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Board of Water Commissioners, Committee Meetings 5/7/2025
Unknown Speaker
00:00Commission. All right, we have a quorum today.
Speaker 1
00:03Thank you. We'll move on now. The first item is the approval of the agenda. Is there a motion?
Unknown Speaker
00:09So moved madam chair that's presented. Second
Unknown Speaker
00:11moved
Speaker 1
00:12and seconded All in favor. Signify by saying, aye, Aye. Any opposed, that motion is approved, and we'll move on to the minutes the meeting, minutes of April, 2, 2025 is there a motion?
Unknown Speaker
00:27Yes, I would move
Unknown Speaker
00:30minutes as presented.
Unknown Speaker
00:32I'd second Madam Chair.
Speaker 1
00:35Thank you. It's been moved and properly supported. All in favor. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. That motion is approved, and we'll now move into public participation, and we I see Mr. Peckinpah here, so if we can have the announcement,
Speaker 2
00:57yes, good afternoon, Madam Chair, Brian Peckinpah, Public Affairs Director for Detroit water and sewage department, I will give the announcement for instructions for public comment during the virtual committee meetings today. I will give this announcement once during this committee meeting and during the other committee meetings. We'll give it if new attendees join after those committees start to make a comment, please raise your hand by using the raise hand icon on your desktop or mobile device, using the zoom app. If you are calling into the meeting by phone, press star nine to raise your hand during public comment. After your name is called, you will be given permission to unmute in order to begin speaking, you will have to unmute yourself to do so, press the unmute button, which is the microphone icon, if you're online or on the Zoom app, or press star six if you're calling in, you will have a limit of three minutes to make a comment. There will be a timer indicating the remaining time if you're online and make a comment, we kindly request you fill out the comment card link that's located in the chat which just got posted. By filling out this card, we will have your contact information to follow up appropriately. If you are unable to click the link, please let us know you will only be called upon once. Once the chair closes public comment, there will be no other comments from the public, and all attendees will remain muted for the duration of the committee meeting. Thank you for your attention, Madam Chair and audience, and at this time, there are no hands raised.
Speaker 1
02:40Thank you, Mr. Peckinpah, so at this point in time, I'll just call again to see if there's any other any any public comment to be made.
Unknown Speaker
02:52Anyone, anyone at all.
Unknown Speaker
02:56Madam Chair, there are no hands raised. Thank
Speaker 1
02:58you. Seeing no hands raised, we will now close public comment and we'll move on with the rest of the agenda. And the next item is communications. We have some communications to consider. Is there a motion to approve item 2025, 93
Speaker 3
03:18I move we will receive and file the communications in the agenda. Support
Unknown Speaker
03:24moved
Unknown Speaker
03:26and supported
Speaker 1
03:28all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying, aye, Aye. Any opposed, that motion is approved. And we'll now move into unfinished business item seven, there is none. So we'll move on to Item eight. New business with several items to consider. The first is 2025, 94 Is there a motion?
Speaker 4
03:52Mr. Coleman, Madam Chair, I'd like to make a recommendation to the Board of Water commissioners for the city of Detroit water and sewer department authorized directors to approve dw, SD, Contract Number 6007113, with EJ USA incorporated for manhole covers and catch basins for a total contract amount not to exceed 465,008 $889.35 cent with a term of two years. The Board of Water commissioners also authorizes directors to take such other action as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote.
Speaker 1
04:33Support. Thank you. It's been moved and supported. I see Miss Welch has joined us. You can provide a little context on this action.
Speaker 5
04:45Thank you. Good afternoon. Board of Water commissioners, all four contracts, including this one, are all warehouse replenish contracts. So they're asked needed to replenish inventory upon the request of our field crews. The contract that was just presented was advertised for 22 days. We received two bids, and EJ USA was the lowest responsive bidder. Manhole covers provide safety to both pedestrians and vehicles, because they cover the manholes that's in the road where people are crossing by or walking by, and catch basins, as you all are aware, utilizes a great to collect water debris, water and debris from the street. And so both contracts, or both projects, were advertised for videos, and EJ USA was the lowest responsible bidder, so we're recommending to the Finance Committee for approval.
Speaker 1
05:35Thank you. Are there questions? Comments? Hearing? None all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying, aye, Aye.
Unknown Speaker
05:47Any opposed,
Speaker 1
05:49that motion is approved, and we'll move on to the next item. 2025, dash, 95
Speaker 3
05:58Yes, Madam Chair, I would move that the committee recommend to the Board of Commissioners adoption of DWSD contract 6007125, with Ellsworth industries Inc, for an as needed, purchase of backfill sand For a total contract amount not to exceed $519,600 and and a term of two years, and authorized the director to act appropriately.
Unknown Speaker
06:30Thank you, sir. Support for the motion.
Unknown Speaker
06:35And Commissioner, you Coleman, you are muted.
Unknown Speaker
06:39Support. My apologies.
Speaker 1
06:42Thank you. It's been moved and properly supported any other let's see we're going to have Miss Welch, providing some context here, yeah,
Speaker 5
06:50again, this is a contract for backfield sand. It's used by our field crews when they're out performing repairs. It kind of gives support to the assets, so they kind of put gravel, dirt, sand and different things like that when they got to back fill an open hole when they're doing repairs. Again, it's a warehouse replenishment item. We did advertise it for bids. It was out for 21 days. We received two responses, and a worse was the lowest responsive bidder. So recommend them to the Finance Committee for approval.
Unknown Speaker
07:19Thank you. Are there questions or comments?
Speaker 1
07:23No hearing, none. All in favor. Signify by saying, aye, Aye. Any opposed, that motion is approved, and we'll now move on to item C, 2025, 96
Unknown Speaker
07:37Mr. Coleman, I'd like to recommend
Speaker 4
07:39to the Board of Water commissioners for the city of Detroit water and sewer department authorized directors to approve DWSD contract number 600712, with Ferguson water works for coupling transitions for total contract amount not to exceed $566,500 for a term of one year. Board of Water commissioners also authorized directors to take such other action as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote. Support
Unknown Speaker
08:14been moved and supported. Ms Welch,
Speaker 5
08:18yes. Transitioning couplings are also warehouse inventory items. They're used by our field crews. They're just a simple and economic way of joining different sized piping without removing the whole pipe or disassembling like the gage at the end of the pipe. This was advertised for 21 days. We did receive five bid responses in Ferguson. Word of works was the lowest responsible bidder recommending for finance to approve moves of full board.
Speaker 1
08:50Thank you. Any other questions? Comments, hearing, none all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying aye, aye. Aye. Any opposed that motion has been approved. Item D is 2025, dash 97 is there a motion?
Speaker 3
09:09Yes, Madam Chair, I move that we recommend to the water commissioners the adoption of contract, DWSD, contract 0667166, with Aetna Supply Company and DWSD contract 6007167, with progressive plumbing supply to provide copper piping for a combined total not to exceed amount of $1,105,581.40
Speaker 3
09:42for a term of two years and authorized the director to take necessary actions to accomplish the intent of this vote board. Thank
Speaker 1
09:53you. It's been moved and supported, and so we'll ask Ms Welch to provide context here,
Speaker 5
10:02proper piping is a critical inventory item. That's why the recommendation that you see before you is to award to the two lowest bidders. We did advertise for bids. We received four bids back. It was out for 21 days, Aetna and progressive plumbing, where there are two of the four lowest This is a commodity that's very versatile as far as pricing goes. And so we wanted to make sure that we don't have any impact to operations when there's a need in the warehouse. And so procurement is presenting today to the Finance Committee to move to full board.
Speaker 1
10:35Thank you. Questions or comments, Madam Chair, yeah. So go
Speaker 4
10:39ahead. I see this as copper term for two years. Does this mean we will be inventorying this product, or we just lock it in a in a price we
Speaker 5
10:50inventory so that in this contract is for 556,000 and some change and progressives will be for 549, so we inventory those products and as needed, so we have a mid Max quantity based on the operational need, and when it hits the minimum quantity, then we are able to order from these two vendors. You
Speaker 4
11:10know, I'm just curious, this is pretty valuable stuff. I'm assuming it's under lock and key somewhere.
Speaker 5
11:16It is. It's stored at our CSF Huber facility in the warehouse. They have to wreck it out. So it's not just open for the field crews to come. They have to fill out a stock checkout request, and then this presented to them from the window from the warehouse team.
Unknown Speaker
11:29Okay, thank you. Appreciate. You're welcome.
Speaker 1
11:32Great question, and I'm assuming that's copper piping as opposed to piping, so I know you'll make that change. Yes. Okay, all in favor of the motion? Signify by saying, aye, Aye. Any opposed that motion is approved. Thank you so much. Miss Welch, and we'll move into item E, 2025, dash 99 which is the financial review for February. And I see Mr. Romanus join us.
Speaker 6
12:02Yeah. Good afternoon. Commissioners, good afternoon. Madam Chair, best to coraman here, CFO, DWSD, today I will be presenting the financial highlights for the month of April 2025,
Unknown Speaker
12:19go to the first slide here.
Speaker 6
12:27Okay, we'll start with dw, SDS, cash and investment position for the month. We are we continue to maintain cash reserves to support our operating units as well as our capital programs on a system wide basis. For the month of February, we had 288 $89 million in deposits, 129 of that in the water fund, and 100 and almost 100 and $60 million in the sewer fund. When we say system wide basis. It involves all our cash accounts which should be operating, as well as our in E, which is the improvement and extension fund, as well as the construction fund, and funds held by GL interest accounts. This $289 million represents an increase, I'm sorry, a decrease of $1.6 million when we compared to the January balance water operating cash, we had $11.7 million at the end of February, which is a slight decrease of $613,000 But nevertheless, the balance represents our three months working capital that we keep on an ongoing basis. And that is about $4 million in a month, roughly about $12 million for the water, sewer operating cash. We had $25.9 million this is an increase of $3.2 million from the previous month, the increases because of the timing for our transfer of payroll. Again, we are meeting our operating needs. We this the three month operating balance that we keep, approximately $5 million and this is far exceeds that when it comes to year end, we will look at it as a whole, and then make the necessary transfer. If we are holding the operating needs for three months in each of these operating accounts, the excess money is transferred to ine to meet our ine Pay As You Go capital needs.
Unknown Speaker
14:44Next slide please.
Speaker 6
14:47This is our improvement and extension fund as you see. The graph here on the left is for the water fund. It's decreased slightly from January, and the decreases mainly due to disbursements we make for our capital projects, mainly for lead service line disbursements. The balance in this account, both the water as well as sewer in E kind of fluctuates from month to month, depending on when the expenditures are made and when we get reimbursed from the SRF funding source or from grant money. So the variances of 1.7 for the water and two point sewer is pretty normal, and then those balances would restore themselves depending on the timing of reimbursements. So the next slide is for construction cash. You see decreases in both the water as well as the sewer. Construction cash, again, this is money coming out of our bond fund, and then decreases, mainly due to disbursements for capital projects, especially in the water fund, we're dispersing funds for lead service line replacement.
Unknown Speaker
16:09Next slide tomorrow
Speaker 6
16:13is the cash in hell held in trust. This reflects steady balances for both the water and the sewer fund. In the water, cash and glwa, we had $30.8 million at the end of February, a decrease of 570,000 over January. Balance retail receipts for Gen for February was $9.6 million it fell short of the target collection by 570,000 a month. Our target collection for for any month during the fiscal year is $10.2 million for the sewer trust account balance of $42.6 million at the end of February,
Unknown Speaker
16:55a decrease of $970,000
Unknown Speaker
16:57over January.
