Board of Water Commissioners, Committee Meetings 4/2/2025 part 1

    5:00PM Apr 2, 2025

    Speakers:

    Keywords:

    Board of Water Commissioners

    agenda approval

    meeting minutes

    public participation

    contract amendments

    DWSD branded products

    legal services

    storm water infrastructure

    soft surface restoration

    GIS support services

    software licensing

    lead service line removal

    financial review

    capital improvement plan

    customer service.

    Commissioner Coleman, President Detroit, Michigan, Commissioner einhauser,

    he is excused, but plans to join us. Madam Chair, we have a quorum. Thank you very much. The first item we have is the approval of the agenda. Is there a motion so moved? Madam Chair, thank you. I'll second that motion. All in favor. Signify by saying, aye, Aye. Any opposed, that motion is approved, and we'll move on now to the approval of the March 5, 2025, meeting minutes their motion.

    Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes as presented.

    Thank you, Commissioner and I second that

    All in favor, signify by saying, aye, Aye.

    Any opposed that motion is approved. We'll now move into public participation. And I am Brian's on so I'm sure that Mr. Peck and Paul will make a an announcement with respect to how public participation will work.

    Thank you, Madam Chair, good afternoon. Brian Peckinpah, Public Affairs Director for DWSD, I'll give the instructions for virtual public comment. To make a comment, please raise your hand by using the raise hand icon on your desktop or mobile device when you're using the zoom app, if you are calling into the meeting by phone, press star nine to raise your hand during public comment. After your name is called, you will be given permission to unmute in order to begin speaking, you will have to unmute yourself to do so, press the unmute button, which is the microphone icon if you're online or on the Zoom app or star six if you are calling in, 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 the phone number will be provided for you. You will only be called upon once. Once the chair closes public comment. There will be no other comments from the public, and all attendees will remain muted for the duration of the committee meeting. Thank you for your attention and Madam Chair, I'm just looking at the attendees. Yes, yeah, Madam Chair, I we do not have any hands raised.

    Okay, I'll ask again, is there anyone here that would like to make public comment? If so, raise your hand

    and seeing none

    and hearing none, we will now close public comment. Okay, our next item is communications, and we have

    one item, 2026,

    2025, 71 is there a motion?

    Commissioner Coleman, I think you're on mute.

    My apologies, Madam Chair, I'd like to make a recommendation to the Board of Water commissioners, item 2025, tax 71 to receive receipt of correspondence attached to the Board of Water commissioners, memo contracts and purchase orders from 5000 to 25,000 April, 2025,

    thank you. I will second that motion to receive the correspondence for file All in favor. Signify by saying, aye, aye,

    aye, any opposed

    motion is approved, and we'll move on to item seven, which is unfinished business, and we have none. Item eight is new business, and the first item we have is item a 2025, 72

    Madam Chair, Commissioner Coleman, I'd like to make a recommendation to the Board of Water commissioners for the city of Detroit water and sewer department authorize the directors to approve amendment number one to DWS do contract number 6005989, with corporate specialties LLC to provide DWSD branded products by adding funds In the amount of $25,000 for a total amended contract, not to exceed amount of $200,000 no change to the scope of work terms and conditions or expiring terms of 1127, 26 this also authorizes directors to take such other actions as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote.

    Thank you. I second that motion, and we have Miss Welch,

    yes, good afternoon. This contract amendment is just to add an addition of $25,000 to the current contract. The contract term does not end until November, 27 of 2026 it's just to allot additional spending for DWSD branded items beyond the scope of what public affairs does when they go out and do community outreach. It allows HR to be able to purchase DWSD branded shirts and materials when they go out to do job fairs and various other public facing activities for DWSD, so there'll be no change to the scope of work or the contract term, or just add any additional money so that Brian's group for public affairs does not have a budget shortfall for their forecast for the remaining duration of the contracts.

    Thank you. Um, are there any questions? Um, I have one. The I see that the term expires, 1127, 26 what was the length of time for the original contract?

