That weekly, the we have increased compared to last time this year by more than 30% and that's due to we are seeing a lot of growth within the city, which affects the installations. And although pending customer issues still exist, the Our success rate of meter installs are going up, which is definitely positive. Our scheduled meter work every week we install or exchange more than 200 water meters, and on the average, 20 new service accounts are metered. Weekly meter work orders are also a result of customer request. One of their other service line agreements is real estate. Reads, this is actually tied to customers purchasing property within the city of Detroit. One of the things that we really want to focus on are the meter ages by district. Right now we have more than 30,000 meters that are 20 plus years old. Um, approximately 160 of those meters, 160,000 of those meters are older than five years, but less than 20 years. And as we look at the age meters. We're developing a plan to address the aging meters, which will be presented to the Board at a later date. We're looking at possibly trying to address that issue by increasing by increasing FTEs, or bringing in other additional contract resources to try to get ahead of the issue. So the other section within meter operations is our service interruption restoration and compliance team. This team is actually responsible for ensuring all customers have functioning meter equipment and then interrupting customers with delinquent balances or giving them other resources for them. The backlog continues to grow due to due to the difficulty interrupting water service accounts. We continue to focus on water service accounts as we slowly reinstate residential service interruptions for all of our class types for service turn ons. Service interruptions drive turn ons, which is slowly increasing on a weekly basis. As we interrupt more services, we get more customers who enter who's interested in entering into some of our payment plan agreements, and we're able to restore their services and get them back on the grid. The one thing that we are focusing on, if services are interrupted and customers does not have functioning meter equipment, then we're asking to update their meter equipment there so that we can do a one and done.
Do you have a chart, or do you have the numbers? Can you go back to this last card so I can so do you have any charts that indicate within this tank same time period, the number of water shut offs?
So I do not have that. But if it's okay, if we can get that to you, that's fine, because that's actually driven by another division within DWSD that's driven by our collections division. Okay, so collect, collection drives our work. We're executing the work, and collections is actually driving and generating those accounts for
no problem, and I guess it will report out through the normal reporting process. So Okay, thank you.
You're welcome, all right, and one of our other high volume things that we're working on is our I try and upgrade project. That project is moving in the uptrend, which is really good. We're doing very well on the project, between DWSD and our contractor, we have installed 110,461 accounts, 90,000 has been from the contractor, and DWSD has been able to install almost 20,000 with our normal day to day responsibilities. And that's it for me. Does anyone have any questioners or comments? Any
questions from anyone? Any questions?
Yeah, Charlotte, something that I've learned since I've been here is you said that there are 30,000 meters that are 20 years and older, and as the meters get older, they slow down and run in favor of the customer. Is that an accurate statement? So it's imperative that we get these meters changed out because we're, you know, while the customer is getting a better deal out of having an older meter. Yes, the DWSD is not and so we need to get the new meters in as quickly as possible. Yes,
thanks for adding that. Gary, yes.
Okay,
thank you.
You're welcome. Thank you.
Thank you again. Well, now, go to the agenda again. Okay, okay, so now we will we Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now we will go to item C, item 2024, dash, 199, fiscal year, 2529 CIP, amended budget. A bit mended, amended budget for october 2024, who will speak to this?
I will Commissioner. Good afternoon. Commissioners, good afternoon. Mr. Chair. My name is istaka Raman. I'm the Chief Financial Officer Detroit water and sewers department. Next slide please. This presentation summarizes the changes that we are proposing to the FY 2025, capital plan and the FY 2025 through 2029, capital improvement program, this plan and this budget was approved by the Board on April 17, 2024 here we are proposing some changes to the capital plan as well as the capital budget for the five year Plan. Quickly go through what changes we are talking about here in the water fund. Within the water fund, we are making a change in the funding source. So originally there were, there were $30 million in the water fund for the replacement of lead service lines funded out of the State Revolving Fund. The State Revolving Fund was in the budget in anticipation of an intent to apply, which is also called the ITA, for that project. So we placed $30 million over a five year period that ita has not has the potential of going forward next year, but hasn't taken place as of now, and which will not impact which will therefore not be available for FY 25 what we have done is we are going to be using bond fund of $30 million to fund our lead service line for the next two years. We are proposing utilizing a $30 million from the bond fund replacing the SRF. The bond fund is available in our construction fund for the water fund, and we have decided to use it because of the speed of how lead service line replacement program is moving. It's going pretty fast. Contractors are running out of money, and we don't want to stop the project. And as a result of that, we we propose moving the money from the bond fund to finance the at least for the first two years.
Okay, sorry, okay, so go ahead.
So the bond fund is being utilized here. We have obtained the consent and the opinion of our bond counselors from both GLW side as well as Great Lakes Water Authority bond counselor. And they are, they've given us the consent to use the bond funds for for this purpose, you have a question Commissioner,
I don't, and I would just like to ask, Do, are there any questions from from commissioners? This seems pretty straight and forward, just making sure that we have a definite source of funding so as the State Revolving Fund is, you know, not going to be available, available during this time frame. And so with that, I would like to ask motion to approve the proposed budget amendment.
Yeah, I have some more changes going. Oh,
okay, continue. Yeah, guess I should have missed if you were finished, yeah. So
the lead service line is not going to be a State Revolving Fund for the lead service line would not be available for FY 25 but it could be for future years, as and when that Intent to Apply happens and it becomes available, we're going to bring it to your attention, probably for next fiscal year and future. So this change where we're replacing the SRF with the with the bond, would increase the funding for FY 25 and 26 by $15 million each year, as we are going to fund them through bonds, and then reduce the funding by $6 million each year for the next five years, with a net zero impact on the five year CIP project. You can see then the little chart here we are taking the SRF money out and then putting in the bond. The next slide talks about changes to the sewer fund. Here we are requesting a few changes again, the net impact is zero on the five year project. We are requesting approval to transfer two and a half million dollars from our emergency sewer repair budget for FY 25 which you approved on April 17. 2024 we're requesting that we move two and a half million dollars to the brightmore stormwater improvement project. I have a slide next which will explain, and Sam has already explained what the project is all about, but not going there yet. Sheena, so we are requesting approval to transfer funds that are in PC in certain contracts such as PC 812, 813, 817, to PC 814, and Cs 1884 and also the purchase of certain machines for $500,000 again, all of the changes moving money from one project to the next because of the timing issue that some projects will not take off on a time and on the time that we anticipated, but there are certain other projects that we need funds, and therefore we are reallocating resources. Again, this is a zero net impact on the FY 25 budget as well as the five year CIP budget. The only change here you'll see is a 974,000 positive impact on the budget which will impact FY 2025, and this is because we got a fee from Detroit DTE Energy regarding their compliance with the ordinance. They could not. They paid us money in lieu of their compliance with the with the stormwater ordinance when they could not build a project that they were required to do so under the project. So in lieu of them doing the project, they gave us $974,000 which could be used for any stormwater projects. Become eligible for that. So that's the impact you're seeing at the bottom of the chart here, yes, middle of the chart is the reallocation between among projects, so the net, it's only showing The Net Impact at the bottom. Any questions, commissioners? I
hearing none. Keep moving. Next slide. So this, these are the highlights of the the brightmore project. I'm not going to go through this. Sam has already briefed you on the project, but I just want to let you know that this money, that two and a half million dollars that we are proposing to move to brightmore is necessary to acquire properties sooner than later. I think these will have to be closed by January 1, 2025 and therefore the urgent need for this, this amount of money, as Sam mentioned, we applying for a variety of grants, including $20 million of EPA, which may be able to reimburse the selected funding mechanism. The next slide gives you justification for the four machines that we intend to purchase. These four is going to enhance the capacity for efficient and effective water and sewer repairs. These are versatile machines which significantly improve our ability to handle excavation tasks with position minimizing disruption to surrounding areas and streamlining the repair process. The small size of these machines make them ideal for accessing tight spaces where large equipment is impractical. Investing in these machines will boost the operational efficiency and reduce overall project timelines and ultimately benefit service quality and community satisfaction.
So the impact of all the changes here, as I mentioned before, there is no change in the five year program cost on an overall basis, it remains at $503.9 million for the five year period, which was the one that you approved in April, the FY 2526 budget will have a net increase of $9 million each year. And until we and unless, until we get SRF in future years, it's going to reduce our FY 27 through 29 cost by $6 million each year in the sewer fund, as I mentioned before, 974,000 is the net increase because of that funding from DTE Energy
moving along.
This is just a summarization of our funding sources, no significant changes, except the one change in from SRF to bond and the addition of the DT energy check for sewer project. And these are the projects for water and sewer. The yellow highlights are the projects that we made changes. These are the detailed list of projects, and the yellow highlights will give you the ones that are impacted by this and there were no changes to anything else, including the vehicle or our IT budget, or even the facilities budget. With that, I conclude my presentation, I would like your approval to move forward with this, to the full board, asking for the event
and commissioners You've heard the presentation and the recommendations motion is in order to approve the amended, amended budget.
Mr. Chairman,
yes,
should I? I can't see the agenda this occurs. Presentation is still up. Okay, okay, and the motion that you mentioned, I assume that's item D. That
is, that is Item d2, 024, dash, 203, yup, Yes,
Mister Chairman, I would move that the Board of Water commissioners for the city of Detroit water and sewage department, CIPO committee approves the amendment to the water supply system five year capital improvement program for fiscal years 25 through 29 and the fiscal year 2025 capital budget, and further authorizes the director and chief financial officer to take such other action as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote.
Okay, is there support? Okay? Okay, I support the motion. Okay, all those in favor, signify by saying aye, aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed. This item stands approved. Next item on the agenda is Item 2024 dash 220-202-4204 the Board of Water commissioners for the city of Detroit water and sewage department, it requires an amendment to the sewer disposal five year capital improvement program. And I'd like to add someone to entertain a motion on this item, and then I'll get the presentation.
Mr. Chairman, yes, you're ready move that. I would move that the Board of Water commissioners through the capital improvement committee for the city of Detroit water and sewage department approves the amendment to the sewer disposal system. SDS five year capital improvement program for fiscal years 2025, through 2029 and fiscal year 2025, capital budget, and further authorizes the director and chief financial officer to take such other action as may be necessary to accomplish the intelligence vote.
I support this motion, and I'd like to ask who will be making the presentation for this item.
So Commissioner the presentation I made support these two resolutions. So
this is a companion of companion motion, and so at this time, we've heard the presentation, and I will now call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying, aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed. This item stands approved. Next item on the agenda is the planning calendar and which states review of maintenance and review of maintenance and repair.
