That includes taking the breakers out and cleaning them and
making sure everything works right and putting them back. But you have to shut down the plant to do
that. And in our planning process, we've decided that it's a good idea to keep our servers running so
we have data coming in and also keep the lab running because we
do laboratory analysis like every hour. And this may take like up to 10 hours to do. So we'd like to
hire Electric Plus to help us wire an existing generator that we have, a portable generator that we
borrow from T&D to run the servers in the lab. We also want to rent a portable generator
to run one of the pumps. One of the pumps we can run because it is a high level pump. It's on 480 volts
and we have a generator. We can run a generator to do that. The idea is we don't want to lower the pressure
in the system. So we have to have water notices during this time. So that's our plan for electric plus for
$8,813. Any questions? Yeah, thanks. And this is probably a good time to do this with the campus kind
of winding down as of this weekend. You probably thought of that. So usage should be down a bit with
the campus pretty much in a reduced state for the summer. Yes.
So do we kind of proactively top off all the tanks before we do this in case we have problems?
Oh, absolutely. Everything's topped off. The superintendent is here. Great. Sorry.
Yeah, so we topped the tanks off the night before. And so they're ready for the day. So if you looked
at last year's usage about this week, you'd know about how many gallons we'd go through on an average
day like this. Yeah, we pretty much so. Usually after graduation, we have a lull for about two weeks.
And it starts to pick up as people start filling their pools up for Memorial Day. Makes sense. Yeah.
So it is, it's really an advantageous time to do it. Good planning. Yeah. So we've got them all tapped,
topped off like that and you're down in production. How much water do we have in the tank? So many hours?
So usually as far as the, uh,
distribution goes to keep the fire suppression above the green line. We have about six hours. The actually
this we're only planning on this taking three. So, but in the meantime with pump five, we'll be able
to pump 8 million gallons to town. Still. That's the pump we're going to generate. That's what we're
You mentioned low pressure, potentially don't run that pump. Is it pretty much guaranteed to go below
that 20 PSI? It's going to be close. Okay. Close enough that we're worried about it. Yeah. You know,
the other option was to go the night before and that was, you know, it would have been another $15,000
add-on to the company and us doing the work. So, you know, we thought, well, probably the better idea
is to keep a pump running.
And so with this solution, we can do that. What was the date we were looking at? The 12th. Next Tuesday.
So let the fire department know you're going to do this? I sent them an email this morning. Very good.
Because if they have an issue, you need to know before anybody else does so that you can adjust accordingly.
We usually can tell if they do have an issue.
Good. Sounds like you don't do this very often, huh? No. I don't think it's ever been. Yeah. So. Preventive
maintenance. It's a good thing. All right. Other questions? Any other discussion? All right. I move
that we approve the contract with electric plus zinc. Second. I move and second. All in favor say aye.
Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you for your time.
for coming tonight. Next on the agenda is item seven, request for approval of amendment number one to
the agreement with Wexler Engineering. Dan is back. Yeah, Dan Hudson, Capital Projects Manager. I don't
know if I need to state that again. Last board meeting, I went to you guys about Xylem project we had
about replacing these
devices in our flight pumps. And to do the whole project, it actually is going to take three contracts.
One is for Xylem, one for Wessler, and one for Electric Plus. That's what I'm doing here. The Wessler
part of it is to integrate, to take all the data, put it in our SCADA, and put it in the historian.
So Wessler has a project now.
at the headworks, and they're working on the SCADA system. So we just ask for an amendment for them,
and they are asking for $33,000 for a new not to exceed $288,000 to do that. Is there any questions?
That's good. Any questions or discussion for Mr. Hudson?
I move that we approve the first amendment to the Professional Service Agreement with Western Engineering.
Second. I move and second to any other discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right motion
carries. It's approved. And next then is the request for approval of service agreement with Electric Plus.
This is the third project. We need someone to hang the wires, to put the conduit up, and to wire everything
from the flight pumps to the, I don't know if it's an RTU or PLC, but to the device at the system that
picks up the data. And Electric Plus is asking for $15,950.
