call the utility service board meeting of January or July 13th to order. Mission our mission yes the
CBU mission for city Bloomington utilities is to enhance the quality of life in our community by providing
safe sustainable and high quality drinking water wastewater and stormwater services and
in a cost-effective manner promoting public health, economic vitality, and environmental stewardship.
And our vision for our utility is for it to be the leading municipal water utility organization in Indiana.
We'll start out with any petitions or communications from the public with us today. I see none, so we'll
move on to the approval of minutes of our
meeting of June 29th. Everyone had a chance to take a look at the minutes. All right it's been moved
and second to approve the minutes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right the minutes are approved.
Next is the approval of claims and we have
Long list of standard invoices. Any questions or discussion for the standard invoices for today?
All right, ready for a motion then. I move that we approve the standard invoices. Second.
all right it's been moved and seconded to approve the standard invoices totaling six hundred and seven
thousand five hundred fifty two dollars and three cents all in favor say aye opposed all right motion
carries next then is utility bills in the amount of one hundred ninety four thousand three hundred twenty
six dollars and eighty eight cents any discussion or questions on the utility
it's been moved and seconded to approve utility bills all in favor say aye opposed all right utility
bills are approved next is wire transfers in the amount of six hundred sixty two thousand three hundred
twelve dollars and eleven cents any questions or discussion there the wire transfers
Moved and seconded to approve wire transfers. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, the wire
transfers are approved. Next is customer refunds for a pay date of July 17th. The total on that is $4,535.68.
customer refunds. Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve customer refunds. All in favor say
aye. Aye. Opposed? All right customer refunds are approved. Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda
with four items it looks like totaling twenty two thousand eight hundred eighty one dollars. Good evening,
James Halls is the director of team
to present the consent agenda to you this evening totaling $22,881. The first item is Siemens industry
at $17,459 for a variable frequency drive maintenance at Dillman wastewater plant. The second item is
for course and fire and security for $4,922.
That's upgrading the intercom system and adding one and a three year subscription for two devices. And
then the third is for Young's trucking for $500 for lead paint disposal at Dillman wastewater plant.
Would any board member like to pull any of these items from the consent agenda and discuss them individually?
Hearing none, if there are no objections, then the consent agenda will be approved as presented.
Hearing none, the consent agenda is approved as presented. Very good, thanks James. Our next item then
is to request approval of the memorandum of understanding between city Bloomington utilities and milestone
contractors and Chris Wheeler is here to make the presentation.
Department has learned that in advance of such construction we should do well to run video down through
our lines to see the condition of our lines so that if any of our lines get damaged we can point to
those videos and say that our infrastructure is in good shape. If you look at the MOU you can see the
gist of what we're looking at here is the fact that Milestone did the work. We've had a good relationship
with Milestone over the years.
but we thought it was more probable than not that Milestone caused damage to our infrastructure because
we did video everything after the fact and found that there are a couple of points along the line that
have damage that appear to be consistent with heavy construction. Our understanding is there hasn't
been any heavy construction on that road for quite a while. We haven't videoed our infrastructure for
quite a while, and it's old.
So it's difficult for us to be able to prove positive and point our finger at Milestone. They can't
completely say they didn't do it. Litigation would likely be costly and time consuming. And so we've
reached this MOU, which we have subsequently changed the title to a settlement agreement. The settlement
allows us to go in and do the work. Milestone will compensate us for half of what we anticipate the
cost of the work to be.
which seems like a pretty reasonable solution here. Milestone was also going to provide materials, picking
those materials up from one of their sites to bring over to First Street when we're working. The only
issue that remains on the settlement agreement, I haven't been able to get a confirmation from the attorney
that I've been working with, but Milestone seems to be okay with it in principle, is this idea that
we're supposed to give 15 days advance notice of the work that we'd like to commence.
Well, we're going to start tomorrow. So I'm still trying to communicate with the attorney. I haven't
heard from her specifically, but we have heard from Milestone that they don't care, because we're going
to be the ones picking up the material. The whole idea was give them 15 days so that they know that
they can make their delivery, but they're not actually doing the delivery. So I don't think it's an
issue. I am asking the board to approve the settlement agreement.
If the 15-day thing becomes an issue, we'll have to work that out, but we're asking for approval of
the settlement as it is written, which includes the 15-day notification at the time. I'm happy to answer
questions. Yeah, Chris, I'm just curious what the original project was with Milestone and CBU. Well,
there wasn't an original project with Milestone. Oh, I understand. Milestone was working with the city,
with the engineering department,
to reworking of the road itself. So they took the cap off of the road, all the asphalt, whatever materials,
did reworking of the road, relayed asphalt and whatever else goes on. But our suspicion was that once
they removed that protective layer of the road and then drove heavy equipment around it, likely they
damaged our infrastructure.