Sam, are you trying to say something?
I was trying to unmute. Okay, we move that to next month to not overburden this meeting with too many presentations. Mr. Chair. Okay.
So noted. Thank you. Next time on the agenda is other matters. I know of none. The next item is next meeting, and the next meeting is November 6, 2024 then we now add the next item, which is adjournment. A motion is in order to adjourn.
Move it to chair. Support all those
in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed. The meeting stands adjourned. Thank you.
Okay, our next Meeting will start at 230 You
All Right? Oh, good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
I would like to call to can you hear me? Okay, Mary, just fine. You're coming through. Great. Thanks. I'm calling the Customer Service Committee meeting to order Madam Secretary, would you please call the roll? Or is it Mr. Secretary?
It's Madam Okay. Madam
Secretary, please
call the roll. Chairperson Blackmon present. Detroit. Commissioner Garcia
present.
Commissioner forte is absent. Miss Madam Chair, we have a quorum. Very
good. Thank you so much. I'd like now to ask for approval, pardon me, approval of the agenda as presented. So move by properly moved. And I support any discussion. I All right, all those in favor. Aye. Thank you. The agenda stands approved. The next item is the approval of minutes of September 4. Is there a motion? So moved Madam Chair, moved by Commissioner Garcia, seconded by myself, any discussion, hearing, none of the support moving the minutes indicate by this item, aye, aye. Aye. Motion, nay. Motion carried. And the next item then is public participation. Is there anyone who has indicated a willingness or desire to speak before this committee?
Madam Chair. This is Brian Peckinpah, Public Affairs, Director for DWC. I'd like to read the instructions.
We have anyone who said they would like to participate with Peckinpah.
Oh, we do have four hands raised, so please
read the instructions. Okay? Thank you.
To make a comment, please raise your hand by using the raise hand icon on your desktop or mobile device. If you are calling into the meeting by phone, press star nine to raise your hand after your name is called, it will give you permission to unmute in order to begin speaking, you will have to unmute yourself to do so, press the mute button, which is the microphone icon if you're online, or star six if you are calling in as a reminder, you will have a limit of three minutes to make your comment. There will be a timer indicating your 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. By filling out the card, we will have your contact information to follow up appropriately. If you are unable to click the link, please let us know, and we'll provide a phone number to reach out to get your information. You will only be called upon once once. The chair closes public comment for this committee. There will be no other comments from the public, and all attendees will remain muted for the duration of the meeting. Thank you for your attention and Madam Chair. The first person is Cecily McClellan. Thank
you very much. Ms McClellan, welcome.
Thank you very much. Thanks for the opportunity to speak, Cecily McClellan, with we the people of Detroit. I just recently seen an article that was in Planet Detroit, and it discussed the name of the article was, can pay your energy or water bill in Detroit, these programs can help. I thought it was a quite detailed, thorough article, and as it relates to the recertification process for the Detroit Lifeline program, I think it provided more information than I've seen thus far, in the sense that it discussed that the residents could be added to a list, it also indicated that they had up until October the 31st to register or recertify for the Detroit Lifeline program. And what was extremely beneficial is that it had application directly linked to Wayne Metro, where the recipient can complete the application and then upload it to way Metro. I think it's crucially important that customer service be aware of these processes, because as residents call in that are currently enrolled in lifeline, they are able to share this information. I think that the link that has been provided by Wayne Metro would have been extremely beneficial if it could have been added to the flyer that went out in the mail, as well as this link should be made available online to any residents so they can complete this and submit it to Wayne Metro and schedule their appointments. So I just wanted to share this resource, this information, and hope that it can coordinate or assist in the coordination between DWSD and Wayne Metro and serving those residents and ensuring that current residents on the Detroit lifeline are not terminated unnecessarily because of a lack of information. Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss
McClellan. Before you leave, what, what? Where did you see this information
is that it's a planet Detroit. It's an online resource for information planet Detroit.
Thank you very much for sharing that with us, and thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else? Oh, I'm sorry. We do know we have others. Who is the next
Madam Chair, the next person is Jacob Graham. Okay,
welcome, Mr. Graham. Mr. Graham, are you there? I
Hello, yes, yes,
I hear you now. Great.
Thank you so much. Thank you and thank you for the opportunity to speak to this committee. I My name is Jacob Graham. I'm a part of the Sheridan Townsend block club I live on Townsend Street, just just here to talk about my alleys, square basin restoration. First off, I'd like to say thank you so much for repairing and upgrading the square basin at the end of the alley near Charlevoix street that that has been working so well with with the most recent rain that we've had. That being said, we do still have a major part of the alley that was dug up at a similar time. And just to offer some some timeline on how that worked, the crew showed up and maybe two or 300 feet in from Charlevoix, they dropped off some very large pipes, maybe four feet wide. They dug a huge hole, maybe 20 feet by 20 feet, busted through the cement with all of their tools and then filled that in with temporary dirt. They then proceeded to move towards Charlevoix and dig out and reinstall the catch basin. When they came back to do the cement restoration, they poured cement around the catch basin, but they did not pour cement around that first large hole that they dug. Then they there was a large pile of dirt on the street, and they smeared that dirt all across the alley, between the catch basin and that hole so over the cement alley. Now there's about three inches. It varies two to three inches of of dirt just smeared over the cement. And so I'm I fortunately found Mr. Peckinpah contact information at a at a at a city budget meeting, and I was able to text him some pictures and videos of the of the crews that what what they did. And there's been some questions of whether or not it was a private group that did part of it, I don't think so. It was all done in the same two weeks, and I hopefully have been able to provide additional pictures to Mr. Peckinpah, so anything that this committee can do to help get this restored, I really appreciate your time, and thank you so much. Thank
you for your comments. And Mr. Peckinpah, I'm I'm certain we're on top of this, so you'll be reporting back to us regarding the progress on on the communication with the customer,
Madam Chair, Sam Smalley, Deputy Director, we will again take another look at it. But based on the pictures that he sent, I've talked to the inspector. He says that's not the crew that turned the lamp pole into a catch basin, but we will again check it out. And if it was us, we will repair it. Otherwise, we believe that we have completed all of our work out there, but we will take another look and report back to the board.
Thank you very much, because he seemed, there seems to be some confusion on his part as to who's responsible. So we look forward to hearing from you. All right, thank you. Our next customer,
Madam Chair, we have Damico Williams. Mr. Williams, welcome. Hi, Commissioner
Blackman, good afternoon. How you doing good? How are you I'm doing wonderful. Thank you so much. I just wanted to comment quickly in regards to the lifeline. And here it is, October 2. I would like to be interested to know how many people have recertified or got into the program since the insert went out in the water bill. I also wanted to share a little information. I think in all of our efforts, what we want to do is help the water department. We're not trying to fight the water department or go against the water department. We just want to be a partner and actually making sure that people get the information and that they're able to enroll, and they're also to, you know, hit with no problem, no stress, no intimidate. And we thank you so much for working with us and working with the general Republican community that is trying to keep their water on, I think we don't show much thanks to you all, as we should, because we're all trying to make sure that all of us are doing the right thing and making sure that people have affordable water, and making sure that they have access to water. I also want to say my observation is that, yes, there needs to be somewhat of an effort to make sure that they're tracking people that are being recertified and have to re enroll, and also those that are new. One observation made is that Wayne Metro, there should be a representative from Wayne Metro that should be along with the customer service director, Max Phillips, to make sure that they are reporting at least every month by week, and that should be updated online in the data portal. I've looked at information as well, but I'm also keeping my ear to the ground. So for the past month, I've been sending emails out. I've been blasting ringing the alarm, making sure that everyone knows that you know it's about to get cold out here, so you need to be checking in. And most people have told me that they have. They have been able to check I was able to help one guy get his water turned back on, and we're still a work in progress, but the trust, the you know, rapport, that this department is to improve and to work on, is something that needs to be handled. And I also had another comment in regards to the videos I was flashed back to a memory that happened in 2020 when you all were on Microsoft Teams, and we begged you to get on zoom so that we would have greater access. And those meetings should be televised, and they should be you are public municipal utility, so you have to have something of a actual net way. I mean, yes, you have the YouTube running right now. That's great. But also we wanted those videos from before so that we don't get sued. Thank you so much for taking my comments. Have a great day.
Thank you for your comments.
Next who the next person?
Madam Chair, the next person is Narelle Hemphill,
Welcome, Ms, please proceed.
Yes. Good afternoon to the chair and to the body. Thank you so much for allowing us this opportunity to talk. I just want to echo what Cecily McClellan was saying about the lifeline plan and the recertification, it is imperative that we get this information out. I know that planet Detroit did run that article that does give the link to Wayne Metro's recertification. Is that being shared anywhere else I have not seen DWSD putting things out with that information, that was the first time I saw that link in the first place i i saw it being shared. So again, I haven't seen it on any any socials anywhere. And also, when did the the second flyer go out in the represent,
excuse me, in
the Lifeline customers bills. I talked to one customer, a few customers actually in community. And they were saying that. They did see, they did call Wayne Metro, and then Wayne Metro ended up texting them a link, and it was the same link that was posted in the planet Detroit article. So as we are in October now, and it was already said that residents will be all residents who were in lifeline will be removed as of October 1, unless they recertify, and that there is a list where residents can start the recertification process, and once they do, they're on a list that's protected from water shutoffs. I think that is imperative that we get this information out, that we get as many people as possible to recertify. It took us, what, two years to get those 26,000 people on lifeline. And right now, we know that Wayne Metro does not have the capacity to process those 26,000 people, so it's probably going to take about six to nine months to get everybody recertified. So do we have a plan for what we're doing for residents in the meantime, while this recertification process is happening? And do we have a plan for how we are going to educate the community about the recertification link and the process for
being protected against water shutoffs? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Phillips, I think we have, on several occasions, tried to indicate the process for making sure that our customer get, we serve it. But is there
any comments you'd like to make at this time? Yeah, Madam Chair, thank you. So yes, my comment would be, is that, you know, we've sent out two separate letters, 52,000 letters, and those letters each contained a link, which is a QR code to make it is obviously we can't have a customer click on a piece of paper and link to a website, so we included the QR code that all they have to do is take a picture of it with their phone and it takes them directly to the form that both Miss Hemphill and Miss McClellan have referenced in both of their comments. I've personally done it on several occasions. I I try to do it every two to three days, just to make sure that it's still working. And it does. Within about 15 to 20 minutes, I receive a response back from Wayne Metro telling me that they received my my application. So I fill it out just as if a customer was doing completing it, and it works just fine. So again, 52,000 letters to each one of those, each one of our Lifeline customers, has gone out. I should also note that planet Detroit specifically reached out not only to the Detroit water and sewage department, but also to Wayne metro to provide context and comments directly to the article. In fact, I think that you'll find the article directly quotes our Director of Public Affairs, Brian Peckinpah, in the article, as well as Shama mounzer, who is the Director of Program programs at Wayne Metro. So the information that's contained in the article has come directly and quoted from directly from Detroit water and sewage department and Wayne Metro, who are completing the program. So that would be, those would be my comments, as well as, yes, I understand that there is 26,000 people that are on the program currently that need to recertify. And so I think we've communicated in advance without having people forget if you do it too far in advance, we know that nearly 11,000 people have already reached out to recertify within the program. And one of the things that we've done again, actually two things, we've informed everyone, as long as you let us know that you want to recertify, we will protect you from shut off while Wayne Metro is completing the recertification process. The other thing that the management at the Detroit water and sewage department has done, as they've also stated, and I guess I'll restate it now, is that during the month of October, which is the recertification starts October 1 starts the recertification process. Everyone that is currently enrolled and current on the Lifeline program will receive their same lifeline Bill during the month of October, just to ensure because we know there's a lot of people that need to be recertified, although I guess my last kind of, I guess, question back. And I don't know if I'm allowed to ask questions not being in part of public comment, but Miss Hemphill stated that it'll take six to nine months for everyone to be recertified. I would just like to, I have not heard that from Wayne Metro at all, so I'm not sure if there's a source to cite for that, but that would be my only question. I guess I would have and I will certainly look into that with Wayne Metro, they just started the recertification process on october 1, which was 24 hours ago, so I'm not sure where the six to nine months is that, but I will
certainly look into that.