OK. Questions for Dan? I move that we approve the contract with Electric Plus. Second. Move and second.
Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. That request is approved. Item
nine is request for approval of the service agreement with
Thermoelectron North America, LLC. Kelsey. Hi, I'm Kelsey Thetonia, Assistant Director for Environmental.
This is a contract with Thermoelectron for a annual service plan for ICPMS instrument, which runs lead
samples for drinking water. I'm sorry, could you repeat what you said? Yeah. It was hard to hear.
I'm sorry. I heard annual.
service plan for what? It's a service plan with Thermo for just basic maintenance of our ICPMS instrument
in the lab. So that's analysis for lead? Yep. Does it do anything else for us or can you do other agents
with it? Right now we only use it for lead. We have an AA for iron and manganese. Is that what we use
when some like a customer if they get their lead service line they request? Yes, we're using it for
the lead service line. I know Justin said he had over 600 of
He has. Yes. Great. OK. That's a good. I hadn't heard a follow up number on that. Yeah. Quite a bit.
Yeah. A lot of interest in that program. We still have over 9,000 unknowns, but this is a step in the
right direction to be able to identify the areas where we need to do further investigation. Great. Any
other questions for Kelsey? All right. I move that we approve the contract with Thermoelectron North
America. Second.
Move and second it in the other discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Motion carries.
Thank you very much. Item 10 is the request for approval of resolution 2026-11 to designate surplus
property for auction. Matt Havy. I think there's one item on the list. It's a shelf that I'm trying
to get rid of.
Sardis are coming so often. This is the third time in a row. We were late on the first one. The second
one came on time, and we're doing this one early for some reason. So that's why they've been three times
in a row. So clear it out. And there goes the file cabinet. There it goes. Another file cabinet out
the door. They're multiplying. Yeah, someplace. Ready for it? Yep. I move that we approve the resolution
All right it's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All
right resolution 2026-11 is approved. Next is item 11 request for approval of the memorandum of understanding
between the City of Bloomington utilities and our City Department of Public Works for utility infrastructure repairs.
Yeah, so this MOU that we're bringing is essentially a renewal of an MOU that we did last year where
we provide funding for four full-time DPW positions that provide repairs as needed upon completion of
CBU utility maintenance repairs and replacing infrastructure. So, for example, water main breaks, water
main replacements, et cetera.
They would provide the, you know, the paving curb work associated with it. And this is has shown to
be a mutually beneficial agreement. You know, they were so streets DPW is now using city works to track
their hours. They started using it at some point last year, so they didn't get a full year of tracking
in last year. But what they did track showed that, yes, these four positions use the majority of their
time to do follow up repairs on infrastructure following our utility repairs. So happy to answer any
questions. Yeah. Yeah. Why wouldn't we just hire them as our
I mean, if we're paying all the benefits, we're paying all this, why are they not positions just within
CBU? So they do. So these positions don't really do a lot of utility work. So they're not, you know,
actually repairing the mains, repairing the and we used to have just a I think we still do kind of have like a
Sorry, construction crew. But it works out better to have them follow behind us to do this paving, to
get it up to standard. And so, yeah. I'm assuming the equipment. I mean, the equipment. Yeah, they have
the equipment. They have all the equipment to do this. They have to deal with replacing that equipment,
maintaining that equipment. And we don't have to deal with any of that, which is great.
And we are funding these positions fully or are we doing a portion. This is full for full time positions
fully. Yes. Once I think it would be nice once we once they are using the data and we have it for a
year. I do think that if we come back to this MOU I will be asking the question of this is great and
let's show the data of
how much they are doing for us and how much they're doing. And I think we should look at a percentage
funding of those positions. Because correct me if I'm wrong, they're not 100% doing all work for CBU?
No, that's not right. They're helping us with the CBU project. So again, I think it would be beneficial
when we get to December of this year,
that we do request that data and then negotiate with them in terms of how much we are willing. I mean,
I think it's great. I think that we have this partnership and that we have funded it, but it may mean
in the future, perhaps we share in that expense. Of course, yes. I will say, and again, these are just
estimates because we didn't get the full year of data, that it did look like these
These positions were using upwards of probably 80% would be a good estimate of their time, which,
you know, if you consider the equipment cost and the maintenance costs that we're saving, I think that
still shook out to a pretty good deal. Sure. And again, this is, these are our rate payers and at, let's
just say 290,000. I could get my calculator to work times point
20%, that's 58,000 that could be coming, the 20% would be 58,000 that could be supported by Public Works.