    Two years? It was for two years in 175,000

    Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Hearing none all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying, aye, aye. Aye. Any opposed

    that motion is approved,

    and we'll move to item B, 2025, 73 I'll go ahead and make this motion. I would move that the Board of Water commissioners for City of Detroit water and sewerage department authorized its director to approve amendment number one to DWSD contract, 6005968, with Deborah pass Beach, PLLC for legal and consultant services for miscellaneous special projects by adding 150 adding $150,000 in funding for a total amended not to exceed amount of $400,000 and extending the term by one year for a new term ending 630, 26, the Board of Water commissioners also authorized the director to take such other actions may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote

    been moved and properly supported. Miss Welch

    Yes, the contract amendment, as read, is to add 150,000 in an addition of one year to the contract for dead past speech. It's just for the continuation of legal services that she provides, as well as consulting work and special projects that continuously support DWSD. As the board is aware, she does do a lot of the negotiating and federal, state level agreements that DWSD solicits for, and so this is for the continuation of those services and other miscellaneous projects that support DWSD operations.

    Thank you. Are there questions? Comments, hearing? None all in favor of the motion, signified by saying, aye, aye.

    Aye. Any opposed

    that motion is approved. And we'll now move on to Item 2025. Dash, 75 commissioners. Madam Chair,

    I move that we recommend to the Board of Water commissioners the adoption of

    contract number 6007080,

    C, 1995

    with orchid heights and McClintock Inc, DBA Oh hm, advisors for storm water infrastructure program management services for a total contract amount not to exceed $18 million and a term of five years plus two one year renewal options, and authorize the director to take appropriate actions

    support. It's been moved and properly supported. We'll now hear from Miss Welch to give us some additional context.

    Yes, I just want to make one update that we're on item, 2520 2574 and Commissioner einhauser Read the mountain term for the next contract. So I just My apologies. Madam

    Chair, can we take them out of order?

    He asked Mr. Riggs, can we take these out of order?

    This man, what's going on? I'm

    no, no, we skipped ahead. We skipped ahead. Yeah, we can take them, yeah,

    you can still do right just, we can just go back

    right. Thank you. Thank you. Marion, Mm, hmm. Okay, so we're looking at 2025, 75 Thank you, Miss Welch,

    this contract is for five years. It's $18 million it supports DW SD storm water group, DW SD and Great Lakes water authorities are co permits for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit issued by the State of Michigan Egle. This contract ensures that compliance with green storm water infrastructure reduces wet water flows into the combined system. It also supports the joint efforts that DWSD in Great Lakes do to restore water quality, protect public health, and while staying within the city's financial means to pay for new contracts or new projects, we did advertise this contract for bids. It was out for 38 days. We received two proposals, and ohm was the highest ranked proposal. Again, this is a permit that is mandated by dw by the state of Michigan, Eagle for Great Lakes and DWSD to work together to make sure that we have a storm water program in place to help with the combined sewers and keep the water clean and safe. So DWSD procurement is presented to the finance committee to review and recommend to the full board for approval. This contract will also go before the mayor for approval, as well as city council, just due to the threshold amounts and the time of year in the length of years for the contract.

    Thank you. Are there any questions? I do have one. I know that we're jointly responsible under the

    permit, permits and regulatory

    requirements the state of Michigan to share responsibility with glwa. Is this 18,000,005 year term? Is this just our portion?

    Yes, this is just our portion. This is for the consultant works that look at those capital projects and they do the design and the plan and a recommendation for the contracts that will come thereafter.

    Okay, thank you. Other questions, comments,

    hearing, none all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying, aye. Aye. Any opposed that motion is approved, and now we'll move back to item C, 2025, 74 Madam

    Chair, Commissioner Coleman. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a recommendation to the Board of Water commissioners for the city of Detroit water and sewer department, authorizing directors to approve DWSD contract number 6007069, with Dan Kays incorporated for a soft surface restoration service For a total contract amount not to exceed $270,467.54 for a term of 228 days. This also authorizes directors to take such other actions as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote.