Any other questions I can answer for you, if there are any questions by the committee members.
Mr. Phillips, yeah, Madam Chair, I just, I mean, recertification is not a new process. It happens every year. I mean, what's different is the sheer number of people we have in lifeline. But this is not, this is not unique, or something that's new. And so, you know, I know everybody wants to put billboards out. It is more effective to contact the people that are in lifeline than to use a shotgun approach and just start spending resources to send information to people that don't need the information, and so we, we've, we've absolutely seen the article that's, you know, being referenced here, as Matt indicated, we have an r q code that we're pointing people to that makes it very easy, and it's in everybody's interest, especially Wayne Metro, to get people recertified, they get paid per applicant, and so it's in their interest to get this done, and we're all working hard. And as Matt indicated, it's only been one day you could, you could start the process yesterday, October 1. And so we will keep everybody informed, and we will continue to have meetings with anyone that wants to have a meeting about this issue, so that hopefully they feel like they're in the loop and
having the most current information. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Director, I guess I'm satisfied with what I'm hearing from the department and the efforts that are being that are taking place to make sure that we get all of our customers recertified. We're doing, I think, everything we can to make sure that this happens. It is in our interest, is in the customer's interest to have this process go smoothly and to get as many recertified as are needed to be recertified. There are no further comments from committee members.
Do we have anyone else who wishes to address the board? Madam Chair, Gwendolyn Howard, has their
hands raised. Hand raised. Gwendolyn Howard. Gwendolyn Howard, please
welcome and please give us your comment. Thank you so much for taking my call, and I am in motion, but not to repetition, not to be repetitious. But of course, we the people and and we are hearing different numbers at different times, just like Commissioner brown just said that the process started yesterday, but you had a report out that so many people had done this before, or it became we got 11,000 that have already done it, if it just started yesterday, and even in your meeting before this one that I was in your your the report out was that we had so many people already being processed. But where's that information? And no recertification is not new, but the recertification process is that usually, especially if it's going to end October the first, the process would have started September the first. So you had those 30 days to have it before the actual day comes in. Now we're hearing the the November, the November 1. But again, it should say October 31 because November the first would be too late in reading what you're saying. And that was the first time we saw the link for the application. Of course, we knew the QR code, but in our last community meeting, we had a lot of customers stand up and say that they did not get the the leaflet or the information in the mail, and they are on lifeline, and they did do what they needed to do, because we're putting that information out there. We've been advocates for your program from the beginning, because it was the best thing going for the residents of the city of Detroit. But this recertification process has brought up a lot of questions and a lot of different answers to the questions.
So thank you so much for taking my call. Thank you for calling and voicing your concern.
I just want to Yes. Who is that? It was Matt Phillips, Madam Chair, yes, please. Yes. I would also like to reference the fact that the Detroit water and sewage department has updated their website to include data on recertification and pending applications that we've never done in the past. At the request of the advocates. As you know, we, the people specifically, have asked us to provide information that we've never provided in the past that is completely fresh. Again, it's only been 24 hours, and we've included that. And I know our partners at Wayne Metro have also directly communicated with we the people, to let them know exactly what what is happening with the recertification process, how many people have applied, and you'll see that again today, that I will present today to this board as well. So I just wanted to mention that we are trying to be as transparent as possible. I'm not sure how much faster we can. We can
react in than 24 hours worth of turnaround time.
Thank you,
Mr. Pill. I think the important thing is to read, to restate
is that the process could not have begun until October the first
That is absolutely correct, Madam Chair, that's where I think we are kind of maybe missing communicating that as well as we need to to those who are concerned about how many have been recertified and how many are left to be recertified. So thank you for clarifying that again, once again. Is
there anyone else who would like to address the committee at this time, Madam Chair, there are no other excuse me. There are no other hands raised, and just a reminder to the public that once you make her public comment, there's no
other second opportunity to make a comment. Thank you. Thank you for that reminder. Okay, if we have no further people who are ready for who have indicated willing to speak under public participation, we are closing public participation at this time and moving on to communications. We have none unfinished business. We have Mr. Graham restoration. And I believe we heard from Mr. Graham earlier. Is there anything further
to be stated on that particular issue?
Madam Chair, yeah, nothing on that issue. I just wanted to let you know
I've joined you. Thank you. We're glad you're here. Thank you so much. Let the record so reflect. Okay. Is there anything else, as I was saying, on the Mr. Graham's issue that needs to be added at this time, hearing nothing on that issue. We're now under new business, and we're on the 2024, dash, 200
customer service presentation. Mr. Phillips. Madam
Chair, thank you. I'm going to share my screen. Thank you.
Applause. And if
Madam Chair, can you see my screen? I see your screen. All right. Excellent.
Applause. So Madam Chair, I'm gonna kick this off by just saying that we had an extraordinary month and an extreme number of our customers that reached out to us this month, mainly driven by non payment enforcement, easy pay and the Lifeline program. We received almost 63,000 phone calls during the month of September. A little over 7200 email inquiries came in for a total of 70,000 total customer touch points, individual conversations with customers for the month of September. In the five years that I've been with the organization, this has been the highest that I've ever seen. We had a little over 3500 contacts a day. To our forecast of 1400 160,000 total customer contacts came in. As you know, that I've already stated 70,000 we talked to 70,000 individual customers during the month, and at 160 contacts that that means our self service options on during in the phone system have answered quite a over half of all the questions that customers have. So that's fantastic. That means it's doing its job. We were 150% over forecast on a daily volume, and 14% of our calls were answered within two minutes any questions about
our statistics for the month of September? On this slide you want to comment? Well, you're probably going to show the future. So the 14% because answer within 20 minutes is below your objective. So
if I'm not mistaken,
I think that's correct. You are nodding your head, yes, I don't hear any comment.
Are you there? Mr. Bill, yes, I'm here, Madam Chair,
I'm sorry you broke up for just a second. My apologies. Okay, nope, no problem. I was just saying that the 14% is under your your objective, but it is under the objective. Yes, ma'am, but with a number of inquiries that you received that it was a
tremendous number that you handled this past month.
So please Yes, thank you. So our average speed of answer for the month of September was eight minutes and 29 seconds for a 20% service level, that means 26% of our calls were answered within two minutes. So a quarter of our calls, the average speed of answer on the non emergency line was 30 minutes and 57 seconds, or 1% our customer satisfaction and this, this goes to show, even with the sheer volume of calls, the time that our customers waited to speak to us, our staff has remained true to course, which is remain professional, courteous and empathetic at all times. And that shows directly. This is a anonymous survey that is sent to every single customer at the end of each call, if they choose to answer. Our customer satisfaction was at 81% with a goal of 72% so we exceeded that for 13 straight months in a row, and our first call resolution, and this is the ability that our customers answer to say, was my issue resolved at the end of the call? And that was at 72% the industry standard is 71% that's two months in a row. So fabulous work by our team. I know they're busy taking calls right now. There's 56 calls in queue at the moment, so I know they're all busy, but if they could hear me, I would say, Great job team for being at the utmost of providing the best customer service to our customers. I think one of the the amazing things that came out of the month of September was the fact that we received 11,000 nearly 11,500 easy pay calls during the month of September. So that means that the easy pay program is definitely still two months into the program. Eight weeks ago, we announced easy pay and it still has. It's still top of mind with all of our residents. So that means it's that means it's working fabulously. So we're extremely happy by that, by that outpouring of support for the program and the interest, and I think you'll see that in
a minute, and where our our current numbers are at any questions, Madam Chair, that's I was about to ask the committee if they had any questions on any in the slide so far, or comments again, I would, I would add to your commendations to staff, Mr. Phillips on really the outstanding job they're doing and handling this huge number of required requests we're getting in so many different ways, and we we do offer our commendations for their hard work, not just hard work, their efficient work.
Okay, please proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. Excuse me one moment. Yes, Madam Chair, it is three o'clock and we need to recess and call the
HR meeting to order. That's this meeting to the call of the chair.
Thank you very much. Tamara,
you can go ahead and take over my screen to bring up the the agenda for
for HR, Yep, thank you. All right, we will now call the human resources and Organizational Development Committee to order.
Madam Secretary, could we have a roll call please? Chairperson Davis, present, Commissioner Blackman present, Detroit Commissioner Garcia,
present,
Mr. Chair, we have a quorum. Thank you very much.
We'll now recess to the call of the chair,
right? We will resume the Customer Service Committee meeting. And we were in the process of,
I don't see my agenda.
We were just in the Customer
Service presentation. Okay? Please continue applause.