Does that make sense? Well, a little bit Amanda, except that, well I guess two questions. The first
thing I think as I understood it is we have to figure in the amount of the
the equipment used. So this includes... I could get on board with that. I could get on board with that.
You could pull that out of the 290 or whatever it is. I could get on board with that. And then I have
to ask the question if when they put the estimate together, did they estimate 80% or 100%? FTE. Yeah,
FTE for the crews.
I don't know. I believe this is 100%, yes. Well, then your point about this next year, once they figure
out they're hourly, we'd be more comfortable probably looking at it at 80% plus, you know, the usual
costs of equipment and pavers and we're paying for supplies for this. We're paying for asphalt,
the gravel, the concrete, the three, you know, all of that. The other part I like about this is
When we do a cut like this, it's gotta hit city standards, right? DPW standards. And if we were doing
it ourselves, there might be a little hesitation about, someone might ask the question, well, that's
not quite the city standard. But if they're doing it, we don't have to worry about that. I'm curious
how we were doing it before.
this? Were we just doing it in-house with our own workers? Yeah. Correct. Sorry. James Hall. Thanks.
James Hall, assistant director of TND. Yeah, we had a crew that would, as they were doing water main
replacement, they would kind of fall off and try to track back and do it. We've seen, again, part of
what you're talking about is
I used to answer a lot of calls about when is this going to be replaced? When is this now street department
handles all that? I'm like, you know, that's, they're going to fix that. You call down there, um, whatever.
Um, and so that's been a benefit for us as well. Um, and then as we move forward in our rate case and
hopefully into the future, those resources don't have to stop and go back and do that. We just continue
on doing water main replacement. So that's kind of.
without having to add crews. All right, any other questions on this MOU with city government? I move
that we approve the MOU between the city of Wilmington Utilities and the city of Wilmington. Second.
Been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion carries.
that MOU approved. Next item is any old business from the board. Item 12, I'm sorry. This is request
for approval of the MOU between CBU and the retreat at Switchyard. I've got my mind. We talked about
this in committee, but we'll hear about that.
Yes. Well, that was my question. Do we wait until subcommittee reports, or do we do this here? I guess
I don't know. Well, it's on our agenda for now, so we probably ought to. We could go either way, I guess.
I don't want to be in the way. As part of our discussion, we get the committee report. How's that sound?
All right. OK. Well, let's see. Matt, are you going to give a slowdown first? So the Retriever Switchyard
is a development here
corner of Miller in Walnut. It was an affordable housing project that's been going on for several years
now. And as part of this project, they hooked up to the sewer. And as developments do this, we charge
them proportionally to the size of the sewer that they're going to use, what infrastructure that they're
going to drive us to buy. And as part of this development, it was
get the numbers that grow to say it's a little over $50,000 for them to connect to the sewer. Um, and
I think there was some little confusion on both sides is that they thought that since they were building
affordable housing, that they, this fee could be waived. Um, but then we took them through the city
statute and pointed out to them that we can only waive fees for a single family residences for, for
their connection fee. Um, and so.
They explained to us they were having a lot of challenges with this development and financially and
operationally. And so. We again we communicated that we could not waive the fee and so we had a meeting
and talked with them and came to an agreement that CBU would agree to give them a payment plan for five
years with no interest to pay this connection fee off. That's what this MOU is is documenting that agreement.
Thanks man.
And yes, we did talk about this one in the finance committee meeting prior to this meeting. So this
might be a good time, Jim, if you could give the report on the vote that the subcommittee took sending
it forward. Yeah, the subcommittee approved the MOU
with the addition of an amendment that if the property were sold during the five-year period during
which the hookup fee would be paid, the new owner of the property would be required to pay whatever
debt to CBU was owed in full at the time of closure of the sale.