    Thank you. Is there support? Support? It's been moved and properly supported. I'm going to ask Miss Welch to provide context for us. Yes,

    this is a short term contract for soft restoration work that will support the DWSD internal led service line project. These soft restoration repairs will be for lead service line work that has already been completed, but to not take away from their general restoration tickets that come in on an annual basis. And so these services provided under this contract is exclusively to go back and restore those homes where we've already completed internally of service on work we did advertise for 32 days. We received three bids, and D and K was the lowest responsive bidder. And so procurement is recommending it to the finance committee to be moved to full board for approval.

    Thank you. Are there any questions,

    Madam Chair, I meant to ask this question on the last item, what is our threshold that can be approved at the Water Board level before it has to go to city council, it varies,

    and I can send it to you, but just overall, depends on if it's for goods, this is for services, if it's professional services, if it's construction work. And so our threshold for city council generally starts at 2 million for goods and services, and then it goes up. It's 5 million, which it caps it for construction services, and that's per fiscal year, so not the entire contract, but how the funding is spent each fiscal year.

    Thank you very much. Appreciate that

    you're welcome. Thank you. Good question. Are there other questions hearing? None, all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying, aye. Aye. Aye, any opposed that motion is approved, and we'll move on to Item 2025, dash, 76, that's item E. Commissioners, yeah,

    Madam Chair, I move that we recommend approval to the Board of Commissioners. Contract 6007082, with technology, technology digest, Inc for an as needed, GIS support services for the total contract not to exceed $475,000 in a term of two years. And authorized the director to act appropriately to implement

    Thank you. Is there support? Support? It's been moved and properly supported. Okay, Miss, Welch.

    This is an IT project, it contract that supports our IT division with their GIS services. This contract will help DWSD with mapping services for various layering of data analytics to monitor trends and assist the Operations Group and engineering teams. The services under this contract will take as built GIS information from our contractor submittals, and help to develop layers which DWSD can use to share with other agencies such as fire, police, Department of Public Works. We did advertise for ba for 30 days. We received eight bids, and technology digest was the lowest responsive bidder. It is a two year contract for 475,000 and procurement is recommending to the Finance Committee to move to full board for approval.

    Thank you. Are there questions? Questions? Comments, hearing none all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying, aye. Aye. Any opposed, a motion is approved. We'll move on to Item F. Commissioners. Madam Chair, yes. Commissioner, I'd

    like to make a recommendation to the Board of Water commissioners for the city of Detroit water and sewer department authorized directors to approve DWSD contract number 6007106, with ow investors LLC, doing business as Mars company for software licensing, maintenance and support services for DWSD meter test benches for a total contract not to exceed the amount of $1.2 million and a term of five years. The Board of Water commissioners also authorizes directors to take such other actions as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote report. Thank

    you. It's been moved and and supported. Miss Welch, yes,

    this is a five year contract which DWSD uses in our meter Operations Division. It tests our new boarder meters, and it also provides testing for the meters that are removed when they are replaced and update. It allows them to see a history of how the meter was functioning to make sure that it was gathering accurate reads. And we also test the new leaders before we installed them to make sure that they're accurately working. This contract also provides licensed software and maintenance and support services for that meter, for that test, that test, test bench meter reading. This contract enables meter ops to do various internal things, and we are looking forward to also sharing the test page with other neighboring cities, such as him, trying to make Dearborn and different things like that for them to be able to test this is a sole source contract, because they are the proprietary of that meter equipment. In the past, DWSD just did regular amendments, like every two years, and we did not negotiate new pricing and or services. This new contract is replacing the existing one, and it did save DWSD about 600,000 in cost if we would have continued to do the amendments, because it was sole source, we will be paying 1.8 million for the next five years, opposed to 1.2 so DWSD is just replacing the existing one with the new agreement with the better terms negotiated for cost and services that meet the needs of the department.