All right, my screen back up. Yes, it is all right. Thank you. So we're going to move on to the key results for the lifeline affordability and easy pay program. So this is a new number, big number. So as of this is a actually, a recommendation from our advocates is to include easy pay, pending applications, recertification applications at all levels of all of our affordability programs on one page. So I'm happy to report that we have nearly 52,000 Detroit accounts and residents, households that are protected from shut off currently, and that is 26,721 of our residents and households are benefiting from the Lifeline program during the month of September. Easy pay currently has 8000 this is as of Monday morning, 8628 households registered in accounts on easy pay. 2100 in the still in the 10, 3050 program, net new households looking to get into the Lifeline program is a little over 4000 and pending recertification, is 10,507 so that's how we derive at 51,993 so this is by far the largest I've ever seen. And I would venture to guess is, is that there is no other utility, water utility in the United States that has anywhere near this type of success and protection for their residents. So I think we should all be very proud
of what we've accomplished in the last 24 months. Justifiably so, any comments or questions commissions? Thank you, Mr.
Phillips, please proceed. Those are great numbers. Thank you. Just looking at, what does this what do these programs cost us? And specifically on the Lifeline program, we have provided over $20 million in gap payment assistance for Lifeline customers. We've forgiven nearly $47 million worth of arrearages, or past due balances. The Big word is arrearages, but past due balances of our Lifeline customers in the last 24 months, August of 2022 to 2024 for a total of $67 million in affordability, affordability, payment assistance to our customers, I again make the statement again, I don't think there's any other water utility in this country that can even come close to stacking up to this type of performance that we've seen with our department. So we've received from other grants, state, federal, local, the rap program, Great Lakes Water Authority, that type of thing, just a little over $23 million to go against that $67 million tag, which leaves a remaining balance. This is the part that is, I guess, not recovered. I call it. It's the portion that, at the moment we're eating. That's what I call it, for almost $44 million so I think that this is a very well stated representation
from a financial perspective, in very simple terms, questions or comments, Matt, that $43 million bothers me. So good
is that you? Commissioner, Garcia, yes, Matthew, I guess I the peer of forgiveness,
40 46,040
6 million. Okay, I guess, I guess my question is, do we, do we apply somewhere for that kind of loss, or we just
write it off? Or what exactly happens? So Commissioner Garcia, that is, we, we, yes, we do advocate for, for every type of funding, so that the 23 million, the total funds received that you see on the screen there, the $23.3 million Those are, those are funds that we've added, advocated for to receive from the federal government, like the Liwa program and Wayne Metro applies for that. On our behalf, there's programs like the local water utility affordability program that's offered from the state of Michigan, the governor's budget item of the state of Michigan, water affordability grant. We call that WAG, so that's out there, and it's also the work that Deborah pospich and Gary Brown have worked tirelessly, probably over the last 18 months with Senator Chang to get that legislation put in place and set up. And we partner with Wayne Metro, and we the people of Detroit to to push and advocate for those types of funds. So yes, we do work very hard to try to get it, but the funding that is currently available does not meet or match the need
that is that is within the city,
so we don't expect to cover recover at all. Matthew, am I correct at this time? No, but that's why it's extremely important that, like Senator Chang's legislation gets passed, so that we can receive those funds on behalf of our residents, to help them make their bills affordable, to put that those funds towards this, I guess, negative $43 million not a not an account. So I'm not sure the exact terminology to use, but
I'm trying to use layman terms. That's the only terms I know. Oh, okay, Madam Chair, I think that it's very important, I think, to the residents of the city of Detroit, especially when we have people always bringing up some issues about cutoffs and disconnect and whatever this stuff is. I really do believe that it's really important to inform the citizens of Detroit about the forgiveness program and the amount of money we're talking about. I think it's imperative that people know that. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm just thinking out loud here of that's a lot of money for the city of Detroit. You know, when you think about eight years ago, we recovered from bankruptcy, I don't know. I'm I'm just thinking, Madam Chair, there's got to be a way that we, that we inform the public that the water department is doing everything it's possibly can, including eating some of this cost, you know. So there's got to
be a way we can inform the public. Madam Chair, it's a delicate matter, because we are, we are using money that other customers might say, well, you know, why are you doing this? I think it's important for us to be able to tell our story and tell it well, so that they understand the customers were able to help and still get them paying on their bills. That's the most important part that they are paying on the bills. And so, Mr. Phillips, I guess I would lean toward you to help me come up with the words that Commissioner Garcia is kind of asking us to be able to convey to our public as well as to, I think, more more
than that, people who are paying, who have never stopped paying their bills. Yeah, Madam Chair, I think that my my passion, hopefully comes through in this conversation and has come through. And the reason why I'm passionate in my my prior comments, even before this meeting started, is because I just see this as you know, not happening anywhere else in the colleagues that I talk to across the country, my colleagues are just absolutely amazed at what we do and how we've done it, and we definitely are setting the standard. I'm actually going to yield to Director Brown, because I think he
is, yeah, I think he's got some words to say. I mean, yeah, a couple, a couple of things. Number one, we've kept rates below 3% average for the last nine years at 2.9 even when inflation is that six, seven and 8% when utility rates are going up, utility costs for the for DWC goes up, and chemical cost goes up. We've still kept rates at less than 3% on average over the last nine years. That that's that's phenomenal. That can't continue, if you continue to bleed this type of cash, this that red figure will eventually get rolled into rates, into next year's rates. Now remember when we build our budget, when istaker builds the budget for next year, he's building it on a 90% collection rate, meaning that 10% we're not intending on collecting. That the budget's not built on 100% of our collection rate of what we build people. It's only built on 90% so right at the beginning, we're, we're get we're, as Matt would say, we're eating 10% and then when you add these type of numbers onto that, it's imperative that we get some either federal or state aid to help our customers pay these bills, or you're going to have to increase rates. No one wants to see that happen, because it would simply exasperate, you know, the problem. And so when you see us pushing very hard to get our collection rate up to 90% that's why, so that we don't eventually have to pass this bad debt off into rates. We want to continue to keep rates
affordable for our low income customers.
When I get to the low income for all of our all of our Yeah, you're right, yeah.
Got a choice of work for all of our customers. Yeah, just a comment, and perhaps it's something that can be done on an annual basis, but I think I'm just kind of going off the comments that Commissioner Garcia made. There may be a way that, from a public communications perspective, we can share, you know, annually or share periodically. You know, I view this as an investment in the affordability of those who cannot afford to pay their bills. And it would be really good to just share that. You know, now, it does bring forward the question of, you know that affordable, it has to be paid for some some way, and it's obviously paid for the rates that are charged to others who can pay or who do pay. And so it just, but I think it's, it's helpful to, at some point, share it, whether it's verbally or whether so that people know that there is, there is an investment that's really deep and broad in you know, to support those who cannot pay and $44 million point, I know it's a snapshot for a point
in time, is a significant
amount of money, really? Yes, I'll ask our communications team to craft a message that we can bring back to the board and start rolling out at least quarterly to the public. Let us put our heads together and see what we can come up with. I'm sure we can come up with a way to make it not as complicated as you know, as it is, so that the average customer would
would be able to understand, thank you. That would be helpful. And are we using some of our as we as we develop these
presentations, shall I say? Are we using some of our meetings in the community with the various black club associations to tell the message. Or have we? Have we thought about using them, using that as
an avenue, a venue? Madam Chair, Brian pike and Paul Public Affairs Director, yes. So the director Brown's point, we do end your question. We have attended more than 300 committee meetings this year, block clubs, neighborhood associations, city council meetings, the mayor's meetings, the district managers, they have meetings. And in order to our team's been doing it, plus we have a contractor through compass strategies, who's run by Jermaine Dickens, who also has four people that we scheduled them to go out to various meetings so that we could spread our wings so to speak into all these different neighborhoods. And we do have a new presentation, which, if you would entertain it, maybe at the next committee meeting we can run through. It's based on a presentation that director brown gave in July, we have made it drilled it down to more of a community based presentation to show the collection rate, show where our rates go, and show what work we're doing across the city to improve the water and sewer infrastructure, and talk about lifeline and easy pay so it drills it down and makes it more to the fourth grade level, so to speak to to let everybody know, and our customers know, how we're using these dollars and the impact on our rate structure when people do not
pay their bills, when they don't raise their hand for help, as I think that's extremely important for us to continue to get that message out, because everyone does not understand what happens when bills are not when the bills are not paid, and they don't need to pay them. So thank you. I'm glad to hear we're doing that with community organizations, because there's, I think it's going to be an
ongoing need for that. So thank you, Mr. Peckinpah, Oh, you're very welcome. And we just had a training with Compass strategies on Monday we will, and they had some great
feedback on our presentation, so we made some adjustments. Oh, good presentation. Any additional questions,
commissioners?
Does that help us a little bit? And Madam Chair just to to the other commissioners that asked the questions about sharing. This is the site that Brian from public affairs and his team puts together overall, and this is our this is specifically the lifeline page that's got all the information and at the request of the public. And we update this once a month. I know Brian's team tries to do it as I provide them the data, sometimes on a weekly basis, but you can see, this is as of September 4. Obviously, today's the second so we haven't we're only 24 hours into the month of October, but you can see to the commissioners questions about, you know, do we let folks know, and do we have a place to go? Here's, here's exactly what Brian and I were talking about. We do put the numbers in here. This is, you know, the amount of, you know, build debt that's been erased and monthly gap payments. So it is, it is shared. But as far as a, you know, a mailer to every household, no, but, but we do. We are very transparent on what's
happening with the with the program. So thank you. It's an ongoing challenge to make sure public is aware of everything we're doing to help.
So thank you for those comments. All right, Madam Chair, I know you can't see the the agenda, so if you, if you wouldn't mind. I'll help you that the
next agenda item is the planning calendar. Okay, I see that. Okay. If so moved, we can move on. I don't see what the you are. You going to tell me
what the plan? Okay, yes, please. Please continue. Okay, and I am going to Brian. I am sorry. This is presented by me. My apologies. This is presented by Brian De Paul, our public affairs director, so I'll introduce you,
since I failed on introducing
you properly. So thank you, Matt. I appreciate it. So this leads into our topic for the month planning calendar for the speakers bureau and leads right into our from our conversation we just had about community outreach. One thing I didn't mention Madam Chair is that we also, because of all these construction projects and lead service line replacements and I try and meter device upgrades, we are touching to almost every house in the city of Detroit. We could provide a map of where human flyers, our contractor, that's Detroit based, has gone over the last year to all these houses to touch them, either for lifeline or easy pay, or our construction projects, stormwater and brightmore or the iron project. Regarding our community partnerships, part of our outreach also involves expanding by using our employees to tell the story of what DWSD is doing in the city of Detroit, as well as help people learn, including kids and families, learn about the water and sewer systems and learn about opportunities in the future in the water and sewer system industry to have potential career in water and sewer system industry or municipal government. So we've expanded this outreach. We did a partnership with Michigan Science Center earlier in the year, and we expanded that this summer with Detroit zoo via the Belle Isle Nature Center, and we had 400 families, or excuse me, 400 people come to the nature center over a several hour period. And we're very pleased and proud of our staff from all over the organization, from all divisions, maintenance and repair, engineering, stormwater, customer service, finance, and, of course, the public affairs team, who came out on a Sunday afternoon in the summer to participate in this project and educate families about the water and sewer system and give out backpacks to kids ahead of school the school year.