Well, what we may need to do is table this so that it can go back to legal and they can write that language
in and then we could act on it in two weeks. And it wouldn't have to be the new owner just at closing.
it would be paid in full if there's a change of ownership. Because that could happen. So the only other
comment I'd have on this is that I think it's good public policy for us to be flexible with a project
like this that's been worked on by city government downtown giving them this
assistance more or less in the time it would allow them, because it's an affordable housing project,
it kind of shows our support for helping those projects as they come along to us, because we all know
that's a community priority now. So I think that's a good thing for us to do. But we need a verb.
All right, and I can't remember a
Tabling is open for discussion. I have to look. Anybody remember? It is not? All right. I'll take your
word for it. All right. All in favor of tabling? Second? Thank you. All in favor of tabling, say aye.
Opposed? OK. We have tabled.
Item 12, that MOU with our comments in the minutes. OK. Now I think we're ready for old business. Is
there any old business by the board? Any new business from the board? Oh, old business from staff.
Thank you. New business from the board.
go for it first? You can go first. It's the same thing. Okay. Well, thank you for sending us out the
press release a few weeks ago about the bulk water station facility being down. I was surprised to read
that it was not like a mechanical failure. It's like a payment system failure. And so even more surprised
to see that we couldn't get that back up and running until 2027, which is like seven months from now. So
Can you explain that to us why that that that's going to take so long and and kind of what's like their
daily usage of that boat water station and then like explain? OK, what's the work around for right now
for people who do utilize that service? How are they able to access both water? Sure, yeah, so the issue
is it is the credit card reader. It needs to be replaced and updated. We need to do service contract
in place with our current
um, they would not allow us to not have the credit card fees charged us that they had to flow through
us and get paid, paid out another way. Um, so I talked to legal, but they said that we need to find
another way to do it. Um, and so we looked for another way to do it and the new provider, uh, estimated
it would be $18,000 to replace it at the moment. Um, and we felt that given our situation with the water
money and, and we're going into the
getting a rate case we wanted to wait until we got that kind of money. And as far as usage, it doesn't
get a whole lot of usage. I think last year's revenue was $3,000. But people do use it. $3,000 is a
lot of water, right? And currently our workaround is to go back to hydrometers. So if people need bulk
water, they can come and run a hydrometer and get hooked up to the hydrant and get their water that
way. Thank you.
Is that information like on our website? So if someone who maybe missed it and shows up down there,
is there like signage that says come here or what? There's signage down there that says it's out of
order and in the press release it did mention that the hydrometer. So down there where it says out of
order it says like come here. I'm not sure about that but. Or call this number. Okay. Okay, thank you.
Yeah, I was just curious. I had a note that there was a rate hearing on April 30th. Was I incorrect
in that originally? Or was it May 30th, maybe? My hearing? Yes. Is it currently scheduled for this Friday?
This Friday. Thanks. Thanks, Graham. Megan, any other items under new business?
Anything else on, yeah, subcommittee reports. Jim, I know the Finance Committee had another item on
the agenda. You can give us a report on it. There were two items on the agenda. One of them has just
been discussed with the MOU with Restore. The other item on the agenda was a presentation by Matt, a
financial summary of 2025. It included
our expenses, the projects that we had, and the assets that were still available for CBU. The committee
found the presentation to be extremely useful and helpful. It ought to help us when we go through the
budget hearings next year.
told us that they were planning to make such presentations quarterly now so that every three months
we would get a summary of our expenses and our revenues and our projects. And we all thought that was
a really good thing. I just want to add that I was really surprised at how close
actual budget was to the expected budget. And I said that our own household budget never gets that close.
So kudos to the administration for what they do. So again, we thought this was a great idea and we're
happy that it will be continued. Thank you, Jim. Any questions for Jim on the subcommittee?
to staff reports. Yeah, I'd like to congratulate Madison Abel for earning her Class 1 wastewater license.
Great. Yeah, fantastic. Alright, next item 17 is petitions and communications. Items from the public.
Anybody here to address any other issues?
Seeing none, we will stand adjourned.