Speaker 6
17:00Again, this we had a cash receipt of $24.1 million for February, which fell short of the target collection by 970 1000. Our target collection for the sewer fund is $25.1 million again, nothing significant. This is normal fluctuations from month to month, and I sincerely hope that everything will work out in a surplus situation by the time we reach the year end. Switching gear from cash investments to accounts receivable, our January sales of $40.2 million increased by 2.2 and a half million dollars compared to January sales 6.6% increase. Receivables of 312 for all active accounts, increased by $9.4 million which represent 3.1%
Unknown Speaker
17:58over January balance,
Speaker 6
18:01most of it, 65% of this increase in receivable can be attributed to increase in residential receivables. Our cash collection for the month of February was decreased by $2.8 million when we compared to January's so January, we collected $35.6 million in February, we had $32.8 million so January actually meant that target collection, when it reaches 35 point 6 million slightly short in February,
Unknown Speaker
18:34decrease again, mainly due to residential collection,
Speaker 6
18:39about $1.6 million less in residential collection, also governmental collection was short by a million dollars. Active residential accounts receivable continue to increase. As I mentioned, 65% of the increase in receivable is due to residential and in terms of dollars, it's $6.2 million which represents about 2.9% over our January balance. Although receivables are increasing, our days in receivable has decreased in February compared to January. We continue to make allowance for doubtful collection. Doubtful collection represents 670 6.1% of our total receivable balance, including tax roll transfers,
Unknown Speaker
19:27no change in the percentage of doubtful collections
Speaker 6
19:31compared to January. As I said, we continue to monitor this receivable balances and appropriate allowances are made
Unknown Speaker
19:40for the uncertainty of collection.
Unknown Speaker
19:45Here's the slide. Yeah, while
Speaker 1
19:47we're on that slide, refresh my memory on what, what are government collections? What are the what
Unknown Speaker
19:57government collection will be all
Speaker 6
20:01governmental agencies, including the State of Michigan, as well as Great Lakes Water Authority,
Speaker 7
20:07got it Okay. Madam Chair, question, yes, um,
Speaker 4
20:11I'm assuming a receivable is a Past Due account. Is that what you're considering a receivable versus a sales
Speaker 6
20:20receivables are all based on our sales. When we make a sale, that money becomes receivable until paid, and then, on a quarterly basis, we do an aging report that I present to you, and that aging report says, How many day, how many days those receivables are outstanding, if they're outstanding for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, or over a year. But this receivable is a collection of everything that the customer owes from the point of sales. Okay? Thank you. Thank you. The next slide here on collection rates. On the right side, you see the various percentages over the next over the last three months. And the last column is a three month rolling average. And the left side is a graphical presentation of our collections over time. Residential collection rates, as you see from the chart, for the last three months have averaged 77.5% February's collection fell short of January, as I mentioned before, February collection was slightly down, about $2.8 million on an overall basis. Residential, it stood at 73.4% compared to 86.1% in January. Commercial and Industrial continues to be good story. Our averages are in mid or high 80s or 90s, and strictly because of very aggressive collection effort by our collection team, and then full credit goes to the team for making sure we are collecting on our commercial and industrial customer classes, drainage collection rate for February was 73.5% fairly consistent with January and the three month average, again, is holding in 70. In our mid 70 range, residential and drainage only collection rates continue to be a concern. They are both in the 70s or mid 70 range. Ideally we would like that collection rate for residential as well as drainage rate to be in high 80s or low to mid 90s. So we are far off from there, and our efforts continued in that direction, to raise those rates to at least high 80s, if not low 80s. February, on an overall basis, the combined collection rate stood at 86.7% for all active customers, which would include residential as well as drainage only customers, and the combined was slightly lower when you compare it with January's collection rate of 87.2% the three month moving average rate for all active customer classes remain fairly consistent in the mid 80s. Switching gears again, moving on to matrix and revenues February, actual volume exceeded the budget as well as exceeded January volume. You'd see a higher percentage increase in February, and this is because we made an adjustment to our January sales last month, approximately 20,000 MCF adjustment was made to the January volume. Took the January volume door, and therefore you see a higher percentage increase in February. Our year to date, actual water volume was 1% under adjusted budget, seasonally adjusted budget for the revenue side, again, 8.6% increase over the budget, higher percentage compared to January because of us, same reason as I mentioned before. On a year to date basis, actual commodity revenue was 0.9% above the budget. So on a month to month basis, there could be fluctuations in terms of Budget to Actual but what I look at is the year to date numbers, and if they are fairly consistent or we are exceeding the budget, that's a good story.
Unknown Speaker
24:34On the
Speaker 6
24:36survey 
charge matrix and revenues February meter equivalents exceeded budget by 3% was also higher than January equivalence. On a year to date basis, our equivalents are exceeding budget by 3% the revenue side of the of the equivalents also exceeded budget by 3.6% was one point higher, 1.1% higher than January on a year to date basis, we are again positive 3.1% over the budget on a year to date basis. Moving on to the sewer side, again, you'll see the huge percentage difference when you compare February to January, and it's exactly the same reason of a 20,000 MCF adjustment we made in January that shows February to be extremely high. But in reality, if you take out the impact of that adjustment, February's volume is fairly consistent with what the January volume was. On a year to date basis, our volume was 3.5% under budget for the sewer side. On the revenue side, again, we exceeded the budget as well as the January volume. And the reason for the high percentage and compared to January is the same as I just mentioned, for the volume side, on a year to date basis, we are short of the budget by 2.9%
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charge matrix and revenues February meter equivalents exceeded budget by 3% was also higher than January equivalence. On a year to date basis, our equivalents are exceeding budget by 3% the revenue side of the of the equivalents also exceeded budget by 3.6% was one point higher, 1.1% higher than January on a year to date basis, we are again positive 3.1% over the budget on a year to date basis. Moving on to the sewer side, again, you'll see the huge percentage difference when you compare February to January, and it's exactly the same reason of a 20,000 MCF adjustment we made in January that shows February to be extremely high. But in reality, if you take out the impact of that adjustment, February's volume is fairly consistent with what the January volume was. On a year to date basis, our volume was 3.5% under budget for the sewer side. On the revenue side, again, we exceeded the budget as well as the January volume. And the reason for the high percentage and compared to January is the same as I just mentioned, for the volume side, on a year to date basis, we are short of the budget by 2.9% Unknown Speaker
26:05still have two
Speaker 6
26:09still about four months left in the fiscal year, and my hope is certainly catching up With the year to date adjusted budget, the meter side, side of it. Nothing unusual on a year to date basis, we are exceeding budget by 4.5% when it comes to actual meters. And then when you look at the revenue side of it, we are also exceeding the budget for by 4.1%
Unknown Speaker
26:38for the sewer meters.
Unknown Speaker
26:43And then finally,
Unknown Speaker
26:46for our drainage
Speaker 6
26:49metrics 
and revenues are billable impervious impervious acres that we call BIA exceeded the budget for the month by 0.2% but compared to January, it was 0.1% lower and also 0.2% lower revenue compared to February of last year, on a year to date basis, fairly consistent, we are 0.1% over budget. The drainage revenue side, we fell short of for the month by 3% year to date, actual drainage revenue was 4.3% under budget, and that's mainly because of various adjustments we make for green credits and residential credits. This continues to be our focus, and we will continue to focus in on our drainage revenue for the rest of the fiscal year. And again, hoping against hope, that this catches up and equates our planned budget for the year. It's a short presentation today that completes it for February. Any questions, I'll be happy to answer.
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and revenues are billable impervious impervious acres that we call BIA exceeded the budget for the month by 0.2% but compared to January, it was 0.1% lower and also 0.2% lower revenue compared to February of last year, on a year to date basis, fairly consistent, we are 0.1% over budget. The drainage revenue side, we fell short of for the month by 3% year to date, actual drainage revenue was 4.3% under budget, and that's mainly because of various adjustments we make for green credits and residential credits. This continues to be our focus, and we will continue to focus in on our drainage revenue for the rest of the fiscal year. And again, hoping against hope, that this catches up and equates our planned budget for the year. It's a short presentation today that completes it for February. Any questions, I'll be happy to answer. Speaker 1
28:01Thank you. CFO Raman, any questions the brief but comprehensive presentation, agree, hearing none, we'll move on the agenda. I know the next item is the planning calendar and this occur. I think that's the only item we had for this month.
Unknown Speaker
28:29Yeah, and no change to the planning calendar, Madam Chair,
Speaker 1
28:32thank you. Are there any other matters to come before the committee?
Unknown Speaker
28:38Hearing on our next meeting is June 4, 2025,
Unknown Speaker
28:43and I'll ask for a motion to adjourn.
Unknown Speaker
28:47So moved support. Moved
Unknown Speaker
28:49and supported, we are adjourned. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
28:52Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 8
29:02We 
have 15 minutes until the capital Improvement Program and operations committee begins. You
+1
have 15 minutes until the capital Improvement Program and operations committee begins. You Unknown Speaker
30:29black when you show that I'm connected. Hello, you.
Speaker 8
30:43Hi, Commissioner, black man, we we can hear you and see you. Okay,
Speaker 9
30:47because I somehow or other, I got disconnected, and I don't know why, but I'm glad Thank you. You're welcome. It,
Speaker 10
31:01it. Can you hear me? We can Okay, good. I had to reboot. Thanks. That's all I wanted. I
Unknown Speaker
42:46Hey, Sam, how you doing?
Unknown Speaker
42:50Afternoon, Commissioner, all is well.
Unknown Speaker
42:57So far day still, young. You
Speaker 4
43:08I saw the emails Tony whitbacks been sending you.
Speaker 11
43:15He referenced the semcog online map. We contacted semcog, who contacted m dot, and they're going to get that changed. So the item, the documents that we
Speaker 4
43:30have at any point, do we know when the contract is going to finish up the work on
Unknown Speaker
43:37here? I know it's in progress right now.
Speaker 4
43:39I mean, I don't just from my point of view as a resident, they take extremely too long. I mean, they fix that, then it takes two more weeks to just put some asphalt over them. And I don't, I don't understand what the holdup is.
Speaker 11
44:00We are trying to improve our soft and hard restoration processes.
Speaker 4
44:04I'm not, I'm just, I just wanted to point it out when you Yeah, I know, you know, especially when they come back and ask you to raise their price, you know.
Speaker 11
44:14But we can't grow any grass in the middle of winter, so there's basically five or six months out of the year where we're still making repairs, but we can't pour the concrete place the asphalt or do the grass?
Speaker 4
44:26No, that makes sense. Yeah, it's cold. Yeah, I get so
Speaker 11
44:30backlogs develop over the winter,
Speaker 4
44:37but that's a good point, and I'll, I'll let them know that too. We do
Speaker 11
44:41have a plan to make sure that we get through all of them this season, and we're putting significant pressure on the contractors to perform.
Speaker 4
44:52No No problem. I think you and your team are doing a great job. You're very responsive, and really, you know,
Unknown Speaker
44:59people appreciate that
Speaker 4
45:02I have folks that I know in town that will call me about different stuff, and I'm like, hey, that's our job, so don't, don't feel bad about that. Like I help, we will,
Speaker 12
45:12well, I appreciate Sam his prompt response to all the different issues that particularly come through through my way and and thank you for the Second Avenue response. Very welcome, you and your team. I'm
Unknown Speaker
45:29going to echo that. Thank you, Sam.
Speaker 11
45:33Very welcome. Detroit is always taking care of me, so I'm going to do my best to take care of Detroit.
Speaker 4
45:39Well, you know, I appreciate you leaving sunny San Diego. Come hang out with us in Michigan, especially in January, February, March.
Unknown Speaker
46:00So I guess it's 146
Unknown Speaker
46:11I guess I'll wait on the Secretary to
Unknown Speaker
46:18check chair President Coleman,
Unknown Speaker
46:20John, how you doing? Man, alright.
Speaker 4
46:23Time now is 147 Jose, I'd like to call the Capital Improvement Program Operations Committee to order
Unknown Speaker
46:33Roll call, please. Chairperson,
Speaker 8
46:35common president, Detroit, Michigan. Commissioner Davis,
Speaker 13
46:40present, Detroit, Michigan. Commissioner kenlod
Speaker 12
46:44President, Detroit, Michigan. All right, we have a quorum, sir. Excellent,
Speaker 4
46:48excellent. At this time, I'd like to ask for approval of the agenda as presented. Please.
Speaker 12
46:56Support. Move, I mean, move approval of the agenda.
Unknown Speaker
47:00Support. It has
Speaker 4
47:01been moved and seconded. All in favor. Signify by saying, aye, please, aye, aye. Any abstentions, any negative nos, hearing, none. The motion passes. Item number four, approval of the minutes from April 2, 2025, as presented. Motion, please,
Speaker 7
47:19Mister Chair, I move approval support. Appreciate
Speaker 4
47:24that, gentlemen, it has been a has been moved and seconded. All in favor. Please signify by saying, aye, aye, aye. Extensions.