So here's a short Video from that event.
You and I thank you, Matt, Mr. Phillips, and I just want to give before we go the next slide, I just want to give a shout out. She's not here now, but Alexis, where help us create the speaker's bureau, and was very, very much the leader behind that, encouraging, engaging and recruiting staff. More than 40 staff participate in the speaker's bureau now, and she, as a result of her success at DWSD, she was actually recruited by the mayor's office to be the Deputy Director of Media Relations over at the mayor's office. So that's where she's at now, and we're about to fill her position in the next couple of weeks with the individual from customer service, our social media content enhancements, we've been doing a great deal of work to engage more. It's one thing to post on social media. It's one thing to do, to actually engage with the public. So we've been doing more short videos about our projects. In the one you'll see see in a little bit as director brown explaining the private sewer repair program. We call these reels. We're explaining our work, and these are very quick for us to create. We do it on site, or we do it scheduled. We have between Cara and Barry Cara Smith and Barry Jennings on our team. We're able to have the capacity to do that in the moment, or, as I say in this slide, planned our schedule. So here is Director
brown explaining one of the programs.
By the opening that you can open up is where her backwater valve is. If that's put in the basement, it's pretty easy to go in the basement. Just open it up, and, as I've explained, inspect it to make sure that it stays clean. If it gets clogged up, it's not going to function properly, because we did it outside. It's 10 feet below, and we're going to have to get a plumber to just inspect it every year or so. The second is a clean out. That's where most Detroiters would say you get a plumber to put a snake in the line and clean it out all the way out to the sewer. That's what we put in a about in order to get to the line. As you run a line here, it's all the way to the sewer. Okay?
So Madam Chair and committee, we the attention of those is to educate and also be authentic. That's a very authentic video in the moment. So
I'll entertain any questions. If you have them, somebody you have any questions or comments on what you we've just seen. I'm I'm trying to understand that, how this, this, I don't know what you call that, that you have outside now, does that prevent customers from having to do the snake, the
snaking out in their basements? So Madam Chair I clean out in the backyard. I have one in my house. My front yard at my house allows the plumber to put the snake in the clean out, in the cap, in the pipe, in the front yard or the backyard, mostly in the backyard in Detroit,
to put the snake inside there, rather than going on to your home, as people find out about that. I think you're going to get a lot of requests, but thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Any questions or
comments committee, okay, then we'll proceed on madam chair that that concludes the customer service presentation, and I apologize to madam secretary for going over by 26
minutes. My apologies. The information was so good, I'm sure you'll get no negative feedback.
So thank you for that.
Can't see the agenda. Seconds there, Madam Chair,
pardon? Just two seconds here it is. All right. Very good. Thank you. So the next item then on the planning calendar
is regarding speakers bureau that will be when we just, we just completed that,
madam chair that was with Mr. Peckinpah, just presented. Oh, sorry, I'm sorry I was looking for something else. All right, then I have nothing under other matters. So our next meeting is November 6. Says everyone else's committee meeting
on that same day, chair will entertain a motion for adjournment.
So moved properly moved and
supported part that we adjourn this meeting. Thank you.
Thank you all so very much. We'll see you on November 6.
All right, we will now reconvene the human resources and Organizational Development Committee.
Is there a motion to approve today's agenda? So
move, sir support. Motion has been made and properly supported. All in favor, signify by the sign of Aye, Aye. All opposed that motion is carried.
Is there a motion to approve the minutes of September 4?
Move, approval, Mr. Chair, support. Motion has been made and properly supported to approve the minutes of September 4. All in favor, signify by the sign of Aye. Aye. All opposed, and that motion is carried as well. We'll now open up public participation. Mr. Peckinpah,
do we have any hands at all? Mr. Chair, there are no hands raised. Do you want me to read the Oh? Mr. D'Amico Williams, raised his hands. Raise his hand. Do you want me to read the instructions or go right to let's just go right to it. Okay?
Thank you. Mr. Williams, you
Mr. Williams, are you there? All right.
Mr. Peckinpah, do you see any other I'm sorry I didn't get the queue to
unmute. Sorry about that. How you doing? Commissioner Davis, you're alright, sir.
I'm fine. Mister Williams, how are you doing good? Doing good. Thanks. Thanks for conducting this meeting. I just want to respond to comments and conversations that were had over in the last meeting. I want to applaud Matthew Phillips for a great job. 60,000 inquiries about the easy that is amazing. I've never heard that number myself since I started doing this water work. This is amazing. Um, before we pop out the champagne and celebrate like a tiger's playoff win, let, let us continue to do the hard work it is to inform our customers, our citizens, our neighbors and our family members that there is options, and they will work with you. They will not shut your water off. We I'm so happy for this opportunity that we're finally coming around the mountain and doing the hard work that's needed to make sure that everyone's water is turned on. So you know, to the community groups and to everyone you know, this is a time right now, at October 2, 2024 that we should move forward into the future and making sure that this department delivers trust, integrity and also the dignity of having love, compassion and empathy within its customers of the city of Detroit. But the bad debt expense, you know, people are paying their bills. I just want to point out that the bad debt expense of the $46 million still remains. Yes, that's going to have to come from federal I saw a news article myself that the President, the incoming president, should she be elected, is going to have to do something about water insecurity in the United States of America, as far wise as people not being able to afford their bills. So she is going to have a plan. I know I've been trying to get in conversation with her team to make sure that a plan is in place. And through my efforts, I want to partner and continue to work with the water department to make sure that we do get any capitalization of that plan that she's going to introduce to save the investment of America and within our water systems. And there's also some other things that need review, because it's not just residential bad debt. There's also other expenses not being really talked about. I'm going to have to call missus Michaels the handy woman, because she doesn't like creepy guys, and we know that there's some creepy guys over the hands of the water in sewage financial so we we need to really be careful. But let's work together to combat the bad debt expense. Let's work together to prevent the debt from happening any further. And let's stop the bleeding. Let's love on our consumers, and let's thank them for everything they're trying to do. We're already suffering long enough. Thank you for taking my comment
and have a great
day. All of you. Alright? Thank you, Mister Williams,
Mister Peckinpah, are there any other hands?
Mister Chair, there's no hands raised. Alright, seeing no hands. We will now close public comment.
We have no communications, no unfinished this. Excuse me, Mr. Chair, yes, we need to recess for a moment and open up the
Finance Committee meeting. Okay,
we'll now recess to the call of the chair.
Thank you. We'd like to call to order the Finance Committee meeting. Um, may we have a roll call?
Chairperson, forte present. Commissioner einhauser
Present.
Chairperson, I mean, I'm sorry, Commissioner Coleman
is absent. Madam Chair, we have a quorum. Thank you very much, and we'll recess now to call the chair.
All right, we'll now reconvene the HR committee, and that brings us to new business item, a HR metrics and
human resources director,
Miss Thornhill, good afternoon.
Commissioners, good afternoon
I will now cover the HR metrics.
And can you see the HR screen? Yes, yes,
thank you. All right, currently, you'll see our demographics by ethnicity, with an employee count of 663 this number remains consistent from last month, therefore
there's been no increase in employees.
Next, we'll cover our residents and hiring. You will see in total, the breakdown of Detroit and non Detroit residents. Again, total population of 663
employees.
We did not have any retirements since the last Board of Water
commissioners meeting. Great. Any questions,
and we wanted to show you year over year how our employee headcount has been increasing, you'll see that now, with 663 employees, we have a clear trajectory to 700 with 23 open positions still yet to
fill at this point During the month of October. Are there any questions. Next,
we'll take a look at our retirement eligible employees. We're still at 18% again, with 663, total population of employees. You'll see the breakdown here in terms of
retirement criteria. Are there any questions?
And next, you've seen this slide before, but it talks about the breakdown of classifications regarding who is retirement eligible. And five years ago, this was a concern because we truly didn't have a plan as to how we would backfill our retirement eligible employees if they were to retire at any moment. But for the past five years, we have been conducting succession planning meetings and building and developing plans with leadership, the leadership of the specific divisions. So now we have a safe way to backfill our positions without worrying. In addition to succession planning, we've also improved our recruiting strategy, and we'll talk a little bit
more about that in a second. Are there any questions? Okay,
currently we have two slides. We have 17 open requisitions, which equates to 23 open positions, as I mentioned a few seconds ago. So this is the
first slide. Are there any questions?
Okay, next slide.
Any questions? Okay.
Next since our last Board of Water commissioners meeting, we've had two recruitment again, events again. These are the events we conduct monthly that helps us build our pipeline to fill our positions, especially our positions in operations. We also conducted a career or a hiring fair today over at our central services facility, where we filled 12 vacant positions on the spot.
Are there any questions? Chair,
Commissioner Blackman, I'm just looking at the Career Resource Fair at derpy and the career fair Detroit at work. And in
those instances, no one was interviewed. No no one was interviewed. But what we do, Commissioner Blackman, is we share information about DWSD and the type of open positions we have, and we do collect their information. We have them apply, and we get their information so that when we have a hiring fair, they could
just come on board. And some of that paperwork has been reduced. Okay, because I was looking at the number of the candidates who were seen, but at that point, they did not express an interest in the department. Or how do we assess
the value of those contacts? Well, we do keep a list, and for those that we saw, they sign in, that's how we keep track of the numbers, and we just provide the information. And if they're interested, we do take their names and we make sure we contact them when we have a hiring fair. Okay, thank you. And the hiring fair is very organized. Commissioner black, black, but we have slots where we have people scheduled so
it runs like a fine tuned machine.
Okay, thank you.