    Thank you very much. Miss Welch, are there further questions or comments? Hearing none, all in favor of the motion. Signify by saying, aye, Aye. Any opposed,

    the motion is approved. We'll move on to Item g20, 2578

    commissioners. Madam

    Chair, let's make sure I'm doing the right one. Yeah, gee, we recommend, I move that. We recommend to the Board of Commissioners the approval of DWSD contract 6007107, with the US Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction assistance for the Detroit led service line. Nine cutting project for a 25% cost to DWSD and a total contract amount not to exceed a million dollars in a term of one year through June 30, 2026 and also authorized the director to do what is appropriate to implement the contract.

    Thank you. Is there a second support been moved and supported? Miss Welch,

    yes, this contract agreement is with the US Army Corps and DWSD. The purpose of this agreement is for them to assist DWSD with the removal of abandoned lead service lines. Historically, when homes were demolished, the lines were put print and left in the ground. This project here will dig up and remove them so that we can protect public healthy health and comply with federal and state lead and copper rules. So the abandoned lines would be removed to ensure that no backflow and or surge of potentially lay attained water will go back into the public water system. This project is actually estimated at 400 I mean, at 4 million, however, dw, SDS cost for this service is only going to be 25% which is 1 million. So the US Army Corps of engineering is going to assist us with doing all of the procurement and federal funding of 3 million to remove approximately 100 and I mean 1500 list service lines, and this is just our share of the portion. So they will be handling all the procurement. They will be getting the contractors. DWC will just be handing over those sites that are have been identified through our GIS system, and so it requires Board approval as well as mayor approval and city council approval as well

    thank you are there questions, Madam

    Chair Commissioner

    This is very interesting is this Is this just for Detroit? Are they doing this across the country? Would you happen to know that answer? I don't have that

    information. Sam, you want. I

    can answer that more question. Good afternoon. Commissioners Sam Smalley, Deputy Director under the Water Resources Development Act that was, I would say, expanded in scope under the Biden Harris, administration It was opened up to assist communities with other water related issues, including lead and copper. So in January of 2023 re we DW wrote a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers asking them for assistance, because the Army Corps has very stringent right of way requirements, the most efficient and effective use of this opportunity would be, as marquesia said, to remove those lead service line fragments that are still connected to the water system for houses that have been removed or demolished. So I think that we were one of the first to request it. It's been a process to work out something that would be efficient and effective for both parties, but getting up to 1500 lines removed will count towards our reducing our inventory of lead lines.

    Incredible. Thank you.

    We're hoping that this can become an annual appropriation as well.

    Thank you. I see that director Brown came off mute. Did you have additional comments?

    Oh, thanks for the opportunity Sam covered it. He covered it. Okay, thank you.

    Any other questions or comments,

    hearing none all in favor of the motion signify by saying, aye,

    any opposed

    that motion has been approved. Thank you very much. Miss Welch, we'll move on now to item h, which is the January 2025 monthly financial review, and I do see that we have our CFO. Mr. RAMAN on I'm going to turn it over to you for that review. Yeah,

    thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners and good afternoon. Madam Chair, Mr. Karraman CFO, DWSD, today I'm presenting the January financial highlights.

    So moving on to the first slide.

    We'll start with overall cash position for DW st, and then operating cash. We continue to maintain reserves enough to cover our operating and capital programs as we move along on a system wide, basis our cash and investment position stood at $290.6 million this will cover all our cash accounts including operating improvement and extension which we call in. Three construction and the trust accounts that's held by glwa, $133.3 million of that two 90.6 is in the water fund. And 115 I'm sorry, 157.3

    in the sewer fund.

    Overall, it represents an increase of $1.8 million when we compare it to the previous month, water operating cash had $12.3 million a slight increase compared to our previous month. This $12.3 million equals three months working capital, which we prefer to keep in our in our bank account, so as to cover. You know, for the next three months, if there is any need for it, that amount is approximately $4 million a month. For the sewer fund. It's slightly higher the three months operating expense needs is approximately $5 million a month. So about $15 million what we have in the sewer. Operating cash is $22.7 million it's a little bit over our

    three months cushion.