Unknown Speaker
47:35Any negatives, hearing, none. This motion passes
Speaker 4
47:39public participation. Do we have anyone that would like to comment? Brian,
Speaker 2
47:46Mr. Chair, we do have attendees, public attendees, but I do not see any hands raised, and they did hear the announcement during their first committee meeting.
Speaker 4
47:58Okay, excellent. Going once, going twice. Next item, communications, I see we have none. Number seven, unfinished business. We have none. Number eight, new business, we do have some. Item 2025, tech, 100 security and integrity division update
Unknown Speaker
48:22the sponsors, Allen,
Unknown Speaker
48:25good afternoon commissioners and all others in attendance.
Speaker 4
48:28Good afternoon, Mister Allen, how are you good? Thank
Speaker 14
48:32you 
for having me. And welcome to the May 2025 security and integrity division. Update Next slide please. So we have two main components. One is our uniform security, and what they are primarily tasked with doing are providing security in our buildings, namely MLB and CSF, they provide security for our employees, visitors and our properties, and they are strategically placed. Through both of those facilities, they receive continued and enhanced training, to include twice annual firearms qualification. As state standards mandate they receive response to active shooter training, CPR training, and they are currently undergoing
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for having me. And welcome to the May 2025 security and integrity division. Update Next slide please. So we have two main components. One is our uniform security, and what they are primarily tasked with doing are providing security in our buildings, namely MLB and CSF, they provide security for our employees, visitors and our properties, and they are strategically placed. Through both of those facilities, they receive continued and enhanced training, to include twice annual firearms qualification. As state standards mandate they receive response to active shooter training, CPR training, and they are currently undergoing Unknown Speaker
49:38some new training
Unknown Speaker
49:41to include
Speaker 14
49:44de escalation and communication tactics, Verbal Judo, conflict resolution, managing aggressive individuals. They are all being retrained on legal aspects of use of force, understanding reasonable force and the force continuum, as well as the liability surrounding uses of force. They are also being trained on trauma care and bleeding control, and they'll be taught tourniquet application, wound packing and pressure dresses, shock management and fracture immobilization. They will be issued at the completion of their training, tourniquets in which they've been trained. On next slide, please. Our second component is the Revenue Protection Unit. They are a small group of retired detectives and investigators, primarily, they were charged with
Unknown Speaker
50:46protecting our assets.
Speaker 4
50:47They Excuse me. Excuse me, Mister Allen, did you call for a slide because we don't. I don't see anything on the screen.
Unknown Speaker
50:54Well, you have to move it up and slide it over. I had to slide over.
Speaker 14
51:00Yes, our it, folks are, are advancing the slides.
Speaker 12
51:03Yeah, so, yep, so you Yep, so it changed the Revenue Protection Unit.
Speaker 4
51:08Okay. I mean, the screen I'm looking at, I don't see any slides, so you have to screw just,
Speaker 12
51:12just move it over. You know, move it to you manually. Have to move your on. You
Speaker 15
51:23Commissioner Coleman. This is Scott McGriff, General Counsel. At the top of your screen, do you see a tab that says webinar and a tab that says Tamara Smith, screen? Got it
Speaker 4
51:34okay? Yeah. I'm just very interested in this. I wanted to make sure I saw it Okay. Thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 15
51:42Dan, you can continue. If you have your camera, could you turn your camera on? Dan, that's
Speaker 14
51:47on my laptop. I had it down here earlier. There's some malfunction here. If I open the laptop, it blows out my larger screens, which I need.
Unknown Speaker
51:59Okay, no problem. Thank you.
Speaker 14
52:02So continuing on our our revenue protection unit is a small group of public law enforcement, retired law enforcement, detectives and investigators, primarily, they were brought on board and charged with the protection of our financial aspects are our financial assets. They work closely with billing collections, meter operations and it to identify problem accounts. They include unbilled and under billed water usage, incorrect water usage and a large source of revenue is vacant homes with first pipes. So basically, what they do is comb through records and look at residential structures that are logging in extremely large quantities of water. Usually, this will indicate a burst plate. Occasionally, it's a leak with people actually living in the house. More often than not, it's a vacant structure with a burst plate.
Unknown Speaker
53:13Next slide please.
Speaker 14
53:18So what the Revenue Protection Unit basically does is they perform site investigations, they verify the loss, and they take whatever corrective action is appropriate. So in most cases, they'll recommend back billing for unbilled water usage to DW SD building. We go back six years, as per state law, we work out the numbers. Those numbers are vetted by billing so that they are proper. Usually they're very close between what we say and what what billing eventually vets out and then the customer, mainly commercial customers, that that that applies to mainly commercial people. They work with meter apps to correct the cause of unbilled usage, which in many cases, in terms of residential, is a broken meter. In a very small, small number of cases, they will initially criminal action if it can be COVID, but somebody actually tampered with our with our infrastructure. Since our inception, our mission has expanded greatly. So in addition to the revenue aspect of it, we provide support for legal serving subpoenas. We locate and interview witnesses, and we conduct investigations at their request. We investigate all vehicle accidents involving on duty, DWSD employees, threats against our employees and assets. We will conduct investigation on employees that are accused of serious misconduct or criminal activity. We respond to hostile situations in the field where a crew may encounter a hostile customer, and we de escalate that situation so that the work can continue, interrupting in a very small number of cases, we will notify local police jurisdiction for their response as well, But we do prevent a breach of the peace.
Unknown Speaker
55:44Next slide please. So
Unknown Speaker
55:48I'll let these numbers speak for themselves.
Unknown Speaker
55:52These are
Speaker 14
55:54217 to present numbers on back build, future build and water loss revenue and also for the current fiscal year.
Unknown Speaker
56:10Next slide please.
Speaker 14
56:15So 
these are some of our special projects during first quarter of 2025 we are currently repairing and replacing all non functioning security cameras and DVRs at CSF. We are working closely with with it to get that done. We are also equipping our officers with updated 800 megahertz radios. These are, these are on the state of Michigan system, and they have communication abilities across state agencies and city agencies that are so equipped with these radios, as I did, as I alluded to Before, we are training all of our officers in enhanced techniques as far as de escalation and communication, legal aspects of use of force and on trauma care. And that concludes our presentation. I'm available for any questions you.
+1
these are some of our special projects during first quarter of 2025 we are currently repairing and replacing all non functioning security cameras and DVRs at CSF. We are working closely with with it to get that done. We are also equipping our officers with updated 800 megahertz radios. These are, these are on the state of Michigan system, and they have communication abilities across state agencies and city agencies that are so equipped with these radios, as I did, as I alluded to Before, we are training all of our officers in enhanced techniques as far as de escalation and communication, legal aspects of use of force and on trauma care. And that concludes our presentation. I'm available for any questions you. Unknown Speaker
57:23Are there any questions?
Unknown Speaker
57:30Okay, thank
Speaker 4
57:31you very much. Mr. Dennis Allen, that's excellent presentation. Thank you for having me. Next item is our planning calendar
Unknown Speaker
57:43with security update, I'm assuming was that it
Speaker 11
57:48no change to the planning calendar. Commissioner. Thank you
Speaker 4
57:51very much. Are there any other matters that need to be brought before the body at this time, seeing none. Our next meeting is scheduled for June, 4, 2025,
Unknown Speaker
58:03I request, excuse me, request a
Unknown Speaker
58:07motion to adjourn, please
Unknown Speaker
58:09so movement To chair court. Thank
Unknown Speaker
58:12you. 
This meeting is adjourned. You.
+1
This meeting is adjourned. You. Unknown Speaker
58:28That was excellent timing.
Unknown Speaker
58:36That's how we do it In CIP,
Speaker 16
58:37yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 9
59:21It is now two o'clock, and I would like to call the Customer Service Committee meeting to order, Madam Secretary, would you please call the roll?
Unknown Speaker
59:30Chairperson Blackman, I'm
Unknown Speaker
59:31sorry,
Unknown Speaker
59:34please call the roll. Mr. Secretary,
Unknown Speaker
59:38present Detroit
Unknown Speaker
59:39Commissioner Garcia,
Unknown Speaker
59:46Commissioner forte present.
Speaker 8
59:51We do have a quorum, just making sure. Just want to double check to see if Commissioner Garcia is here. I
Unknown Speaker
01:00:04I see you're on the link. Don
Unknown Speaker
01:00:07Okay. All right, we have a quorum,
Speaker 9
01:00:08very good. Then we now ask for approval the agenda. Is
Unknown Speaker
01:00:18there anyone will make a motion to approve the agenda as presented.
Unknown Speaker
01:00:23I move approval.
Speaker 9
01:00:25I will support any discussion on the agenda. Hearing. None all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carried. The next item is the approval of minutes of April the second. Is there a motion?
Unknown Speaker
01:00:40Madam Chair, I move approval,
Speaker 9
01:00:43and I will support any discussion on the minutes hearing. None the All those in favor of approving the minutes of April the second 2025 please say aye. Aye. Opposed nay Motion carried. The next item is public participation. Have we received any notification that anyone wants to address this committee at this
Speaker 2
01:01:06time. Madam Chair, Brian Bucha Paul, Public Affairs Director for DWSD, yes, sir, we do not. I do see members of the public. Oh, there we go. We do have someone's hand raised, and that was Norell Hemphill,
Speaker 9
01:01:23all right. Thank you very much. Miss Hemphill, would you like to start your remarks and welcome
Speaker 17
01:01:30Good afternoon to the customer service committee of the board of water commissioners. Can everybody
Speaker 9
01:01:36hear me? Okay, yes, we hear you. Just fine. Okay,
Speaker 17
01:01:39perfect. Um, I just wanted to give a notice that we did see the communication earlier this morning, and I had a quick question regarding your your policies, how? How much in advance of the committee meetings in the Board of Water Commissioner meeting, does communication have to be sent to make the agenda?
Speaker 9
01:02:09Would you like to respond to that item? That question?
Unknown Speaker
01:02:17Staff on
Speaker 15
01:02:20general this is Scott McGriff, General Counsel. Typically, correspondence that's received will be on the next for example, I understand Miss Hemphill that you submitted correspondence this morning, that would be then for No, I'm on the next agenda, but I don't next meeting as correspondence received.
Speaker 9
01:02:40I think her question was, how? What is the deadline by which you need to submit to be on the agenda?
Unknown Speaker
01:02:45Usually, it's the week before, I believe.
Speaker 17
01:02:49Okay, so this correspondence was in the end time for the Board of Water commissioners meeting, the larger board meeting.
Unknown Speaker
01:02:56Yes, that would be correct.
Speaker 17
01:03:00Okay, any particular day is it like Monday or Friday the week before, or just like seven days, like once full week before?
Speaker 15
01:03:11I believe that we try to go with seven days before. But if it's received by the Friday of the week before, it will, it will generally get included. We try to be over inclusive rather than under inclusive. But
Speaker 17
01:03:27as a rule of thumb, one for a week. Thank you so much. I appreciate your answers and responses.
Speaker 9
01:03:31Thank you for being here. Are there any other people who wish to participate in this committee, in this
Unknown Speaker
01:03:40public comment, Yes,
Speaker 2
01:03:41Madam Chair, Miko Williams, is the next person,
Speaker 9
01:03:45right? Thank you Good morning or good afternoon. Mister Williams and welcome. Hello.