The agreement was with city engineering, not our engineering. Okay, I got it. Thank you. It's still
a good lesson learned. When a city's doing work and we know they're going to be working over some of
our infrastructure, we ought to be looking at it in advance so that when something happens, we're able
to show a timeline that shows clean and healthy and then damaged. How did the damage show itself?
that we ran through the line after the fact and found areas that are dimpled where we can't get the
camera through, which suggests that sewage isn't gonna flow properly either. So did we know it because
sewer wasn't flowing and that's why we did the videos? We just did it as a matter of... I think we just
did it as a matter of to check it at the end to see what make sure that it was okay.
There was no leak, there was no... No, there's no flow on there right now. You know, I understand. So
it would be difficult to prove in court, is what I'm saying. If there was a clear, they're there, they're
doing construction, and all of a sudden there's a main break, that would be easy.
Yeah, I got it. I got it. So then thinking about all these construction projects that we have going
on around town, what constitutes like we're going to go check our line because we know this isn't to
anticipate this is going to be having work nearby or what out of what? Yes. Yeah, I think like what
Chris was saying, when they start removing, well, depends on where they're removing that
cap layer of asphalt and other surfacing material. Like on Second Street, they're doing a lot of that
work, but they're over on the edge. They're not over top of our sewer, but that's something we should
consider even because there's a lot of trucks moving in and out of there, right? So I think that's kind
of the threshold that we're at is what kind of work is going to take place? How much of that top layer
of pavement and surfacing material will be removed? And then when's the last video?
Right, if we have a video that's two years old, okay, maybe we don't have to go out there. But if it's
10 years old, then we should probably. How do we get notified of the projects? I guess I don't think
about like projects that affect our lines that we're not doing. So we have a lot of internal meetings
with the other departments with engineering and DPW. Is that monthly?
monthly meetings and we kind of talk about projects that are coming up in areas that we're going to
be at. If that's time you'll know oh we got to go check this site. They have timelines usually like
look we're looking to start construction in this date or this time and so have we done any of these
checks since? Had a project yet that just came up yeah that met that kind of level again that second
street was close because they are removing you know partial
parts of the road, but it wasn't over top of our sewer, so. I understand this, and I know you said that
we'll be doing the work, but it will be our crews and not a contractor. Correct, yeah, we'll be doing
it. And then the street department will be milling and repaving the road. So it looks like there's some
substantial additional
that we're gonna be doing here besides this reimbursement? Most of it is in there. $40,000, yeah. The
milling and repaving that kind of came after we came up with this number from downtown asking us since
the road is fairly new, that's kind of the standard is that if you are going to cut into a road that's
less than three years old,
you'll mill the whole thing and and repave it. So that was kind of factored in afterwards. Those quantities,
though, of of surfacing material is included in there that we ask that we're asking milestone to provide.
So we're just providing the labor for that. Good. Any other questions for our attorney or staff?
discussion? All right. I move that we approve the memorandum of or the settlement agreement between
the CBU. I move and second to approve the MOU between CBU and Milestone. All in favor say aye. Aye.
Opposed? All right. Motion carries. Okay.
Is there any old business from the board? Old business from staff? Yeah, I'll go ahead and bring this
up. We had talked about the rate case and sorry, James Hall, Assistant Director of TND. We just wanted
to officially announce that August 1st, August 1st, the rate will be implemented for the customers at
their new rates, depending on what kind of customer class they are.
looking forward to all the projects that we're able to do with that rate increase and the support of
our community to see the betterment of our utility. I know that we've had some public announcement and
that sort of thing about what we'll be using some of the new funds for. Are we inserting anything into
the monthly bills
talk about why this is important what kind of projects will be taken on not everybody reads the city
news releases unfortunately but I don't know if we've had planned on doing that but that's something
we can do we can look at kind of overall like how much money we think we're gonna spend at the water
plant how much money we project to spend on water main replacement those are kind of big numbers from
the CIP that we could easily
and put in a, you know, in the memo of the bill and fit in there. Yeah. Or a separate printed insert
like we do. I know it's kind of short notice, but we're, I don't know, you guys might be thinking about
that already, but when people see a jump in their bill, they want to know why. And like I say, they
may not be following social media or the news releases or whatever, but they will see their monthly bill
And I feel confident that the kinds of things we're going to be doing with the rate increase are things
that they're interested in. We're going to maintain a safe water supply. We're going to make improvements
to the plan. We're going to make improvements to our transmission distribution system. If we can get
into some of those specifics, we're not getting into the technical details, but, you know, five or six points
That helps soften the blow a bit. Transparency like that just builds trust for a public entity. Yeah,
I think we can definitely put a letter together, like an insert letter with some of the capital improvement
projects at the plant and within the distribution and transmission system. It can be as simple as one
of those little one-third, eight-and-a-half by elevens that fits into the envelope. You don't want a
whole fold over with
All of that, that's more than they'll read probably. But you can put that detail on the website. Even
it's just as simple as saying go to the website to see how your dollars are going to be at work and
put it out there. You can do that too. There are a lot of folks who, I was dealing with a group the
other day and half of them didn't have email addresses. Some of our older customers.