    The next slide summarizes our cash position and our improvement and extension fund water. I any cash amounted to 28 point 1 million. Sorry, $21.8 million at the end of the month, a decrease of five and a half million dollars over December. The decreases due to disbursements we make for our various capital programs, expanded capital projects, including the lead service line. This balance tends to move up and down depending on at one point in time, we get reimbursed from our funding sources. Sewer, on the other hand, is just the opposite. We had an increase of $4.2 million that's stood at $45.1 million and that's because by the cut off date, which is for the month of January, we received reimbursement for our SRF projects construction fund. No significant change. So we'll just move on to the next this is the cash held in trust, held by glwa on our behalf. This had a thread, $31.4 million in the end of January, an increase of 1.1 million over December. Retail water receipts and the money we collect from our customers, 11.3 millions in January exceeded our target collection by 1.1 so our target collection for the month, for the water fund, is $10.2 million this receipt also increase exceeded our December collection by $1.4 million sewer had $43.6 million at the end of January. This also had an increase of $1.3 million when we compared to December, retail receipts for the sewer Fund had $26.4 million in January. Also exceeded our target collection by $1.3 million for the sewer the target collection is slightly higher, and instead it stands at $25.1 million

    moving on from cash to our receivables,

    January sales of $37.8 million had a slight decrease by $3.2 million roughly 8% compared to December. This is mainly due to an adjustment we made to our sales for government customer class, sales in all other customer classes remain fairly consistent compared to the previous one. Government sales decreased due to a resolution of a meter issue at Bell Isle, which was fixed in January of 2025 the impact of this issue was roughly $1.8 million receivables overall, of $300 million for all our active accounts, increased by $1.2 million roughly 4% January's cash collect. Cash collection was little bit better compared to December, we had $35.6 million on an increase of $1.7 million when we compared to December, active active residential accounts continue to increase for the month of January, we had a $2.3 million increase, about 1.1% although The days and receivables decreased by 14 days in January. Allowance for doubtful accounts is approximately 77% of the total receivable balance. We continue to make allowance for any uncertainty in collectibility of our receivables, so that amount is fairly consistent with the previous month. In the midst. 70s. This includes tax roll as well as inactive accounts, a snapshot of our collection rates historically over the last three months. It's a three month moving average. Residential collection rates for the last three months average around 78% January, as I mentioned before, had a slightly better collection rate compared to the previous month. Our January collection rate for residential customers increased to 86.1% compared to 73.5% in December and 75.5% in November, which certainly is a very positive sign. Commercial and industrial customers continue to be strong. Our three month rolling average remain consistent in high 90s, drainage only collection rate for January also increased to 74.2% compared to 70 in in December. The three month rolling average is at 67.5% and is considered low compared to other customer classes and our expectations based on nationwide averages, residential and drainage collection continues, continue to be a concern for us. We're making all efforts with different kind of programs to increase our collection there, the January's overall combined collection rate for all active customers stood at 87.2% and was higher than December by a few percentage points. The three month moving average rate for all our customer classes was 83.5%

    pretty comparable to December, 83.8

    switching gears again, moving on to our matrix and for our commodity sales, January, actually, volume fell short of the budget by 3.54% and was also less when we compared to December, the last month and January of 2024 The fall is really reflected here is because of an adjustment We made to our MCF based on a fixing a meter issue that I mentioned before, on a year to debate date basis, actual volume was 2.1% under seasonally adjusted budget. This is also impacted by the adjustment we made December. Actual commodity revenue exceeded the budget by six and a half percent, but was little bit lower when we compared with December and January of 2024 on a year to date basis, commodity revenue was just 0.1% under seasonally adjusted budget.

    Moving on. Nothing unusual here. We had a positive variance for both the water meter equivalents as well as service revenue, increasing by roughly 3% across the board for both the meter equivalents as well as the service charge revenue compared to the budgets.