Welcome any options. Question, I'm sorry. Commissioner Garcia, yeah, I guess. Question is, it sticks out in my mind, 150 people at one event and 50 at another, and no one was interviewed and no one was hired. Does it send a wrong message here? Because Why are we having a fair
there's no positions available. Well, you have a couple of things to consider. So we have recruiting fairs, or recruitment events, where we share information about DWSD and to see if there's interest. And then we also have hiring fairs where we actually hire people on the spot. So what we found, Commissioner, this is a great question. Commissioner Garcia, what we found is that if we build a pipeline and assess the interest prior to having the open positions, we can fill positions quickly, versus waiting to do it all at once. That really was a bottleneck for us, so we wanted to get a feel as to how many people were interested in working in DWSD first before actually having the hiring fair. That way, if a department has an opening, we can quickly schedule someone for an interview, instead of having to have a career fair and
then see who's interested and then schedule them. If that makes sense, it does. You said by I'm trying to figure out, how long do they stay in that pipeline is it's three months, four months, five months.
You know what are we talking about here? Well, we have the career fairs monthly at Durfee and at Detroit at work, so that's ongoing. So a lot of times, and the good question Commissioner Garcia, a lot of times we'll contact people they may have other employment. So when you talk about how long people stay in the pipeline, that's variable. It really depends, but our goal is to act as quickly as possible. Once we have an opening and some of our entry level positions, there's constant churning,
so we generally always have openings here. Okay, thank you. You're welcome any others.
Okay? Here's our planning calendar, and today we're just going to quickly touch on a little bit more of the recruiting aspect and some of the things that we've been doing. And I just want to show you overall how many career fairs we've had in 2020 we did have 48 career fairs, so we kind of fell off a little bit. In 2021 we had 100 we increased back up. The pandemic slowed us down a little bit. And in 2022 you can see how many we had. Excuse me, I'm sorry. And 2020 we had over 48 candidates for our various professional positions, I'm sorry. And in 2021 we had 100 candidates, but fewer career fairs for both of those years. So you'll see we had 13 career fairs in 2022 and 28 and 2023 and we want to put an emphasis on 2024 to date, we've only had 25 career fairs, but we have over 30, excuse me, 3000 candidates. So we are improving our process year over year, and this is how we're able to quickly fill our positions. Are there any questions? I have one more slide to show you, and I'm really excited about this, because this month, on october 17, we're going to conduct our first professional recruiting fair. So in the past, we've been posting on various job boards, on the city's job site, and various news articles. But we're going to do something different this time, and have a career fair for our professional positions, and a few of those positions are listed on the screen, and we're actually going to have members of those divisions present to screen potential candidates. So we're very excited here in HR and with our recruiting efforts. And again, this is on
october 17. Are there any questions? I'm sorry, refresh
my memory on what AB for Community Center is. It's
someplace in Detroit.
I have the address, okay,
I'm not for sure what the AB means, right?
That's what I was asking. Okay, thank you. You're up because I did ask, as well. Commissioner Blackmon, so I can appreciate your question. I did ask. I'm looking for the answer, but I did ask, Where's this?
But it is in Detroit.
I remember the address is in Detroit, okay. Thank you very much that that that AB for Community Center is lower east side, just south of Jefferson. Chalmers. Thank you.
Someone put in the chat
formally the Linux center. That helps,
not for me. Thank you. Anyway, yeah, Linux is the base of, yeah, that's the Lower East Side. It's a very street leading into the river. So that's, that's where
that is, Lenox Street. Thank you.
So we're really excited about this. Yes, any other questions?
Okay, that concludes my report. Thank you very much.
All right, thank you Miss Thornhill.
All right. Are there any other matters?
Once going twice, seeing no other matters. I believe the next item would be
our next meeting is November 6. I'm sorry,
is there a motion to adjourn? Move adjourn.
Mr. Chair board. All right.
Motion's been made and supported. We stand adjourned.
Thank you. Go Tigers today.
Okay, I'd like to resume the Finance Committee meeting, and the first item of business we have
is the approval of the agenda. Is there a motion? Yes, Madam Chair, I move that we
approve the agenda as presented, and I'll support that. All in favor. Signify by saying aye aye. And the next item is the approval of the September 4 2024 meeting minutes. Motion. I so move, and I support it. All in favor. Signify by saying, aye, aye, aye. That motion is approved,
and we'll now move into public participation, and I'll turn it over to
goes through. I don't know if we need to use the announcement again,
but we can open it up for public participation. Madam Chair, I apologize. We do have one hand raised this. Norell Hemphill,
do you want the instructions or go right to ms Hemphill,
okay. The individual, Miss Norell, would you please
you the floors to speak? Yes, good afternoon. Attorney. Norell Hemphill, I had a quick question. I noticed that there were a couple of changes to the lifeline plan, policy document, particularly those that mentioned that arrears would not be will be, excuse me, arrear, forgiveness for enrollment would be limited, or it seemed to be limited to first time enrollment in the lifeline plan. Will there be a presentation on the proposed policy changes, and will there be an explanation of how those policy changes were decided and what the intended outcome
is on those particular policy changes.
Okay, we have a question with respect to policy changes on the new document for
lifeline. Madam Chair, yes, sorry to interrupt. Mr. Phillips, yes, I'm sorry. Yes, I normally not in this meeting, but yes, Miss Deborah pospich will be presenting during the Finance Committee meeting on the proposed changes
to the board today. Oh, okay, thank you. So we'll have information on that in just a few minutes. Meanwhile, we'll continue on our Miss cost Beach is not yet in so we'll continue on our agenda. And are there any other members of the public
who would like to have raised their hand for speaking
Madam Chair.
There are no other hands raised. Thank you, Mr. Peckinpah, so we are going to close out public participation and we'll move on to communications. We've received several items of communication.
Is there a motion to receive and file?
I so move Madam Chair.
Think there's a motion made support the motion. Any questions or comments hearing? None all in favor. Signify by saying, aye, aye. Aye, that motion has passed, and we will move on to unfinished business. There is not we'll move directly into new business. Item, A, A,
is there a motion?
I am looking for it.
Here we go, Madam Chairman, I move that we recommend to the Board of Water commissioners the approval of DWSD contract 600664, with LGC global Inc for assistance with the maintenance exchange and repairs of water meter services For a total contract amount not to exceed $2,500,000 for a term of five years, and authorize the director
to take any appropriate action. And I support that motion. Like to ask Miss Welch to present the
summary of what we're looking at today. Madam Chair, Michelle McKenzie, procurement analyst for DWSD procurement, Maracuja is at a conference, and I am going to present the contracts this afternoon. Wonderful. Welcome. All right. Thank you. The first contract we have before you is for meter installation, maintenance and repair support services. This is a five year, $2.5 million spend with an annual spend of 500,000 this contract assists the meter operations division by achieving service agreement goals and the demands for the Corrective maintenance and related meter exchange work cannot be met with the existing staff, primarily due to the volume of the work that exists. Through the solicitation, it was posted for 38 days, and we received three proposals. The proposals
were evaluated based on their
work their work plan and their organization. LGC was the highest ranked proposer, and there they are a Detroit based and Detroit headquarter business procurement is presenting this
contract to the Finance Committee for approval.
Thank you.
Are there any questions? No, ma'am. Thank you. I have none, either, any other discussion hearing, none all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying aye, that motion is passed and we are going to remand it over to review by the by the board. The next item is Item 8b.
2024, 193, Yes, Madam Chair, I move the committee recommend to approval by the board, Contract Number 6006670, with Major League blasting LLC for fire hydrant blasting services for a total contract not to exceed the amount of $2,250,000 and for a term of three years,
authorizing the director to take any appropriate action. Thank you. I support the motion, and we'll
ask Ms McKenzie to present please. Thank you, Madam Chair. This contract is for fire hydrant painting for three years and 2.2 5 million with an annual spend of 750,000 it will service 15,000 DWSD owned and managed hydrants throughout the city. This contract will provide the following benefits. It helps protect the hydrants from corrosion. It helps provide visibility for emergency responders, and it is a visible neighborhood enhancement. This was a solicitation through a RFB for 39 days. We receive five responsive bids. This is being awarded to the lowest bidder, Major League blasting. Their insurance and clearances are valid, and we ask that procurement is presenting this contract to
the Finance Committee for approval.
Thank you. Are there questions or comments?
Hearing none, all in favor of the motion? Signify by saying aye, aye opposed, same sign, hearing none, and I say aye for the approval. That motion has been approved, and we'll move on to item C, 2024, dash, 194,
uh, Yes, Madam Chair, I would move that the committee approved recommend the approval of, excuse me, DW account, DWSD, Contract Number 6006686, 6006686, with Ajax paving Industries, Inc, for cold patch material for a non contract amount not to exceed $256,500 for a term of one year,
and authorize the Director to act appropriately. Thank you. And I just correct,
I think this is a new
contract amount. Ah, thank you, yep. And
I approve that motion. Miss McKenzie. Thank you, Madam Chair. This contract is for the warehouse, for cold patch, for one year, for 265,500 This is a critical, critical inventory item, frequently used by DWSD crews to help make work sites safe after repairs are completed, often used as a temporary fix until permanent restoration is completed, especially in the winter months, because we can't lay concrete. This was solicitated through a RFB for 22 days. We received two responsive bids. This is being awarded to the lowest bidder. Ajax paving procurement is presenting
this contract to the Finance Committee for approval. Thank you. Any other questions or comments, hearing none all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying, aye, any opposed motion is approved. Thank you. Thank you. MS, McKenzie, we'll now move on to item D, 2024, 195 and this is our June 2024, monthly financial review. And that his name is not here, but I'm assuming
that's Mr. Rahman. It's going to be present. Yes, ma'am, Madam Chair, it's going to be me.
All right, we can have the presentation tomorrow.