Which is okay. They just communicate differently, but yeah. Our job is to communicate is reach the customer
where we can. Thanks for the update, James. Any other old business? Okay, new business from the board.
This might be the time for it. Yeah, we've got a change in our board.
Yes. So David Hiddle, who had been the city of Bloomington planning and transportation director, has
taken a new position in North Carolina and we didn't get a chance to wish him well. At his last meeting
with us two weeks ago, he served with us on our utility service board for the last two plus years and
been a valuable contributor with his expertise. And so we all certainly wish him well in his new endeavors
and we'll miss having him with us. Thank you.
I appreciate that. I'm glad we're able to get that in the record. Thanking David for his service to
the board and to the city. Thank you. Any new business from staff? Oh, wait. Sorry. I had one more question.
Okay. I'm sure I'm not going to pronounce it right. This like cyclosporosis. Is that something that
is measured in our wastewater when we're doing other labs? Okay.
likely a large produce supplier, given the number of widespread cases, but we do not currently track
it in our wastewater. It is a reportable illness in Indiana, but it is optional reporting at the federal
level. Okay, thank you. Should have just looked your way. Appreciate that, Graham. Good question, because
a lot of folks are interested right now. I'm glad we still monitor our wastewater for all kinds of
different infections, and that's been a great help to the general public health of the community with
the practitioners and hospitals and others that are able to keep an eye on what to expect to see. Okay,
let's see. Did I guess for new business from staff? You good? All right. Subcommittee reports. Yes,
the Finance Committee met.
Finance Committee met just before this meeting, and there were two items on the agenda. The first was
an initial presentation of the 2027 budget, which will, I believe, go before City Council sometime in
August. Before then, we'll have other meetings to update the proposal. This was just an initial one.
I'll just give a couple of highlights on the revenue side. The biggest change will be, as was just reported
a while back, the new water rates. We finally did get approval from the Indiana State Regulatory Commission,
and everyone will see a slight increase in their monthly water bill.
On the expense side, there are several new expenses that will be taken into account. The first has to
do with increases in the cost of gas and power and fuel, and I just can't help making my own
comment again about that, that I think we all know that the increase in fuel costs of the gas pump are
due to the never-ending war with Iran. Despite the increases, I just looked before the meeting today
at the profits of oil companies for the second quarter of 2026.
And the record-breaking and blockbuster are the adjectives to describe it. So if you have any complaints
about fuel costs, take it up with your politicians and with your oil companies. The other increase is
due to a lot of the water main replacements that need to be done.
I think you're all aware that water mains don't last forever. And if you leave them unattended,
it ain't good. So we'll be doing a lot of those in 2027. So there'll be an increase in either hirings
or overtime pay. The second item on the agenda was the quarter one and quarter two results for 2026.
I think it was good news in the sense that the revenues were slightly increased by about 1% for each
quarter. The expenses were under what we assumed they would be by 25% in quarter one and 16% in quarter
two, but it's likely that those expenses will catch up
in the second and third quarter and the third and fourth quarters. And I think that's about all I have
to say. Thanks, Jim, for the overview of the Finance Committee. We'll look forward to further discussion
on the 2027 budget as more things are finalized. Okay, staff reports.
the first we hired a new heavy equipment operator and in TND his name is Ted Prince it comes to us with
lots of years of experience and we're excited to have him join our team and then the other thing that
I have other two things congratulations and also sorrow for our TND department Paul Chastain is retiring
after 50 plus years with the utility he was a
Engineering field tech he started our CCTV program the trucks monitoring the sewer and stormwater So
that would be a big loss for us. He's been in that position for since I think he said 85 I believe somewhere
near 83 85 and then
The other person, he will retire on the 24th. So before our next board meeting is Kevin Housel. He's
one of my direct reports, one of my assistant superintendents. He's been here for over 40 plus years.
Been a assistant superintendent for close to 20 years. So being on call every six weeks for 20 years.
I really appreciate everything he's done for us and for the utility and the community. So we had a little
party for them last Friday.
I just want to thank both of those gentlemen. They didn't want to come here, but. But that's that's
all we have for the staff report. I see your do have a advertisement for a new AD, right? Assistant
Superintendent. Yeah. Yeah. For Kevin's position. Correct. Right. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Any petitions or
Communications from the public. I don't see any. All right, then we can stand adjourned.