    Sewer commodity matrix is

    short of the budget by 12.3% again, as I mentioned before, an adjustment we made in December. It's a one time adjustment. So you'll see this fall, both in terms of our zero volume as well as our revenues, because of an adjustment made without the adjustment, obviously, the percentage differences are not as much as it's shown here, so since it's a one time adjustment, we'll just move on from here and hoping that sales, as well as volume, would be pretty consistent with the previous months, as well as with the budget.

    No concerns here for sewer survey, charge matrix and revenues on an overall basis, we have showing a 4.3% excess over our budgeted numbers, both for sewer counts, meter counts, as well as the sewer service charge revenues. So nothing unusual here.

    It's exceeding our expectation by roughly 4%

    and finally, our chart on our drainage charts, matrix and revenue, our BIA, which is the billable impervious acres, exceeded the budget by 0.3% was lower by 0.8 compared to December and 0.33%

    over January up to. 24

    on a year to date basis, we are pretty much at par with the budget, which is a difference of 0.1% actual drainage revenue, however, is falling short of the budget, and mainly because of an adjustment we made to one of our major customers, there was $1.4 million drainage credits given in January that actually reduce the actual revenue for the month. Again, very unusual, a one time adjustment. We just need to probably next month will be, hopefully at par with the budget on an overall basis. As a result of that adjustment as well, we have four and a half percent below budget so far in the fiscal year.

    So this was short.

    I'm done with my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

    Thank you very much for that January review. Are there any questions or comments? Well, okay, thank you. No questions on the read on the January review. I think in terms of our agenda, we're at planning calendar, and the only item we had for January was the monthly financial review. Do you have any other comments on the planning calendar? No

    comments. No comments, no changes to the planning calendar. Madam Chair, thank you.

    Item number 10, any other matters to come before this committee? Hearing? None. Our next meeting is scheduled May 7, 2025, and I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

    So moved Madam Chair. Thank you.

    It's been moved and supported. We are adjourned. Thank you.

    Okay, so the next meeting, the CIP doesn't start till 145, so we have A few minutes, about eight minutes.

    Thank you. You're Welcome.

    Commissioner Coleman,

    yes, time now is 145

    I would like to call the capital improvement program and Operations Committee meeting to order roll call please. Chairperson Coleman, President, Detroit, Michigan.

    Commissioner Davis present,

    Detroit, Michigan. Commissioner Kinloch

    present, Detroit, Michigan.

    Mr. Chair, we have a quorum. Thank

    you, commissioners, always good to see you. Be careful. Commissioner kenlock, looks like you're in the car.

    Oh no, I'm out of cemetery. I'm fine. Okay,

    excellent, excellent. Next I'd like to call for approval as the agenda, as presented please,

    with any necessary corrections, support,

    it has been moved and supported. All in favor. Signify by saying, aye, please aye, any opposition, Any abstentions, hearing, none. This motion passes. Line item number four, approval of the minutes from March, 5, 2025, as presented commissioners, what's your pleasure?

    Mr. Chair, I move approval.

    It has been moved. Commit second support. It has been moved and supported. All in favor. Please signify by saying, aye, aye. Any oppositions, Any abstentions, hearing, none. This motion also passes. Line item number five, public participation. Do we have anyone that has any comments or concerns?

    Mr. Chair, Brian, pet public affairs director, and I do see attendees, but I don't see any hands raised at this time.

    Okay, all right, going once, going twice. Thank you, Brian. Moving on to next. Item number six, communications, I see we have none. Number seven, unfinished business, none. New business. Line item A, 2025, tac, eight, zero, CPI, FY, I, 20, excuse me. FY, 26 to 2030 our budget. April 2, 2025 Yep,

    good to see you again. How's it going? Good?

    How are you great?