Speaker 18
01:03:49Good afternoon, Commissioner black man, how are you today? Great. Thank you. Good, good. Um, thank you for having me speak to me. Go Williams, Chief Executive Director of hydrate, Detroit, we have been helping people with assistance on their water bills, and here it is, share water time again. I want to let everyone know that our organization hydrate Detroit will be raising funds once again to help people with their water bills. I have received a number of calls from people that are seeking help. Of course, I'm giving them the information for the easy pay program. Thank you for waiving the $10 fee and allowing people to enroll. I wish more communication was given about this. I wish we could promote this a little more better, so that residents know. And I do applaud the residents that call this organization to prevent, to prevent their water from being shut off because someone gave them the information word of mouth. I thought I was listed as a partner for the water department in collaboration or in partnership to help people if they are having trouble. Um, I just want to thank the customer service wing of the water sewage department for helping those customers. I it's a lot, it's a lot to handle, but, you know, we just want to make sure that the information is out there that is visible, and that if at any given time, you know, people could call, you know, we stopped doing consultations. But consultation is definitely needed, especially for those that don't know what to do, especially when it comes to land, when it comes to housing issues, you know, probate court, you know, mom died, grandma died, you know. And the house goes to the children, and then there's a big water bill attached. Um, also, I just want to bring attention to, it's getting warm. It's May 7. Then, of course, I am going to, for the fourth month, once again, throw myself on the body of this water table to say, do not consider. Do not shut off the water. Please work it out. Please do something. There needs to be engagements with Wayne Metro, since they have not contacted people or kept up with people, and I'm getting very worried. I haven't heard how much water amnesty have we been making water amnesty would be very, very inclusive at this time, to give people a percentage off of their water bill so that they don't get shut off and they don't end up into long term debt. I know people want to fight me about this, but I believe that water amnesty is the way, and I still continue to believe that once we get this amnesty approved all across the city of Detroit to cut water bills in half and to deliver people out of zero balance, we will have done our jobs. Thank you for taking my comments.
Unknown Speaker
01:07:02I did use your comments.
Speaker 2
01:07:06Madam Chair, there are no other public commenters. Garden. Oh, there's another there. There are no other hands raised. Okay. Thank you very much.
Speaker 9
01:07:15You're welcome. I don't know if if we'd like to do a response about the water amnesty? Or do we just want to respond to that at another time? Mr. COVID,
Unknown Speaker
01:07:26I have no further comment. Thank you,
Speaker 9
01:07:28sir. I just like to say that when customers call us or we call them, we contact them regarding their bill, we do everything within our power to assist them in making sure that that their their water remains ways to help our customers and we're we're employing everything we can. We don't want to have customers without water, so we do everything we can to make sure that they are able to pay their bills and make arrangements to pay their bills. So thank you, Mr. Williams, for your concern, and we are certainly working with you on that. Madam Madam Chair, Commissioner Garcia, Yes,
Speaker 19
01:08:12Madam Chair, I just wanted to ask, I know that we're dealing with the customer services. I guess maybe it's, it's Matthew. I need to ask, Do, did we fill out all the information? Did we get all the clients that we needed to for the for the flood victims? Matthew, by any chance, Mr. Garcia,
Speaker 9
01:08:30yes. Right now we're closing public participation. So, oh,
Speaker 19
01:08:34I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I thought you went to communication. I didn't hear you. Ron, I'm sorry. That's okay.
Speaker 9
01:08:39That's okay. I just want to make sure everyone knows that we're moving on from public participation on this computer. Thank you. Okay, and then we're moving on to communications. We have no communications, but if you wish to make a comment at this time, you may do so. Commissioner Garcia.
Unknown Speaker
01:08:59Commissioner Garcia, can you hear me better?
Unknown Speaker
01:09:04Are you there, Commissioner, Garcia, I'm
Speaker 19
01:09:06sorry. Can you repeat that, Madam Chair, we're
Unknown Speaker
01:09:10under communications.
Speaker 19
01:09:12Okay, now I can ask. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I'm so sorry for before communications, Matthew, Are we all done with all the I know we're not all done with paying all the customers and assisting them, but I know the deadline came and went. Am I correct?
Speaker 20
01:09:29There's been a couple of different deadlines, Commissioner Garcia, but the deadline to request assistance for debris removal and cleaning as well as furnace electrical and hot water tank that has expired. And I also believe that, well, it's I also know that the time frame to submit a claim has also expired. Those are the only two expiration dates that I'm familiar with, okay? Now
Speaker 19
01:10:02so this, but it expired the the time that people had to put in their claims, but you're all still reviewing claims. Am I correct? Yes, ma'am, that is correct. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. You're very
Speaker 9
01:10:18welcome. So we have no we're moving on to communications. We have none, and now we have to receive correspondence. Mr. Phillips, did you wish to add anything to was already there? No, ma'am, just to receive and file here, we'll entertain a motion to receive and file on item 2025, dash 105,
Unknown Speaker
01:10:36is there a motion?
Unknown Speaker
01:10:38So moved, moved by court
Speaker 9
01:10:41forte seconded by Commissioner Garcia. If there's no discussion on those items, all those in favor of approving the item, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carried. Moving on. We have no unfinished business. The new business. We're going to have our customer service presentation. Mr. Phillips,
Speaker 20
01:11:03thank you, Madam Chair, I will bring up the presentation and I will turn over the mic to miss Crowell, who will kick us off.
Speaker 21
01:11:13Welcome Miss Crowell. Good afternoon, commissioners. How are you this afternoon? Great.
Unknown Speaker
01:11:18Thank you. Good to have you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
01:11:26Kim, can you see the presentation?
Unknown Speaker
01:11:27Yes, thanks, Matt, I can see it all right, perfect.
Unknown Speaker
01:11:34Sorry, waiting. You're waiting for me. Absolutely
Unknown Speaker
01:11:39okay for the month of April, 2025,
Unknown Speaker
01:11:42we received over 55,882
Speaker 21
01:11:45calls, and we responded to over 6500 email inquiries in total that gave us a total of 62,424 total customer touch points, even though we are only budgeted For 1400 calls to receive only, I'm sorry, let me stop that. We are currently staffed to only receive 1400 calls per day, but during the month of April, we received over 29 contacts per day in total with our customer service calls, our emails and our self service interactions, which is our customer service portal, we received, or we had over 152,322 contacts. Our customer contact volume, we were over 112 over forecast per day. 9% of our calls were answered within a two minute time frame. And also during the month of April, we received a total of 713 calls that were specifically for the Southwest 54 inch water main. Break,
Speaker 9
01:12:50our average Madam Chair, yes. Commissioner Garcia, yes.
Speaker 19
01:12:53When you look at these numbers, and that's a lot, so you have customers service, people serving these customers from 8am to five o'clock. Yes, ma'am. Okay, so all these numbers come in before five o'clock, so they're always responded to. If within 24 hours, is there a is there a time limit? I guess that's what I wanted to ask, because that's a lot of calls.
Unknown Speaker
01:13:19That is a lot of call. Oh, go ahead. Matt,
Speaker 20
01:13:23thank you, Kim. Madam Chair, this is these calls that that come in are, this is registered over customer services operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365, days a year. So these, these call the bulk of our calls, and that's what Kim was referring to. The bulk of our calls. Probably 95% come in between the hours of eight and 530 on a daily basis. But we are open 24/7 Yes, it is. A lot of calls. Our budget only allows for us to have so many individuals on staff, and as you can see, at 112% over forecast, we would need double the staff that we currently have today in order to answer these calls within our time frame, which is our goal is to answer 70% of the calls within two minutes, two minutes, correct? But right now, as Kim reported, only 9% of the calls are answered within two minutes because of the fact that we have double the call volume coming in on a daily basis?
Speaker 19
01:14:22So, so the cause 9% which is not a lot, 9% of the call are answered within two minutes. That's right. What is the average amount of cause? Does a customer service serve a day?
Unknown Speaker
01:14:38I would say a minimum of 50 calls per day. Okay?
Speaker 19
01:14:42I like to see that, you know, like just to see it so we know what we're dealing with, with customer service reps doing an excellent job taking care of, you know, this of any cause in a day, absolutely okay. Thank you, sir.
Unknown Speaker
01:14:57Well, Kim, we'll have that available for the next meeting.
Speaker 1
01:14:59Thank you very much. Before we leave the screen, what's the average number of minutes that calls are answered in?
Speaker 20
01:15:08So I don't have that like right in front of me right now. Commissioner forte, but I if I'm looking at my my my live dashboard and right now, the average speed of answer is 26 minutes and 26 seconds. I don't have my glasses on. We just Yeah, 2626 is what the average is right now today, and the longest call waiting right now is 24 minutes and 54 seconds. So if you want a live representation of what's happening right now, and there's a total of 36 people waiting for us to answer at the moment,
Speaker 9
01:15:43what you said 26 minutes, and then you said 24 minutes, which was I say that again.
Speaker 20
01:15:48So right now for the day, the average speed for customer service representative to answer the call, if we look at all the calls that came in today, is 26 minutes and 26 seconds. And if we're looking right now. What is the longest call that's waiting is 24 I think was 2457
Unknown Speaker
01:16:0724 minutes on average to get in right now.
Speaker 9
01:16:10So we've been exceeding what we had been able to do in the past. Absolutely. Yep. So would you want to comment on what is is contributing to that
Speaker 20
01:16:23we only have, we have, and I'm we have 60 people that are available to answer calls on a daily basis. That's our staffing, and the amount of volume that we have coming in on a daily basis requires at least 120 people to answer the phones within, you know, to meet our service level, which is 70% of the calls answered within two minutes, we would need over 120 people, and we currently only have 60. We're budgeted for 71 I believe, yes, that's great. And I'll I have some reports on that. That was a question that came up at the last meeting commissioner or Madam Chair. I'm sorry, and I have that response, although I just gave it, but we only have half the people available based on our budget.
Speaker 9
01:17:14I'm going to wait until you get to the customer comments or the customer interaction. I shouldn't say interaction with the comments we see from customers about how they feel about the level of service they're receiving before, before I comment further. So please proceed. Is there no more? Okay,
Speaker 21
01:17:35alright, our average speed of answer for our emergency line during the month of April was 11 minutes and 11 seconds. Our non emergency line, the average was 20 minutes and 54 seconds. Our customer satisfaction score, which is our CSAT score, was at 80% so this basically, you know, as we already stated before, our customers at the end of each call, they do take a three question survey, and 80% of our customers took the survey, and that's the score that we received our first call. Resolution was at 70% I also would like to point out that, and I know we pointed this out each month, but we have exceeded our goal for the customer satisfaction goal for 20 straight months. So even though our customers still have to wait over 20 minutes to speak to a live agent. They are still satisfied with the services that are being provided. So I would like to you know, congratulate, you know, the staff on doing a on a superb job of answering the calls to the best of their ability. Also, as far as our easy pay calls, we received over 6735 easy pay calls. And out of the calls that we received regarding easy pay, 3100 were enrolled into our easy pay installment agreement. Okay, I
Unknown Speaker
01:18:52have are there any questions on this slide?
Speaker 9
01:18:55Please go back to the previous slide. I have a question the customer. Satisfaction goal exceeded 20 for 20 straight months. I think that's really exceptional. I'm really surprised that we're getting that, that that goal is still being met, in view of the fact that we have so many customers who are not being whose situations not being resolved on that first call. But I also want to commend you on the number of easy paying customers that who were enrolled. Is there a reason, though, the difference between the 6700 6700 and the 3100 why? Why there so many that were not enrolled? Almost 3000 that were not enrolled.
Speaker 20
01:19:46Madam Chair, you have to. You also have, I just want to put it into context. Listen, there were 6735 calls that came in about easy pay. It could be those 6735 individuals could have been calling two or three times during the month to ask for a balance. They could be asking for what their current payment is. There's, there's a multitude of things. So it doesn't, it doesn't correlate into they called and asked a question about getting onto easy pay, but only 3100 enrolled. I think that's where you were making your your distinction, but it's not the same.
Speaker 9
01:20:22Okay. Are there any questions from anyone else on this on this slide before we go ahead? Okay, then please proceed.