All right, next slide please. Okay, good afternoon commissioners and Good afternoon Madam Chair is to Karaman, Chief Financial Officer, today I will be presenting the financial highlights for the month of June. This presentation also coincide with the fourth quarter ending for the fiscal year, FY 24 and therefore I'll have some additional slides here. I'll make my best effort to go through them as quickly as I can. The first update is the year end audit status. Plant and Moran are external auditors. They have started the field work for the financial statement audit for fiscal year ending 2024 currently we are waiting for certain closing entries, especially related to employee benefits from the city of Detroit. These entries are they all come from the city of Detroit because we share the same platform for employee benefits. We are waiting for some of these items, like include compensated absence workers, workers comp and so on. Once these entries are received, we will be able to close our books. The auditors would be able to complete the audit. We are expecting the audit to be completed by December, not just completed, but the final report issued before Christmas. So based on that information in this presentation is preliminary in nature, because they subject to change based on what closing entries come in from the city and what adjustments, if any, the auditors propose the fourth quarter year end budget versus actual revenue is also preliminary. Is not presented in this presentation. Normally, we do it for the fourth quarter, but this fourth quarter being the year end, and pending all the adjusting entries, if any, and the closing entries from the city, there could be changes to the numbers that I'm presenting here. And therefore this variance analysis for the fourth quarter is on hold, and my hope is we I can present this to you in December, when the audits finally closed, next slide. So going through the rest of the highlights for the month of June, for cash and investments, we continue to have adequate cash reserves to support both our operating as well as our capital programs combined. Cash and investment balance stood at $278.3 million at the month of at the end of June, which reflects a decrease of $13.5 million over me, and I'll explain that later in this presentation. When it comes to sales and receivables, our June sales were slightly down compared to may sales down by half a million dollars. The June water retail receipts of $9.1 million kind of fell short of our target receipts by $0.6 million and from the sewer side, our total receipts of $20.8 million also fell short of our target receipts by $3.1 million for the month of June, receivables for all active accounts increased by seven and a half million dollars, to which amounts to 2.7% over over may receivables and the days in receivable increased by three days to 221 days for all active customer accounts, for active residential only, receivables increased by four and a half million dollars, amounting to 2.4% over may receivables and the days and receivables also increased by three days from 354, to 357, days on a combined basis, our June collection rate was 79.9% For all active customer classes, which fell short of our May collection rate of 88.1% even the three month moving average collection rate fell a little bit when compared to May's rate. It stood at 84.6% compared to 94.7% in May volume and revenue, matrix, water volume and revenue exceeded our budgeted expectation by 0.8% and 5% point 9% respectively. When it comes to meter equivalents and survey charges, they both exceeded budget expectations by 8% and four and a 4.4% sewer volume on the other side, both the revenue and the volume fell short of the budget. Budgeted levels by 6% and 0.8% the meter counts and the meter survey charts for sewer exceeded budget levels by 6% and five and a half percent, talking about drainage fees are built impervious acres fell short of our budgeted expectation by 1.1% whereas the revenues associated with those bias fell short by 3.6%
next slide, Tamara,
this is a summary of gas and investments, as I mentioned before, $278.3 million is what we have in on deposit as of June 30. And I did mention that we fell short of our May balance by $13.55 million 9.3 of that shortage was in water and four point and sewer. When you compare the funds, the largest decrease, as you can see in this table, is in the operating accounts for both water and sewer about eight and a $8.8 million in the water fund and $14.6 million in the sewer fund. These were offset by increases of one, $12.8 million in the sewer I any fund, as opposed to the operating fund. The decrease in the watering operating fund is mainly due to the settlement of certain intergovernmental accounts. For example, we paid $6 million in the city of Detroit to settle a purchase of a software for the supply chain model. And we also paid $1.3 million for a quarterly employee benefits our share to the city of Detroit. The decrease in the sewer operating account is mainly due to settlement of a loan between the sewer II and sewer operating accounts. We paid $10.2 million from the sewer operating the sewer in E account by the year end, settle some old outstanding loans. There was also $1.4 million of employee benefit payments that we made to the city of Detroit, and that's a quarterly payment. And we also settled a $2 million payment with glwa for shared services expenses, the balances in both the water and sewer operating funds kind of approximates our three months working capital needs. For water, it's $11.1 million and for sewer, it's 13.9 so kind of hovering around that threshold for operating or operating capital needs. The next few slides are the same information, but in a graphical format, you'll see the big drop in the water cast, and that's because of the $6 million we paid to the city and 1.3 million for the employee benefits to the city and the sewer cast. You'll see a similar fall. This is again payment of that loan to the sewer I need, and then paying $1.4 million to the city for employee benefits. You see when you go to the INE. The next slide here, you'll see that big increase in the sewer, which is because of the loan payment from from the operating account in the water. I any cash, the net decrease is very small, and it's a combination of disbursements for our improvement projects and the reimbursements we received from the state for the through the State Revolving Fund accounts and the grand projects. Moving on to the next slide, which is the construction cash spend upholding steady for both the water and sewer fund as of the year end, there's no significant increase or decreases in these funds, which I think will be a different story three months from now, as we start using some bond money for that service line, we expect this graph to Fall, fall, you know, decline slightly over the next few months. This is water a GL water and sewer cast a glwa. This represents the cash held by JL wa in the trust accounts. Slight decreases in both funds due to the slower collection in the month of for the month of June. Water retail receipts, as I mentioned before, fell short of our target collection slightly. Target collection is 10.1 and we collected 9.1 for for the water fund. I'm sorry, the target collection is 9.7 and we collected 9.1 maize receipts is $10.1 million for the suicide again, we fell short of the target collections of $23.9 million our June collection for sewer side is $20.8 million this is a this represents our cash and investment position by fund, and it's present to you on a quarterly basis. We don't present it every month, but just every quarter in it gives you a comparative analysis of our cash and investment positions by quarters. So there are four quarters here, and you'll see the trend of our cash and investments over the last three quarters as well.
The next slide is our cash and investment position by financial institution. These are the institutions that we hold our cash and investments. And again, this is a quarterly slide that we presented to you so that you get an idea of our cash and investments by institutions over the last four quarters. Moving on to our operating cash quarterly presentation. This is a combination of operating cash, cash held by glwa and trust, as well as the inter fund accounts, and combined, it's called the net operating cash. You'll see that red line, which shows the trend over several months in the past, and you see that big dip here when you look at May and June, and that's all because of the transfers that I talked about, paying off our share of employee benefits, as well as paying for the supply chain module that we owe to the city of Detroit. Overalls, June's net operating cash and interfund amounted to $35 million and it shows an increase of $9 million over the past 12 months. The sewer side is a similar trend, a slightly less decline in the red line, because there wasn't as much of a payment out for to an outside agency. Overall, the June's net, sewer operating cash and inter funds stood at $54.2 million which represents an increase of 18.4
over the last 12 months.
Now we switching gears to receivables. This is our summary of receivables by quarter, as mentioned before, our sales for June fell slightly, and receivables as well, kept rising overall. For all customer classes, it increased by 2.7% and for residential receivables, it increased by 2.4% this is just the detail of the summary I mentioned in the in the beginning of this presentation, we continue to monitor our allowance for doubtful accounts. The net carrying value that you see here, of $58.5 million represents approximately 18% of our receivables at the end of the month, allowance continues to be 82% of total receivables, which is more than more or less similar to what we had in May. Another new slide that we present to you on quarterly basis is our breakdown of receivables by number of days. It's also called the aging report. You'll see here that 46.4% of our total receivable is over one year past due. In addition to that, 30 point 32 point 7 million of inactive accounts are older than a year of the total receivables here of two point 20 $287.1 million 133 to three or 46.4% is over over a year old, and residential receivables make the significant
part of that big that percentage.
Here's a slide that shows you the three month rolling average of our collection effort for all classes of customers. If you look at the residential collection rate for June, it stood at 73.6% this is a decrease from May, when we had 73 both from May as well as April, the three month moving average also continues to decline. So bottom line is, residential collection rate continues to be a concern. Commercial and Industrial collection rate June shows a slight decrease, and the three month moving average continues to be in the mid 90s for government customers, our collection rate continues to be in low 90s. The three month average was 98.7% drainage only customers also continues to be a concern. Our collection rate continues to be in low 70s. Our expectation is high 80s are in the in the 90s, but we continue to be struggling at in the mid 70s for drainage
only customers.
The next few slides, I'm not going to spend too much time, these are graphical presentation of our of our revenues and our water volumes, as I mentioned before, overall year to date, our volume is trending at 5.3% over the budget for water commodity also, we are trending slightly higher when we compare our year To date actual water commodity revenues to the budget, similarly for the sewer side,
even going to go back to
one more, yeah, and then this is the chart for volume and commodity revenues for sewer slightly down compared to the budget, but on a year to date basis, sewer volume is trending at 2.2% over budget, whereas the revenues for sewer is trending at 0.5%
this is the slide For the sewer survey charge and the meters again given again the sewer meter count as well as the revenues are trending slightly over budget.
As of June 30, 2024,
our drainage revenues the BIA, which is the build impervious acres, is at 1.1% below our budget, whereas the year to date, BI is also trending, lowered in the budget by 0.2% when it comes to the revenue side, we are short again. Our year to date, actual drainage revenue fell short by 3.2% of our budgeted revenue. The shortfall is a lot of factors in there. Combination of additional residential credits as well as increase in dream credit. Credits have led to this
change in actual inverses budget.
That concludes the regular but I want to go through this is lifeline. I know we talk a lot about lifeline in the Customer Service Committee presentation, but on a quarterly basis, I bring to you the financial highlights of our lifeline plan. And these numbers will not match Matt's numbers, because Matt presented as of September 29 or 30th, I believe. And but these are the numbers for the fourth quarter, which ended on June 30, 2024 so here as of the year end, which is critical for us to understand is that $40.2 million we have put in our arrears account, meaning when people sign up for lifeline, we put their arrears in a forgiven at enrollment classification, which is at $40.2 million as of June, again, we collected $16.4 million from various sources, whether it's state, regional or federal grants. We also ended up writing off seven, $8.7 million those dollars were written off because the state had told us that those cannot be reimbursed from any funding source or sources, and therefore we had to eat it at that point in time. Currently, we have $15.1 million uncollected in areas, just for the people who enrolled in lifeline as of June 30. The bottom part of the table gives a picture of our gap situation. The gap is the difference between what the actual bill is versus what the lifeline customer pays, whether it's $18 or $43 or $56 whatever is the difference between the actual bill and their their expected bill is the gap areas, which we normally cover throughp contribution. So the total gap areas amounted to $16.3 million since the inception of the lifeline plan, we got paid by wrap about $4.7 million that left us with gap areas itself of $11.6 million so a combination of both the enrollment arrears as well as the gap areas is $26.7 million the alarming thing here is there was $26.7 million as of June 30, and when you looked at Matt's presentation, the number swelled to say $44 million so we are looking at $17 million between June And September. That that's what I call bleeding cash. And that's the concerning part, that we accumulated $17 million more in the areas total arrears between now and September and lifeline account area status, total outstanding balances were $5.8 million for 22,923 customers as of June, people who owed us money in excess of 60 days, there were 8851 accounts. And
that amounted to $2.9 million
snapshot of our the cost that we are bearing for the lifeline plan. Here again, this information is as of June, and will not match what Matt presented. We had 30,000 people protected from shut offs. 24,000 people receiving benefits at that point in time, there was 3700 people, customer accounts, enrolled in payment plans. And I just want to make it clear at that point in time, we did not have the easy pay. Easy pay started end of July, so this is as of June. There are 2000 customers who are pending eligibility for the lifeline and then the middle one tells you the total cost of the program as of June, which is $56.5 million the 40.2 in arrears and 16.3 in gap. Against that cost, we collected $29.8 million leaving us a balance of $27.76 million so overall, the program had cost us $26.7 million as of June 2024 and this is pending any further governmental assistance which we may or may not get
and for before you leave that slide just back, you said the cost is 56.5
and what did you say we've collected against that? We collected
$29.8 million well, did we collect
that or because I see that 8.7 million, yeah. Well, yeah, collection and write off is 29.8 so actual collection is 16.4 and 4.7 this is like just a little over 21 little over $21 million and we had to write off $8.7 million now this $26.7, million which is out there, it's hard to say what, what part of that would be collected going forward, so that eventually will, as Gary mentioned earlier in the in the Customer Service presentation, all of that will be factored into our our bad debt calculations going forward, and if we don't get funding, it will somehow be, you know, baked into our our bad debt collection numbers and our revenue collection
requirement and will reflect In our rates. Currently, those are all booked as receivables, probably the majority
of them over 90 Yes.