    Great. So good afternoon again. Commissioners, good afternoon. Mr. Chair. I'll be presenting the capital improvement plan for the five year planning cycle, as well as the FY 26 capital budget. Today, we'll start with the first slide. It's a summary at a very high level of our five year plan as well as our FY 26 capital budget. You see here the FY 26 to 30 CIP plan provides for $542 million in water system improvement and $819 million of sewer improvements over the next five year planning cycle. This is a total capital commitment of $1.4 billion over the next five years for both the water system as well as the sewer system. When you look at the capital budget, just for the FY 26

    we are planning for $274.9

    million investment in our infrastructure. This would be inclusive of water to the tune of 100 and $15 million and sewer, close to 100 and $60 million just for 26

    also, the chart tells you 66.5%

    of our five year budget is for water main and sewer line replacements and related projects. These are all infrastructure related projects, planning, design and construction. Approximately $152.1 million have been committed to lead service line over the next five years. Also, $240 million are also planned for storm waters infrastructure projects

    over the next five years.

    Next slide is a summary of our of our kind of revenues and expenses, the cash inflows and cash outflows. You'll see that the left side of that slide summarizes the water in the fund, as well as the bond fund. And the right side is the sewer. It tells us about where the funding is coming from, namely, grants, State Revolving Fund or lease payments. And the mid section tells us about where we are trying to expand this money in terms of lead service line, other capital projects, information technology projects or facilities improvement, so the revenues equal the expenses, but they kind of summarizes by source. The first part is in the second part is water fund, bond fund. This is bond money that we intend using for. Capital projects. There's

    $35 million expected,

    I'm sorry, $38 million expected outlay just for the bond fund in the water sector and the sewer side. Similarly, we have different sources of funding here, including grants and state revolving funds and i and e, the midsection is telling me about the various categories of expenditures where we are intending to spend our revenues, and the bottom side is the bond outlay $24 million in the sewer fund that we expect to spend out in 26 The next slide is a summary of funding sources all these expenditures, and these are the funding sources where the money is expected to fund our projects, just for 2526 you'll see $34.6 million million dollars we are expecting in grant money. 16 point 5 million of the 34.6 is really for lead service line replacement, and 18 point 1 million is for water main replacement projects in the sewer fund. Again for 2526 we have $84.2 million roughly, in grant money expected in FY 26 60 million of that is for alley sewer project. 7 million is for the bright more phase one project, and $5.2 million is for the Jefferson Chalmers sewer upgrade project. The balance in here for the grant funded projects, represents various projects throughout the sewer fund. I just want to caution here that these are planning numbers. We are anticipating these grant funds to be coming our way in 26 but given the given the current environment in the current administration, at the federal level, there's a little bit of an uncertainty in terms of, are we going to get these grants or not? But for planning purposes, these are some of the commitments that that the federal government made, and based on those commitments, we have made arrangement or made provision in our CIP plan for funding our capital infrastructure. The next few slides are very detailed description of our projects. It summarizes each project by the contract number as well as the funding source, if it is an A or an N or a P, A stands for an active projects, and stands for project that's new. And if there's a p, it means it's in procurement process, the funding source and as well as the total project cost in what has been approved by you, the committee as well as the board, through June 30, 25 and then it spreads out the next five years anticipated expenditures for the five year planning cycle. So there's a slide. There are slides for water projects as well as sewer projects, not going to go line by line, but it's there for your review. Also in the slides, we have broken down our total IT projects, as well as projects for acquiring vehicles and heavy equipment and all the projects that relate to facilities improvement that we are planning for the next five year cycle.

    At the end of this,

    we are expecting that you would approve it and then recommend it to the full board for approval on April 16. There is a resolution here at the as the next item, but basically that's the presentation, and I'm here to answer any questions.

    Are there any questions at this time?

    I have not. I'm sorry, author, I have none.

    Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

    You're welcome.

    Next item up is,

    I see we have a

    an agenda, Item, line item B, 2025,

    dash, 83

    commissioners, what is your pleasure?

    Yes, Mr. Chair,

    yes, I move that the committee recommends to the Board of Water commissioners to approve the proposed five year capital improvement plan for the fiscal year 26 2020, 20 to 2030, to 2030, for the water supply system in the amount of 542,000,350 $350,000 and for the war and for the sewage disposal system in the amount of 819,000,040 40,000 $40,000 respectively. And the fiscal year 2026, capital budget for the water supply system and the amount of $115,260,000 and for the sewage disposal system in the amount of $159,650,000 respectively. And that further authorize the director and chief fiscal officer to take such other action as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote.