Speaker 21
01:20:31Thank you. So this slide here, this gives us an overview of what occurred in the call center for the last six months. As you can see, again, I've already reported the same numbers on the previous slides, but again, during the month of April, it shows how it fluctuates from the previous months. Our average speed of answer again was 20 minutes and 54 seconds. Our service level was at 9% our average handle time was at nine minutes, 29 seconds, our average talk time. We did meet that KPI because we have that set at seven minutes, but we did meet our average talk time for the month of April. Our average hold time was at seven minutes and two seconds. Let's see our average staffing. Currently, we have 43 agents on the phone. We are still 11 CSS is short, and as you can also see, it shows our customer satisfaction score. We already stated that we've 20 months consecutively we've been meeting that KPI. So we are very excited about that. And that's all that I have for this particular slide. Before
Speaker 9
01:21:41you move from this slide, are there any questions by commissioners on this slide? Thank you. Done a pretty good job of pointing out where we want to be strengthened, but it also correlates to the number of people we can have doing the job and if we don't have enough representatives. But I'm thinking about when we go to the HR committee and they're talking about the number of people who are being being interviewed or have applied for the position. I don't really maybe I'll ask that question when we get there, because obviously there's nothing we can do if we don't have enough people available to answer the customer's calls, but I am very pleased that we're getting the the response we're getting from customers about their their interaction with us, and how pleased they are about it. So thank you, Commissioner. We want to thank employees for the for the good job they're doing and making sure that customers feel valued when they do talk to us. Absolutely.
Speaker 21
01:22:38Thank you so much, and I will make sure that message gets passed on to the agents.
Speaker 9
01:22:43Thank you. Any questions, commissioners on the slide, okay? Thank you very much. Our planning calendar.
Speaker 20
01:22:51Thank you, Madam Chair. We have a quite an extensive amount of topics to talk about in the planning calendar. So we have Commissioner Q and A from the last formal session. There was quite a few questions from commissioners that I wanted to respond to. I have the updates on easy pay, lifeline, promise pay. And then we also have a brief update that Tiffany Jones is going to present on the Detroit advocates of the blind, a project we've been working on since late last summer. So we're excited by the by the news, and I won't say any more about that. I'll let Tiffany handle it. So without further ado, I will get started. These are responses to the commissioners. I gathered up the half a dozen or so questions that the commissioners had from the last Board of Water commissioners meeting. So how many callers responded to the after call survey. I believe this came from Commissioner forte in April. 5% of the total calls that came in, we had responses to the after call survey. So that was 2082 callers that called in responded to the after call survey. How many lifeline participants make on time payments. So during the last billing cycle, which was in April, 48% of Lifeline customers did not make their payment in full. The positive to that is that 52% did make their payment in full. What is the number of customer service specialists that you currently have? We have budgeted 71 full time equivalents. We currently are staffed at 60 individuals within customer service. And I just, I just want to point out, and Commissioner, or Madam Chair, you did mention, you know about HR, and I just want to point out this is not an HR concern, as far as you know, why we're 11 people short right now, and this is strictly due to a hiring freeze that the organization has due to budget constraints resulting from the southwest water main break. So this is the, I'll say, sacrifice that the customer service team is making for the overall cause of the organization. So this is not an HR hiring concern. So I just want to point that out for for Patricia sake,
Speaker 9
01:25:13thank you. First of all, thank you for pointing that out. I think that's that's important, because as we look at her numbers, or as we look at hrs numbers, we're wondering then why we don't have more staff, and we do have people waiting, I think, to be hired. We do, so I appreciate knowing why we don't have more people staffing our customer service so that we can meet all of our objectives for and our time frames that we have established so that absolutely,
Speaker 20
01:25:46and I just want to also just, I should just point out this does not only impact the budget constraints don't only impact customer service. It impacts the entire organization. I'll let Patricia at the HR committee respond further, but there is many more other than the 11 just within customer service. So thank
Speaker 9
01:26:10you very much. Any questions, commissioners, comments, okay, then please proceed.
Speaker 20
01:26:15Yep. So another question from the last meeting was, how many residents call about easy pay within a month, and how many enrollments are there? So while we, as previously explained, while we don't know, I don't, we don't capture how many people called strictly about getting enrolled within easy pay, we do know that there was six, a little over 6700 individuals that called about easy pay. And those could be various calls about how much do I owe? What's my payment look like? I missed a payment. What do I do? How do I get enrolled? What are the parameters, rules, regulations, policies, that type of thing. But out of the 6700 calls, almost half of those individuals that call did enroll within the program within the month of April. So we averaged 148 enrollments per day, if we just look at business days during the week. So that's actually quite a high number. And as of today, just before this meeting, we actually have 28,811 enrollees that have enrolled within the program, within easy pay since last July 31 was the day that we started enrollments last year, and our director, director Gary Brown, gave us a, I'll say, a very large stretch goal of reaching 30,000 people enrolling into easy pay within 12 Months. So I'm pretty happy to say that if we go on our current trend, we'll be there by the end of May. So looking forward to that meeting, that goal ahead of schedule, and then what is the status of promise pay? So there was quite a bit of discussion in the last meeting about promise pay. So I just want to say the promise pay contract. We do have one. It was approved by the Board of Water commissioners on August 21 2024 that's when it was brought before this board. Promise pay has not serviced any DWSD accounts to date. We are still finalizing the technical aspects on how to work and transfer data and information back and forth between the two, and we anticipate to go live with promise pay in the month of June of 2025
Speaker 9
01:28:26yes, that certainly clarifies some questions that I think some commissioners had. Do you? Are there any questions on this? Commissioners?
Unknown Speaker
01:28:38Okay, I guess we understand what's happening with that now.
Speaker 20
01:28:41All right, the last question that came out about promise pay, what are the benefits? So it just in brief. I presented this on several occasions, but just as a reminder, one of the biggest benefits of promise pay is that they offer flexibility that we cannot offer just based on the limitations of our technical system at to date, which is to in order, customers will have the ability, if they're using promise pay to make their easy pay payment, they will have the ability to pick their due date. Right now today, we only have one due date for both payments, the regular bill and the easy pay payment, and with promise pay, if they do so choose, they will be able to pick their due date so they can separate them. That makes it a little bit easier for some households to manage their budgets. Their communication tools. That promise pay has is a little bit more robust than what we have. They have the ability to text message customers at numerous times during the month to remind them of when their payment is due, when their payment is coming up. If they missed a payment, they have some really good numbers coming out from a dozen or so other cities that when they remind customers within 24 hours of missing a payment, that 80% of those customers make their payments. So there's some really good data that comes out of the technology sources that they use at promise pay, they also have the ability to use alternative or non traditional, which really has become traditional these days of payment methods or payment options like Venmo Apple Pay and cash pay. And it will give some relief, because right now, those 6700 calls that you saw come into easy pay during the month of April, would then go to promise pay that gives relief to our customer service team to not to answer. That takes puts more priority on emergency calls than it does taking easy pay calls. So there is, there is multiple advantages, which, at the end of the day, could, and likely will reduce wait times of our customers. So that's just kind of some of the brief benefits of promise pay. Any questions from the commissioners or Madam
Unknown Speaker
01:30:50Chair? Have we heard any concerns about cash app?
Speaker 20
01:30:54I don't know. Of any concerns about cash app I in I don't know. Like, more specific, maybe I
Speaker 9
01:31:00don't know recently, I very recently, I heard of some problems, and I don't, I can't be more specific, with people using cash app, so I just wanted to make sure that it hasn't at this Well, at this juncture, it hasn't impacted us. So that's what I we were concerned about, is if we were having problems with people who said they were trying to use it, and we're having problems, but
Speaker 20
01:31:20we currently commissioner or Madam Chair, we currently at DWSD do not use cash app. These are cash app, Apple, pay and Venmo are both. Are all three of those payment options would be available with promise pay, but currently DWSD does not use those. So I we wouldn't, wouldn't be able to share any concerns that might be out there because our customers are not using it to pay. Dwsp, Alright,
Unknown Speaker
01:31:44any questions, commissioners or comments?
Speaker 22
01:31:48Yes. Commissioner chimlock speaking, no, I'm just saying, the more that we would expand payment options for individuals to be able to to make payments, the better. And just glad to hear that we're expanding that footprint, and this will be an excellent tool for for our residents to have. Thank you.
Speaker 20
01:32:09Thank you Commissioner. Thank you Commissioner Ken lock, I appreciate that. That's that is the main target, that is the main goal is just to provide
Unknown Speaker
01:32:18options for our residents. Absolutely. Thank you.
Speaker 20
01:32:22All right, Madam Chair, do you mind if I move to the next slide? Yes, thank you. All right, so I separated out lifeline and easy pay. There were some comments at the last meeting from the public that they wanted it to be more visible. So I've created separate slides for lifeline and easy pay so that there is no confusion. So lifeline currently has 8136 households currently participating in lifeline dw, SD is provided $3 million in gap assistance the difference between the lifeline payment and the actual bill and benefits to those 8136 households, as well as erased over $1 million in arrears from those 8136 households on lifeline. Any question, how were
Speaker 9
01:33:13we able to erase $1 million in arrears those?
Speaker 20
01:33:17Those are funds that come from grants from the state of Michigan, there's actually two grants that are currently that were currently used for that but have been exhausted. They were exhausted on we were notified on March 31 by Wayne Metro that the two current grants that were available have been exhausted, including the Great Lakes Water Authority wrap program. So all of those funding sources have been exhausted, not expired. So that's where those funds, the the $1 million and arrears and the $3 million in gap, that's where that's coming from, is directly from those grants.
Unknown Speaker
01:33:58And unfortunately, there is no additional funds
Unknown Speaker
01:34:02that are available to us at this
Speaker 9
01:34:03time, he said they're exhausted and committed through September of 2025, so yes, ma'am, funds that will be applied, but there's no additional monies available. There is not, not at this time,
Unknown Speaker
01:34:15any questions or comments commissioners.
Speaker 9
01:34:19Well, I hope we're able to find some additional resources. So we
Speaker 20
01:34:23are I will just say that we are actively working on it. I know that Scott McGriff, Deb pass speech, myself and director brown are all working feverishly with state representatives and legislators to secure additional funding.
Unknown Speaker
01:34:41Well, good luck with that. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
01:34:43We need all the luck we can get.
Speaker 9
01:34:46Going to be difficult right now, but thank you very much for that comment. But go ahead. Yep, easy
Unknown Speaker
01:34:51pay as of May 1, has 28,467
Speaker 20
01:34:55households and the arrearage installment payments that we've received since July 31, of 2024. Is $6.2 million there are currently 17,620 easy pay households that are enrolled in easy pay, that are current on their easy pay payment or have completed the plan. So that's a 61% success rate, if we compare that to the previous payment plan program, which was what we call 10 3050 that had an average current or completion in the plan of 10% within nine within 90 days of sign up. So I think we've seen a much larger success rate with easy pay than we have with 10 3050 so we are quite pleased with those results, and I'm sure our customers are too, certainly
Unknown Speaker
01:35:41commendable. Any questions,
Speaker 1
01:35:44commissioners, just quick question, is the payment 10 3050 still available? I can't it is not is not okay?
Speaker 20
01:35:53Yep, if customers are enrolled in it, they were pre let me rephrase that. If Commissioner forte, if a customer was previously enrolled at 10 3050 and they did not request to be moved into easy pay. Then they remain in the 10 3050 program if they they can, and they still can request to be moved into easy pay, but so, but we're not offering it today to anybody new that's requesting a payment plan.
Unknown Speaker
01:36:18Got it. Thank you. You're
Speaker 9
01:36:20welcome any additional questions. Hearing none. Let's proceed.
Speaker 20
01:36:27And Madam Chair, if you don't mind, I would like to turn over the presentation to Miss Jones. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
01:36:34Thank you, Matt. Welcome.