And the last slide here is just gives you a snapshot of what funding we are expecting in FY 25 the funding that we know of there is two and a half million dollars in rap every single year. As you know, we contribute to the rap part, as so does glwa. There is complete total amount of three and a half million dollars, and this is net of administrative costs. So in real money, we have two and a half million dollars there. We are expecting $2.6 million from the somewhere, the water affordability grant, which was approved, I believe, in 2023 October, there is also $4.1 million from the water utility affordability grant approved in April of 2024 so all in all, I think we have $9.2 million that potentially could be used towards the arrears. But also keep in mind that we are enrolling new customers starting yesterday, as well as we are recertifying customers who are already in the plan. So all of those, especially the people we are enrolling for the first time, there will be arrears for those people that will be taken off their books or their accounts. So that will also add to the arrears, and that will also
be subject to reimbursement from this part of money. So
so that
kind of completes my presentation. Thank you for our preliminary year end. It was very comprehensive, very thorough. Are there any questions? I do have one? It's probably a comment more than a question, but the bright light here for me was with respect to the our reduction in collections. It seems like we were traveling up, thinking about the graph that you showed, traveling up a steady improvement in collections, but have kind of dropped off fairly steeply as we headed towards year end, and that's kind of at a low level across the course of the year. So just something, I think, simply for all of us to be aware of,
elections are certainly off. Yeah, and that was as of certainly a concern as of June 30. Yes, our easy pay plan started in end of July, and we have not seen the impact of that program yet on our collections. It usually will take 30 to 60 days before people you know have to start paying on their commitment or their commitment under the plan, so I'm hoping that'll increase the collection going forward, and I'll be in a position to report better numbers
next quarter. Yep.
Thank you. Other questions, comments,
no. Ma'am, hearing none. We've just gone through what was due for the planning calendar, which was the June 24 monthly financial review.
Are there other matters to come
before the committee?
No, ma'am, Chair. Thank you. Hearing none. Our next, I'm sorry, there is a, oh, we've got one other item, I'm sorry, 2020, 24 Yeah, 205, we've got Miss pospich on the line. Yes,
I saw her.
Hello, good afternoon. Hello.
Alright, so after this is Deborah pospich. I'm a senior advisor to director Gary Brown. I am working primarily on affordability matters for DWSD, and we've just heard CFO istaker ramen's very sobering report on the cost of lifeline, the amount of rear edges that are still out there. We've made some changes to the lifeline policy for the most part. These are clarifications, but there are some significant changes that will affect currently enrolled customers there. They have options, but there are some changes here that will affect their status as enrolled in the lifeline plan. First of all, I'd like to go to paragraph section six, point 5.1 we wanted to clarify that it's upon first enrollment in lifeline that your arrearages are forgiven. We will use available funds to pay down as much as we can of the arrearages and but any that's still remaining, after we've used all available funds, will be written off. But that's a one time. Only thing upon first enrollment section 6.8 is a new section, and we have learned that members of a household may be eligible for water payment assistance. So if you live in a household with someone that and that household is at risk of service interruption, you can apply for the benefits, and that money that you receive can be applied to the account holders account so we made this a part of the policy to codify that the occupants can help contribute to any arrearages that accumulate after the account holder is enrolled in lifeline. Those are called program arrearages, meaning you accumulated new arrearages when you're in the Lifeline program, so the occupant does not become the account holder. They don't apply for lifeline. It's just that their benefits can be used to pay the account holders program. Arrearages, so that's very important. Next is Section six point 9.4 now this section clarifies that once you're in lifeline, and if you are unable to keep up with your payments, your $18 plus any overage for extra water usage, you may be unenrolled from the program. And if you're unenrolled due to non payment, you cannot be re enrolled unless that debt is paid in full and going back to the prior section 6.8 it may be that someone in your household can apply for some sort of benefits to help you become re enrolled, help cover that debt. It may be that Wayne Metro finds some other money from some other source to help you pay off those rear edges to re enroll. But from dwds perspective, once you are in arrearages more than two months, you will be unenrolled from the lifeline plan. Next is Section six point 11, which flushes out more details about this recertification process. So as you, as you know, the funding source dictates the recertification rules, money from the state their fiscal years from October to September. So October 1 every year, they require us, if we want to use state funding for our program to recertify the household income of people in our program. So as we're doing that, as we recertify people, if they have an arrearage, they cannot be recertified for the program. But again, it may be an occupant can find some funding. It may be that Wayne Metro finds some other source of funding to pay off that program, arrearage so they can be recertified for another year. But if they cannot be recertified, their arrearages cannot be paid. Then they become unenrolled, and if they want, they can enroll into the easy pay plan, and they'll start receiving a regular bill, but they will have to pay off their rear just through easy pay. So this is a significant change the the state funding, we rely heavily on our partners at Wayne metro to exhaust all possible resources to help customers in need. This includes our Lifeline customers, and if there is a customer who cannot afford their $18 bill, that family may be facing some extreme poverty issues that you know go beyond the scope of what the water and sewer department can accommodate, but that's why we have the contract with Wayne Metro. That is their job to look for all possible wraparound services leave no stone unturned to try to keep these customers in lifeline pay off any new ridges that accumulate. So these are the significant changes to the policy, and that is why we're bringing it to the board for approval. These are not just Scrivener changes or clarifications. These are these are material changes to the policy, so I'll pause
here for any questions.
Okay, I see that we have a
handout from Commissioner Kinloch. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, so this change um the with as relates to individuals who are not recertified that they have the option to to go to the previous program. But my concern is, when does the clock starts ticking, as far as the timeline for them to enroll into the other alternative plan? When does the clock starts ticking, as relates to water shut off. You know, is there some Is there a specific time or clock that is, I guess, that is wound down based on when they actually do not from time time
frame when they do not recertify, very good question, if they if they are not eligible to be recertified because they have an arrearage, they will be notified that they're not eligible. They will have at least 60 days to get into easy pay before they will go on to the service interruption list. We can say, in reality, it's not going to be an instant service interruption after 60 days, but but the point is to remain in good standing with DWSD, you either have to pay your full bill, be in Lifeline program as and be fully compliant, or be in the easy pay payment plan you have those. Those are the three options
to stay off the service interruption list. Okay, okay, so we are just now getting to the time frame where we'll start assessing
individuals who actually recertified, right? So Wayne, yeah, Wayne, Metro is October 1. Yesterday was the the start date, and we went we'll have a grace period, most likely of another 30 days, to help them catch up with recertifying all the current enrollees in the lifeline plan simultaneously, they're entertaining applications from new new customers. There's about 6000 last I heard of new people first applying to the lifeline plan. So Wayne Metro has staffed up, and they are going through both processes at the same time new applicants and recertifying
current enrollees.
Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair, thank you, um, I just had a couple of comments you may want to react to ms POS Beach, this and the one it seems to me that there is an opening to continue to support those who are in need of lifeline and qualify with this ability within a household to have someone else apply for the plan and be able to support the main account holder, and so that, I think, opens up opportunity to be supported in a household to the extent the account holder can no longer be supported. And I think that's a good thing. The the other piece that I see is that you know that I'm sensing is that there really is a sense of having those who are enrolled in a lifeline plan or or, you know, just be aware of their timetables so that they don't get kicked out of the program unnecessarily when they qualify for right right piece. So it really is incumbent on those that are account holders to be aware of the timelines and and we can probably do something to remind them, but I will say that's kind of a more
of a self responsibility thing that I also you know our our top notch public affairs team has done substantial outreach, alerting customers to this recertification requirement. Wayne Metro, that is their specialty is notifying customers of deadline dates for benefits, notifying them of their options. So we're always looking for ways to improve the outreach and communication, but we've sent 1000s of letters out just giving everyone step by step instructions how to recertify and letting them know that program
arrearages you don't have to be paid in full.
Thank you. Are there other questions? Let me just in terms of proceeding here, you're expecting a committee to
move to move this on to the full board for review, correct, we would seek that you recommend
this for approval to the full board. Okay,
other questions or comments? I don't have any, but I think we should give everybody, the other Commissioners, an alert that this is coming, so they have an opportunity to review it in
detail before it's taken up by the board. And we can probably, you know, not put this on the consent agenda and break it out as
a separate item and go through it,
break it out as a separate item. Yeah,
that would be appropriate with that. Is there a motion to
approve recommending this to the full board?
Yes. Madam Chairman, I so move and I support it. Are there any other questions or comments hearing? None.
Madam Chair, yes, can they read the motion?
Because we didn't take a move and support that motion. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, could you read the motion? It's right there on the screen. If you can see it.
If you can't, I can. I think I can read it. I can on the recommendation of director Gary Brown, Chief Financial Office officer, iska Rahman, and Chief of Staff, Chief Customer Service Officer, Matthew Phillips. The Board of Water commissioners of the city of Detroit. Water and sewage department hereby approves the amendments of the lifeline plan for water affordability and authorize the director to take all such action as may be
necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote.
And I support that that action for this committee,
okay, all in favor
the motion, signify by saying, aye.
Aye. Any opposed that
motion is approved, and we'll see this in the full board. Now we're at the point of other matters. Are there any other matters for this committee? Not the next meeting is November
the sixth, 2024
and is there a motion to adjourn? I so move. Thank you,