Speaker 23
01:36:36Thank you. Tiffany Jones, business opportunity director, and it is my privilege to provide you an update on a project that we've been working on. Just a brief history and recap, if you recall, last year, in June, we had the National Federation of the Blind. They came to the board meeting and wanted to share their challenges of paying their water bill, and we, Director brown and the exec board committed to hearing those challenges and trying to resolve some of that. So a subcommittee was formed, and we had cross functional teams. I want to thank the public affairs team, customer service, it and of course, billing. We all came together, and we have been meeting with the Federation. I do like to point out that as of April, they reorganized, and now they are Detroit advocates of the blind, so they have reorganized into a different name, but we have been meeting regularly, and we talked about some of the things that we can change to better serve that audience. So some of the accomplishments that we developed right off the gate, we made in person appointments available at any time. So if any blind person or or a disabled person comes into the Customer Service Center down at MLB, they will be seen by a customer service rep, and we also extended the time on the phone. If you you you can pay your bill over the phone, but many of our customers were getting timed out because it was taking them longer to recognize the numbers, so we have extended that, and they are very pleased with us just those two achievements that we did right away next page. Now I'm happy to report that we have large print bills, and they are now available. So if you see our normal bill is about two pages, and we have enlarged our bills to around four to six pages, giving them plenty of large print that they can view their their bill, and they are very pleased. So what are we going to do? How are we going to roll it out? Right now, we're doing a soft launch. So we are working with the Detroit advocates of the blind to have a pilot group that are currently receiving the bills, giving us feedback, and we hope to roll it out to the mass the start of the fiscal year, July one, we are going to work with our public affairs director, Brian Peckinpah to actually pitch and recruit maybe some media, because we know that we're the first utility in Southeast Michigan. We may be the first utility in the state to offer such convenience to our customers, so we will roll it out July one to anyone that would like large print bills. How do you do that? Well, now you have to call customer service to be enrolled at this time. That is the only way to get enrolled is to call customer service. They have a prompt that they will put into the system, and you will then restart receiving your large print bills. So we're excited about it. The advocates of the blind are static about it, and we are hoping that this will be one of many partnerships that we'll continue to have. And that is the end of my project. I do my report, I do want to shout out our billing department, mihi Carlos and Aaron, for their work and helping us get this project across the finish line. And that is the end of my report. I can take any questions, any
Unknown Speaker
01:40:35comments, or questions,
Speaker 1
01:40:37just a comment, excellent, excellent work. What a great service to in particular, those of us who are blind, but those of us who need the large print,
Unknown Speaker
01:40:50there are some of us who need
Speaker 9
01:40:53the larger print. You're absolutely right. I'm concerned. Is there anything in Braille for these customers.
Speaker 23
01:41:01So we do have, when we implemented the project, we did implement for Braille, however, at this time, it will not be offered. It is very costly to produce a Braille bill, and so with our restraints on funding, we have reserved that option for a little later.
Speaker 9
01:41:20So if a customer calls in, who, even with the enhanced print, they will be able to customer service, will be able to walk them through the things they need to know to be able to make their payments or get questions answered about their bill, absolutely. Thank you.
Speaker 20
01:41:38That is always that has always been a service that we've offered. Madam Chair, it's just the the independence and the the independence that these individuals are seeking is not to have to call customer service and ask those questions, is be able to to do it on their own and in an independent way. And as far as Braille goes, our our friends at the Detroit advocates of the blind. We're quite, I think, pleased, Tiffany, if I can take that that, that having the large print Bill was, I think, far more on a priority list than it was Braille. And if I remember right from Mr. Clay, who is the the president of the Detroit advocates of the blind, is, I think his comment was, there's way more the number of individuals that actually read Braille is not as high as I think most of us that do see think, and so having the large print was, was definitely a priority for the crew. Yeah, I get that, right, Tiffany, that's correct.
Unknown Speaker
01:42:43Okay.
Speaker 9
01:42:44Well, thank you, Madam. Madam Chair, yes,
Speaker 19
01:42:49hi. I like to ask a question in this print, in that and I say it as a customer, not only as a commissioner. I do my payments automatically comes out of my account. That's why I set it up that way. I don't forget to pay the bill. But I just ask, is there any way looking forward, especially if people pay their bills automatically? They're like, you know, I know that Comcast gets $5 credit because, you know, they don't have a paper, but they also, you know, are signed up to automatic payment? Is there something that like that? Mr. Phillips, we're looking forward in the future. Are
Speaker 24
01:43:29you trying to take revenue away from us? Commissioner Garcia, I beg your pardon, are you trying to take revenue away from us? Yeah,
Speaker 25
01:43:40people do pay automatically, which is really, really, I'm
Speaker 20
01:43:44not looking, I'm not looking into that, Commissioner. I thought I'm looking into that. I'll let somebody else take that on, and they can. They can take the credit for, okay, for taking away revenue. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
01:43:59The wording needs to be thought more clearly. Used to talk, but anyway,
Speaker 9
01:44:03thank you very much, Commissioner for asking the question and getting it in any additional questions or comments. Okay, thank you very much. I think that my agenda is gone.
Unknown Speaker
01:44:18Okay? So
Unknown Speaker
01:44:21we have the planning calendar.
Speaker 9
01:44:24There are no other matters, and our next meeting is June. 4 chair will entertain a motion for adjournment.
Unknown Speaker
01:44:31So moved Madam Chair
Speaker 9
01:44:33support the meeting stands adjourned. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone. You I
Unknown Speaker
01:44:43just want to make the comment that I think we were right on time.
Unknown Speaker
01:44:46Oh, wow.
Speaker 13
01:44:50All right, yeah. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. Madam Secretary, Mr. Secretary, could we have a roll call please for the Human Resources Committee
Unknown Speaker
01:45:02person, Davis,
Unknown Speaker
01:45:06Chairperson Davis
Unknown Speaker
01:45:09present, Detroit, Michigan Commissioner
Speaker 8
01:45:11Blackman, Detroit Commissioner Garcia present. All right, we have a quorum today, sir,
Speaker 13
01:45:19thank you. Mr. Riggs, is there a motion to approve today's agenda?
Unknown Speaker
01:45:26So moved. Second
Speaker 13
01:45:29motion has been made and properly seconded. All in favor, signify by the sign of Aye. All opposed. That motion is carried. Is there a motion for approval of the minutes of April, 2,
Unknown Speaker
01:45:43Chair sport.
Speaker 13
01:45:46Motion has been made and properly supported. All in favor, signify by the sign of Aye. All opposed. That motion is carried as well. That now brings us to public participation. Mr. Peckinpah, do we have any hands up?
Speaker 2
01:46:02Yes, we do. Mister Chair, we do have Damico Williams with his hand raised,
Unknown Speaker
01:46:09alright, we'll call on Mister Williams. Welcome sir.
Speaker 18
01:46:11Hello, Commissioner Davis, good afternoon on this sunny day. How are you today? Greetings, greetings, uh, thank you for having me here. I just want to, oh, first, let me identify myself. My name is Damico Williams. I'm the Chief Executive Director of hydrate Detroit, and I want to respond to some of the things that I've heard in regards to the last subcommittee meeting, and maybe a suggestion for this subcommittee meeting. So I'll try to stay on point, if I can. In regards to the customer service, I just want to applaud Mr. Matthew Phillips, Miss Kim Crowell, in their team for a very phenomenal job. I just want to give a hand clap. I'll give a hand clap for that for real, because this the I could never imagine. I think this is what I was here for, is that to ensure that the customer service was fixed and that it had updated to modern technology, to where we should be able to call. I remember we had to wait on the phone for hours, or we'll never get a call back, or we would never hear from anybody. Now those days are over, and I just want to thank mister Matthew Phillips and kings, as well as the director in the body of this board, for investing and making sure the customer service. That's the number one jewel of this department. That's how you're rated, that's how you're remembered. And if you build the trust, you build the dignity and the strength of it to make sure that anybody has an emergency, that this customer service department will be able to respond. Um, I'm glad to hear about the easy pay numbers. I think it needs to be determined how many people completed the program versus those that are current and that are paying. Also, how many people finish the program with a zero balance that need to be determined. There also needs to be notes taken on the phone calls what the calls were about. Call may have been about payment. Okay? There should be notes to determine and establish what these calls are about, and then also have those calls enrolled in easy pay, or were they just simple informational calls? You know, people like to call for information, or they might be calling about something else that needs to be taken in, like a tally, uh, the promise pay contract. I am full support of this. It has to make sure that those convenience fees are low, or they are waived. The convenience fees that are packed along with these
Unknown Speaker
01:48:47applications
Speaker 18
01:48:50is a concern, and I hope that that problem can be mitigated to save us time and also to save us any hassle paying extra and the CS the customer service agents, there needs to be commercials, there need to be some type of outreach, and I'm pretty sure there is, but it has to be aggressive to get customer service agents, no more third parties or outside agents. Thank you so much for taking my comment. Have a great day,
Speaker 13
01:49:21alright? And thank you. Mr. Williams, are there any other hands up?
Speaker 2
01:49:30Yes, Matt, excuse me. Mr. Chair, excuse me. They're all Hemphill actually is the next person.
Speaker 13
01:49:40Okay, yeah, Miss Hemphill, you are welcome. Good
Speaker 17
01:49:43afternoon. Attorneys, legal, legal and policy management. We the people of Detroit. I just had a couple of concerns about human resources. We know that the number of Well number one, all of these things are interconnected. You can't have customer service without human resources, and hearing the customer service numbers and the wait time and with no solutions is quite concerning, especially since there were millions of dollars invested in the water main break in southwest Detroit, and from our understanding of the agreement with the Great Lakes Water Authority, the infrastructure is supposed to be the upkeep and maintenance of the infrastructure is supposed to be the responsibility of glia. And we've asked in meetings and haven't really gotten any clarity on why it was volunteers that Detroit would pay half of those costs, and where those funds were coming from will come from now. We're seeing the impacts of that, where, once again, Detroiters are suffering from issues that were not created by us, where we are now on a hiring freeze and unable to correct or even mitigate an issue that we have, which we're seeing is having our residents and and our customers of DWSD wait for, you know, more than 20 minutes to get their customer service issues resolved. So
Unknown Speaker
01:51:24with that,
Speaker 17
01:51:27I feel like easy pay is, while it is a solution of sorts, it's kind of going to those false equivalents. Why aren't we doing that in house, instead of outsourcing it, do we not have capacity to update our own system to be able to do all of the things that easy pay will be able to do? Promise pay being the company that would be administering easy pay, it sounds like we need to refocus inward and tool of our own system. We know that jobs, contracts and training is one of the ways that people are able to afford their water bill again, so hiring more people who can service our customers in house will be the best for not only DWSD, not only public and public policy, but also for the residents of Detroit and those customers of DWSD. So I will reduce my comments to writing, as we tend to do, to have them address at a later date. Thank you and have a wonderful day,
Unknown Speaker
01:52:43right? You're welcome, Miss Hemphill,
Unknown Speaker
01:52:46or another hand up for public comment,
Speaker 2
01:52:49Mr. Chair, we have no hands raised at this time.
Speaker 13
01:52:54All right, thank you. Mr. Peck and Paul, that moves us to communications. There are none, nor do we have any unfinished business, and so we're now on new business. Human Resources metrics, human resources director, Miss Thornhill.
Unknown Speaker
01:53:11New commissioners,
Unknown Speaker
01:53:15greetings. I will share my screen. You.
Speaker 10
01:53:28And we will now go through the Human Resources metrics.
Unknown Speaker
01:53:33Currently, we have 655
Speaker 10
01:53:37employees. This is a net change of minus five or five less than last month, whereas we've since hired one employee, but we've had six employees leave, one through a resignation, three through retirement and 232, through terminations. For our employees that retired, we will acknowledge them on the retirement slide so and next we have our standard slide that represents Detroit residents in hiring,
Speaker 10
01:54:15and our second standard slide, the Average annual head count, year over year.
Unknown Speaker
01:54:22Are there any questions?
Speaker 10
01:54:27Okay, next we'll take a look at our retirement eligible. As you can see, 17% of dwsds head count is retirement eligible. This percentage continues to decrease. At one point we were as high as 22% but as you can see, we're hiring more and more employees into our entry level positions, and they are not retirement eligible. Also, our entire population is increasing. So proportionately, currently, our retirement eligible is at 17% less than 20% and as I've mentioned earlier, we had three of our employees retire. Sheila Howard, who was one of our inspectors. She had 25 years of service. We'd like to wish her well. In addition, we had Ronald Cook, he was one of our assistant managers and operations with 37 years and 11 months of service, we also like to wish Mr. Cook, well, yes. And lastly, Parvez, Jeffrey with Jeffrey with 33 years of service, Parvez was an engineer, and then came back to work with us, 33 years and 11 months of service, and we like to wish him very well. We wish all three of those former employees very well in their retirement. Any questions? Currently, we have 10 open requisitions. This equates to 17 open positions. That's two less than we had last month, and this is the only screen. Are there any questions commissioners, our recruitment efforts since our last meeting, we had four where DW sdhr participated in an employer Meet and Greet at the University of Detroit Mercy, where we met with various students and discussed their interests and also positions that DWSD had to offer. As well as two separate dates, we participated in the careers and public service discussion panel, one at the Jefferson Douglas center, K through eight center, and one at the Randolph CTE and that there were approximately anywhere from 50 to 25 people participating in those sessions where we discussed careers here at DWSD. We also participated in the pain Pulliam Center National apprentice Day event, and that's always a very fulfilling event I have attended before in the past. Are there any questions?
Unknown Speaker
01:57:18Can you hear me?
Speaker 13
01:57:22Commissioner Blackman, were you looking to make a comment? Yes,
Speaker 9
01:57:25I was going to ask make a comment because we're not able to do any hiring now. We're in a hiring freeze. Uh, how are you reconciling the fact that we're still doing the career days, or we are, we are informing them that we are not hiring at the moment, but we are still interviewing, and want to get them seniors eligible for employment. How do we handle that? That's
Speaker 10
01:57:47a great question. Commissioner, we are able to hire for people who may have retired or resigned. So technically, we are still hiring and filling those positions. We're just not obtaining new or increasing our headcount, but we are backfilling.
Unknown Speaker
01:58:03Okay, thank you. You're welcome.
Speaker 10
01:58:11And next, we just like to highlight some of our training courses that are currently being offered at DWSD, and also commend our employees who help train those courses. This allows us to defray costs, and it's very, very important that we try our best to save as much as we can, and we do so by using internal training resources. So internally our confined space and trench ensuring course can be taught by Kendrick Jackson. He reports to HR here. He's one of our training HR generalists, as well as someone
Unknown Speaker
01:58:46have a question,
Speaker 10
01:58:49as well as our environmental health and safety manager, Natasha Hooten, who can also conduct those two training courses. We've cut costs with our CDL training, commercial driver's license training, by partnering with WC 3d we cut those costs by 1/3 so that was quite significant. We've also provided training, as we've reported before, here during one of the meetings, our DWSD training portal that's accessible through our intranet site, where there are over 100 or course, close to 100 professional development courses. This past calendar year, we've also implemented the DWSD safety training portal that's also accessible through the DWSD website. We offer Miss Dick training in house, in house. We do have a contractor come internally in to DWSD, and this allows certification in that training. And as we've broadly proudly bragged about before, we offer water operation certification training here at DWSD, and that's taught by our own Phil curry, previously taught by Sam Smalley. And Phil is an assistant manager in operations. Those employees here that need math preparation training receive that here free in house by latonia Jones, she's a professional administrative analyst and operations, and we also allow Glee what Great Lakes Water Authority and their partners to attend that training. So just wanted to show you a few things that we're currently doing in house, and how we work very hard to defray costs when we can. Are there any questions here?
Unknown Speaker
02:00:39Commissioner Blackman
Unknown Speaker
02:00:41question, but I really want to commend
Speaker 9
02:00:45human resources for the outstanding job they're doing in so many areas and partnering with so many different entities to make sure that when we are hiring that we have people waiting to start, and also maintaining the relationship that people know that we are a resource for future hiring. So thank you for that. Thank you.
Speaker 8
02:01:08Here's me, Patricia, we do have to open up the legal committee. Okay,
Speaker 13
02:01:15alright. Thank you Miss Thank you, sir. The Human Resources Committee will adjourn to the call of the chair.
Unknown Speaker
02:01:27Yes,
Speaker 22
02:01:30the prayer Board of Water commissioners, legal and government committee will now come to order. Would you please call the roll?
Unknown Speaker
02:01:41Chairperson can lock present.
Unknown Speaker
02:01:45Commissioner einhauser,
Unknown Speaker
02:01:48I am present.
Unknown Speaker
02:01:50Commissioner Blackman, great.
Unknown Speaker
02:01:53All right, sir, we have a quorum today. Yes,
Speaker 22
02:01:56at this time we will now recess to the call of the chair. All
Speaker 13
02:02:02right. All right, thank you. We'll now resume the Human Resources Committee meeting.
Unknown Speaker
02:02:08Okay? I'll share my screen again.
Speaker 10
02:02:22Our safety segment that we're going to showcase this month is gas strikes. So you may ask, what is a gas strike? A gas strike is when one of our crews or one of our contractors we're utilizing accidentally hits a gas line. And there are several safety precautions that are in place when this does happen, but we track those gas strikes here at DWSD, and the safety team responds and writes an incident report, and we also take a look at how to mitigate those gas strikes moving forward. So you'll see here on this particular chart the number of gas strikes we've had so far this year,
Unknown Speaker
02:03:04five month here,
Unknown Speaker
02:03:09Commissioner Blackman, so
Speaker 9
02:03:11in January 10, then we went down to four in February, back up to 11 in March, down to four In April. What is the fluctuation? Do you know,
Speaker 10
02:03:23not offhand, but I can find out sometimes it's really based on the cause Commissioner Blackman. And let's take a look at this, this next slide, and I can talk a little bit more about how we we try to dig down into that, because we do take a look at the data. So
Speaker 10
02:03:47yeah, so based on the question, that was a great question, we take a look at who's responsible, and that's also included in our report, and you'll see on the chart here. But you know, DWSD, we have some responsibility with only five out of the 29 gas strikes, still, we really want zero gas strikes, right? That's the goal. But you'll see here, for the contractors who are responsible, or the areas, in some cases, like here with DTE, you know, maybe there's an issue with their marking, or maybe there's some other things that they have to do. And we meet with the monthly Natasha Hooten, our environmental health and safety manager, meets with DTE monthly to discuss these types of things. So I can certainly dig down and get more information Commissioner Blackman, because it's there. Okay, I can get that for you.
Unknown Speaker
02:04:42I'm sorry, yes,
Speaker 9
02:04:43Mister Chair, I think it it appears that the major, the majority problems are with outside contracts. We have some concerns about of our numbers as well. But if we could find out what they're doing to try to mitigate this from happening, it would be helpful. I think
Speaker 10
02:05:00yes, and we do that, Commissioner Blackman, actually, we have to, because we want to maintain the health and safety of our employees, so we continue to follow up on those types of things. So again, they meet monthly, meet DTE and the Environmental Health and Safety Manager meets monthly to discuss specifically the areas where they've had gas strikes, and our safety team does interface with the contractors that contract with us regarding any gas strikes and what we can do to mitigate those circumstances. So thank you them to
Speaker 9
02:05:35know what they're doing to make sure that that those numbers are reduced. So thank you. Absolutely
Speaker 10
02:05:43and we will report on that because there is a process Commissioner, so I will bring that back next time. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Unknown Speaker
02:05:54Commissioner Blackman, were you?
Unknown Speaker
02:05:55Yes, I am okay.
Speaker 10
02:06:00Next 
we're going to quickly cover just some of the feedback we received during our exit interview stay, interview collection process of concerns from current and employees that have left DWSD. So just very quickly, we conduct check ins at 30 days, six months and one year for all new employees, and you can see on the far right of this chart that we've had about a 48% rate of participation. Yes, there's room for improvement, but we've still received some good data that we've been working with management to resolve some issues on so we appreciate the feedback nonetheless. So for example, for 30 days, we surveyed 124 employees, we've received 6064, responses from 64 employees, or 60, excuse me. And six months, we surveyed 159 employees, we've received 79 responses. And then one year, we surveyed 91 employees and received 44 responses. So here are some of the feedback we received. So you could take a look at this particular screen. You'll see for 30 days, six months and one year, in bold, you'll see the questions that we've asked or the ones that we're going to report out on today. Okay, can you identify some challenges you've had in your first 30 days? We're asking them. Can you communicate your needs to your supervisor or manager? Can you identify some challenges you've had in your first six months, and on a scale of one to five, can you communicate your job needs to your supervisor or managers? So these are the things we're purposefully pulling out for this presentation. However, we do ask all of the questions you see on the screen,
+2
we're going to quickly cover just some of the feedback we received during our exit interview stay, interview collection process of concerns from current and employees that have left DWSD. So just very quickly, we conduct check ins at 30 days, six months and one year for all new employees, and you can see on the far right of this chart that we've had about a 48% rate of participation. Yes, there's room for improvement, but we've still received some good data that we've been working with management to resolve some issues on so we appreciate the feedback nonetheless. So for example, for 30 days, we surveyed 124 employees, we've received 6064, responses from 64 employees, or 60, excuse me. And six months, we surveyed 159 employees, we've received 79 responses. And then one year, we surveyed 91 employees and received 44 responses. So here are some of the feedback we received. So you could take a look at this particular screen. You'll see for 30 days, six months and one year, in bold, you'll see the questions that we've asked or the ones that we're going to report out on today. Okay, can you identify some challenges you've had in your first 30 days? We're asking them. Can you communicate your needs to your supervisor or manager? Can you identify some challenges you've had in your first six months, and on a scale of one to five, can you communicate your job needs to your supervisor or managers? So these are the things we're purposefully pulling out for this presentation. However, we do ask all of the questions you see on the screen, Speaker 10
02:08:01and here are some of the feedback, and we've also put it on a nice chart for you. So here you see the word universal, that means across DWSD. That means that that can pertain to any area within DWSD. Okay, so here are some challenges that people may have, and we take all of these things very seriously. Okay,
Speaker 10
02:08:29and next, we have a word chart for you pertaining to that last slide, so you can see in human resources, there are some things that we need to work with the city on regarding enrolling and benefits, and we have been doing that, and then also the attendance program, we've made some improvements in our new employee orientation regarding that, so that everyone can understand there are some things across DWSD to the left of the word chart, where you see universal that will work with various members of management on to improve the Experience for new employees. Also on the right hand side, we're working with leadership and operations regarding some of the concerns you see here. Again, here's this one again, it's for both HR and operations, but we'll be HR will take the lead on that one in terms of occurrences, and that relates to the attendance program. Are there any questions on this particular word chart regarding challenges in the first 30 days of employment?
Unknown Speaker
02:09:33Very helpful. Thank you.
Speaker 10
02:09:35Thank you. And next, you'll see some of the challenges that were identified within the first six months of employment. And again, we'll be following up with the various or we already have followed up with the various departments you.
Speaker 10
02:10:05And some things are just necessary, like so many passwords. I mean, we have to protect our infrastructure. So there are certain things that we need to do.
Unknown Speaker
02:10:15Are there any questions here? I
Unknown Speaker
02:10:24Okay,
Speaker 10
02:10:27one 
of the questions are so few more of the responses, excuse me, we're not to that one yet. Again, we're following up with management. One of the questions that we ask the employee, are you able to communicate your job needs to your supervisor or manager? And you'll see that 38 out of the 63 people who were asked replied strongly agree. So that's over half do
+1
of the questions are so few more of the responses, excuse me, we're not to that one yet. Again, we're following up with management. One of the questions that we ask the employee, are you able to communicate your job needs to your supervisor or manager? And you'll see that 38 out of the 63 people who were asked replied strongly agree. So that's over half do Unknown Speaker
02:11:06and where there are concerns, we follow up with those areas.
Speaker 10
02:11:14Last question, are you able to communicate your job needs to your supervisor or manager? Again over half strongly agreed with that, and 44
Unknown Speaker
02:11:26were asked or responded.
Speaker 10
02:11:31And that concludes the Human Resources report. Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker
02:11:37All right, thank you, Miss Thornhill. You
Unknown Speaker
02:11:47all right, we've seen our planning calendar.
Speaker 13
02:11:51There are no other matters. Our next meeting is June 4. Is there a motion to adjourn? So
Unknown Speaker
02:11:57moved Mr. Chair.
Unknown Speaker
02:12:01All right, thank you. We are now adjourned.
Speaker 22
02:12:09And 
second, one second, thank you. Okay, I'm back. Okay, second, technical difficulties, okay, good afternoon. The legal and Government Affairs Committee will now come reconvene, and at this time, we will go to the next item on the agenda. Approval of the agenda. Motion is in order. It's been moved. Is there support? Support? It's been moved and supported to approve the agenda all those in favor signify by saying, aye. Aye. Those opposed. This item stands approved. Next item on the agenda is approval of the previous meeting minutes from April 2, 2025, a motion is in order,
+1
second, one second, thank you. Okay, I'm back. Okay, second, technical difficulties, okay, good afternoon. The legal and Government Affairs Committee will now come reconvene, and at this time, we will go to the next item on the agenda. Approval of the agenda. Motion is in order. It's been moved. Is there support? Support? It's been moved and supported to approve the agenda all those in favor signify by saying, aye. Aye. Those opposed. This item stands approved. Next item on the agenda is approval of the previous meeting minutes from April 2, 2025, a motion is in order, Speaker 3
02:12:57I move the adoption of the minutes as presented, is
Speaker 22
02:13:01there support? It's been moved and supported to approve the previous meeting minutes of April the second. All those in favor signify saying, aye, aye, aye. Those opposed. This item stands approved. Next item on the agenda is public participation. At this time, I want to ask whether or not there's anyone that is, I'd like to open up the mics and ask anyone who is present, who would like to address this committee, to raise your hand and or and to indicate your concerns inside of, inside of the chat. And I like that staff Has anyone asked to be recognized,
Speaker 2
02:13:38Mister Chair, we do have to make a Williams with his hand raised
Speaker 22
02:13:43until you Would you please read the public participation instructions,
Speaker 2
02:13:50Mr. Chair, I ask you to consider that, since these are new attendees to the events that they've heard the Public Instructions from the other committee.
Speaker 22
02:13:58Okay, so noted you can you can recognize
Unknown Speaker
02:14:04Mister Williams. Thank
Unknown Speaker
02:14:05you Mister Chair, Mister Damico Williams,
Speaker 18
02:14:12Thank you, Mister Chair. Commissioner Ken lock How are you today? Doing fine. Doing fine. Thank you very good. Shout out to you and Commissioner Eisenhower for this committee, and also I want to send love to lane Coleman as well. I'm sorry I got on a little late. I'm very happy these meetings are running on time and running efficiently. We miss you all. We would hope that you all would consider reconvening in the communities and being in different neighborhoods, in different districts, people would love to have you all back at your formal meetings.
Unknown Speaker
02:14:52I just want to respond
Unknown Speaker
02:14:56just the overall point where we are.
Speaker 18
02:14:59You know, when we ask for revenue, you know, you got people that are paying their bills. They're doing everything they can. It's just the fact that all of this work that's going on, you know, when we have all of these infrastructure problems, it does cost money when we're supposed to work regionally with all of our leaders across this region, from Macomb, Wayne, Oakland, southeastern Michigan and the state of Michigan as a whole, it gets difficult. We can't get funding. We can't get grants. I mean, we can't even get federal grant funding. You know, we used to have a good relationship to get federal money. Now it's, it's a little complicated. You know, I believe that we all can make do, but we have to maybe dig in and figure out, you know, what? What cost are we saving on? I never hear about savings and what we can do to maximize those savings, especially savings for the customer, savings for the patron of this department, of this department. You know, I hear water costs keep going up because of less usage. Well, how is that? So, you know, and thank you for the revenue protection department's presentation. I think more people need to know what they do. But you know, the businesses that were that are not paying, they need to be made to pay. And I'm talking about commercial businesses like Comerica Park, you know, Eastern Market, DTE, the empty office buildings, they should not get any deferments, especially Charles Brooks, the man that owns the castle. I'm sorry I don't represent people in castles and mansions, and that man has sold out the city and has taken advantage of the city when it was down and out during the bankruptcy. So, you know different people that should be made to pay. Dennis kelfinos, I'm happy to hear there was a deal settlement. I want to hear more in the coming presentation, or maybe later, of how many big named commercial operators have you been able to get payments from that owe the most money, because it's very important, because maybe it could cover some of the residents as such, that's just my thoughts. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:17:26Thank you. Mr. Williams, Mr.
Unknown Speaker
02:17:31Yes, sir, Mr. Chair, we do have Narelle Hemphill, thank you.
Speaker 17
02:17:38Good afternoon again. Attorneyl Hemphill, we the people of Detroit. I did just have a quick question I heard just over time and often, many commissioners referred to the chat function in this meeting. Is there a particular reason why the chat is not enabled and also, while we cannot see, we cannot see a list of people who's on the call, a number or names or anything, it kind of feels like there's almost this wall between the, in this case, the committee, and then the community where we're not even able to engage with each other, sometimes community can bring forth our own solution, and actually we are the best solutionaries to our issue. And if we cannot communicate during these meetings, it does create an information bottleneck and information gap. So So yes,
Unknown Speaker
02:18:49oh no, continue. I'm sorry. No, please.
Speaker 22
02:18:53Oh no, no. I was going to just circle back with staff as it relates to any rationals, but there's no, there's no organized effort to to on our part. It's not in any nefarious efforts. So, you know, because I wasn't aware, that's why I made reference to the chat. So not sure you know what the reasons for, but I'm sure it wasn't anything negative or anything like that. So I want to, you know, just mention that
Speaker 17
02:19:25I appreciate that chair, but I did just want to bring that to your attention so you can see what we see on this end and how what has been communicated by some residents does, but it is it we don't have a chat function or the ability to do anything but click the chat if there are links in there, but we can't, we can't see anything other than what you show up on the screen.
Unknown Speaker
02:19:54Thank you. Thank you for that information.
Unknown Speaker
02:19:59Mr. Picken Paul, yes,
Speaker 2
02:20:01Mr. Chair, we do use the webinar version of zoom, so it does close the chat function. So that's why they only, they do see the link, but they're not able to communicate with us through the chat function. So, okay, yeah, we can provide a responsive writing through the committee.
Speaker 22
02:20:22Would you please? Thank you? Yes, sir, anyone else there
Unknown Speaker
02:20:27is Miss Gwendolyn Howard,
Speaker 26
02:20:35good afternoon commissioners, I found I was listening and I couldn't get on earlier doing customer service. I couldn't get to the click before you closed it. But at our last board of water commissions, when we started mentioning and it's not the right we may not be in the right spot right now, I just couldn't open it up. But I do want food for thought when we mentioned promise pay last month at the meeting, it was like it didn't exist, and we snatched it out the clouds. Now today, you put up on here that it's been in place since August of 2024 so I'm just curious to know when even Commissioner Ken mock was asking where why are we saying this, like we took it out the clouds or something. So I didn't get to get it in in that spot, but I did want to give it food for thought again, and we'll deal with it at a later time or either in writing. So thank you for taking my call.
Unknown Speaker
02:21:39Okay,
Unknown Speaker
02:21:41Brian, is there anyone else?
Speaker 2
02:21:42Mr. Chair, there are no other hands raised.
Speaker 22
02:21:47That's his time. Public Participation. Public comment is now closed. Can we go next item on the agenda is communications, a motion is in order to receive and file the litigation report.
Unknown Speaker
02:22:08Is there support?
Speaker 22
02:22:10Okay? I'll support that. Okay, all those in favor, signify by saying aye, to receive and file the litigation report. I The those opposed this item stands approved. Next time on a agenda is the Monday FOIA report. Motion is in order to receive and file the FOIA report,
Unknown Speaker
02:22:34I would so move, Mr. Chairman,
Speaker 22
02:22:38is there support for I will support that. Okay, it's been supported by Commissioner Blackman. All those in favor, signify by saying, aye, aye. Those opposed. This item stands approved. Next item on the agenda is unfinished. Unfinished. Okay, next item on the agenda is unfit business. There is no next item is new business. And then the new business. We have the April update from April 26 community outreach meeting with Mackinac administrator, administrators related to the 54 inch water main break in southwest Detroit.
Speaker 15
02:23:26Mr. Commissioner. This is Scott McGriff, General Counsel. I just wanted to briefly update the committee and the board regarding the outreach meeting that we had that we put in place for April 26 I had mentioned it at the last board meeting. And so since the event took place, I wanted to give you an update as to the results. We had Mackinac administrators come out to patent Community Center on Saturday, April 26 they brought three teams of adjusters to the community center. They brought a translator with them, and our community partners provided an additional six translators, so every team had its own translator, plus we had a couple of spares that were able to walk among the among the the residents that came to help prepare them for what they would be asked once they got to The Table, containing the adjusters, we had 64 residents that we that signed up before 2pm this event ran from nine until it ended up going until five. It was scheduled until four. We had 64 residents signed in by 2pm at that time, I had to cut it off because we needed to be able to be able to get through everybody that had signed in after 2pm we had an additional 28 residents that showed up, that signed in and that we prioritized for Mackinac to contact and reach out on the following Monday. So the next business day, they prioritized those individuals that came and that had signed in. So we had a quite a quite a good turnout for that event. We ended up making, I think, approximately 22 settlements out of the 64 people that showed up. So that was good. More importantly, however, was the ability for the residents to show up talk face to face with the adjusters. Have a translator there to be able to communicate in a way that was efficient and that they can understand in terms of what their claim was, what documents would would be required, what their particular next steps had to be. And so that was very, very helpful. We had a lot of very positive feedback from that event, and because of that, because of the participation, we're going to hold another event, tentatively scheduled for May 17. We don't have every all the pieces in place yet for that, but that's our our tentative date to have another event in either at Patton or the local community center. Having said that, regarding the event itself, I also wanted to give you a quick update on the overall metrics related to the claims process. Essentially, we've had about 471 claims,
Unknown Speaker
02:26:18310 of which were property claims, 157
Unknown Speaker
02:26:22of which were auto claims.
Unknown Speaker
02:26:26We have
Speaker 15
02:26:29currently settled. 103 claims. 77 checks have been requested that will pay out in the next week. 28 checks were already paid out last week. So we're getting to the end of that. We've got about 100 let me see here, 151 claims right now in which residents are waiting to provide that. We're waiting for residents to provide their documents, provide the follow up information that has been requested by the adjuster. So things are moving along very quick, very nicely and very quickly. We Our aim is to try to have these claims all resolved, if possible, by the holiday weekend. I understand that's a stretch, but that's our goal. We'll get very close to that. We may not get to the get to our goal, but we'll get we'll get very close.
Unknown Speaker
02:27:26That's, that is the update
Speaker 22
02:27:29I'll take. Well, it's, it's a great update. And as you were speaking, I'm here with a community leader, long time community leader in southwest Detroit, and she overheard you giving your report, and she was she said that the community is overwhelmingly pleased with the response from the from the department, and to be as quickly as you all did, she noted that was just remarkable, and people really appreciate that. And I thank you for your report. And I'd like to ask any other members, if you commissioners, if you have any questions of the the report that was just given no okay? And if not, I'm going to go back and recognize Commissioner Blackman. You know, it sounded like she was she had a question or comment on one of the previous reports. So I'm going to take the privilege of the chair and recognize member Blackman, because I believe you had a question, or you were trying to get recognized, and I didn't see that. I couldn't really hear you.
Unknown Speaker
02:28:32Hear me now, oh, I hear you.
Speaker 9
02:28:38There was there were some things that were mentioned in the report that I wondered if we could have in writing. I know that we're there if it's, you know, a legal affair totally then that we want to be careful about what we put in writing. But there were some things that were just of general interest, I think, to us as a committee and to the public that would not be infringing on any privacy that we have concerns about. So if we could get a written report from legal and Government Affairs. I think that would be helpful for us
Speaker 15
02:29:07through the chair to Commissioner Blackmon, are you? Are you asking regarding the settlements that I just gave the update on? Is that you would like a piece, a part of that to be in writing, if
Speaker 9
02:29:19just in general, Mr. McGriff, in general, you would talk about some other things as well. But if there are things that would not compromise us in any way, then I think the committee would be I think I know, I would be pleased to get those comments if we can in writing.
Unknown Speaker
02:29:36I'm happy to do that.
Unknown Speaker
02:29:39Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 22
02:29:43Any additional questions? Any additional questions? Okay, at this time, we'll now go to the next item on the agenda is the planning calendar, and at some point, Miss Me and attorney together, together, I will be definitely reaching out to him, and then we will proceed to the next item is Item 10 other matters, no of none. And our next meeting is June 4, 2025, we now, I now will entertain a motion to adjourn.
Unknown Speaker
02:30:15I so move Second.
Speaker 22
02:30:18It's been moved and supported to adjourn. All those in favor signify by saying, aye, aye. Aye. Those opposed the meeting stands adjourned at 331. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:30:27Thank you.