    Mr. Chairman, I support.

    It has been moved and supported. All in favor. Please signify by saying, aye, aye. Any abstentions, any no votes, hearing none. This motion passes. So I see there's an attachment to this. I'm assuming we just went over this, the 26 tech 30 CPI budget,

    yeah, these are all the projects that are attached to the presentation. Okay? Thank

    you very much. Thank you.

    Item number nine, planning, calendar,

    review and approval. Five year, dw, SD, CIP, fiscal year, 2026, to 2030

    Yeah, that's what we just did, Commissioner, there are no other changes to the planning calendar.

    I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Are there any other matters to be brought before the body at this time,

    seeing none.

    I ask for a motion to have this our next meeting, excuse me, scheduled for May 7, a motion to adjourn, please.

    So moved Mr. Chair

    support.

    Oh, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

    So our next meeting is not to 215 I

    back to the everyone on their pop this is that

    hope I can do the same.

    What meeting is that customer

    service is coming up next.

    At 215 Did

    you hear Me? Commissioner Ken La I

    I started to. Meeting, Okay, You

    Hmm,

    Good afternoon Commissioner Garcia, Hi,

    how are things you

    I believe it's 215,

    in a minute. One minute. Okay? Thank you.

    My watch is a little better.

    How you doing today? Madam Chair, I'm

    doing very well, my dear,

    very well, a little bit, but too much to do. But that's any of us. I

    Okay, Commissioner Blackley, you

    very much. I'd like to call to order the customer service committee, so moved. Madam Chair, thank you very much.

    We need a roll call.

    Chairperson, Blackmon present, Detroit. Commissioner forte present, Commissioner Garcia present.

    Madam Chair, we have. Call.

    Thank you very much. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda your motion

    before you vote

    moved and supported any discussion hearing, none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carried. The next item is the approval of the minutes of March 5. Is there a motion so moved? Madam Chair, moved by Commissioner Garcia, seconded by the board 14. Any discussion on the minutes hearing? None. All those in favor of approving the minutes of March 5, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carried. The next item is public participation. Is there anyone who has indicated a desire to speak before this committee?

    Madam Chair, there is one hand raised.

    Actually, there's more than one now, uh huh, and that's the first one. Madam Chair, especially McClellan.

    Do you want to read the public comment in case they were not present earlier?

    Yes, I can do so, because I did see that there's some new folks online. Okay to make a comment, please raise your hand using the raise hand icon on your desktop or mobile mobile device using the zoom app. If you are calling into the meeting by phone, press star nine to raise your hand during public comment. After your name is called, you will be given it permission to unmute. In order to begin speaking, you will have to unmute yourself to do so, press the unmute button, which is the microphone icon if you're online or on the Zoom app or star six if you're calling in, you will have a limit of three minutes to make your comment. There will be a timer indicating your remaining time on the screen. 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 a phone number will be provided for you. You will only be called upon once. Once the chair closes public comment. There will be no other comments from the public, and all attendees will remain muted for the duration of the committee meeting. Thank you for your attention. And again, Madam Chair, the first person is Cecily McClellan,

    thank you, Mr. Pickenpaugh, Miss McClellan, welcome.

    Thank you very much for this opportunity again. Cecily McClellan, we the people of Detroit, and I'm calling because I we continue to be concerned about the enrollment process for the Detroit Lifeline program. As we've indicated, there has been a letter that has been going out to lifeline or former lifeline applicants, indicating that they are missing documents. The letter is coming from DWSD Matt Phillips, indicating that the reason they were denied was as a result of missing documents. We have had the opportunity to contact Wayne Metro in regards to missing documents, and they have no record of that denial. What they say is that clients now are being enrolled based on a list that they received from DWSD. This concerns me, because we know that there's been a drastic reduction in funding at the height of lifeline. We know it was approximately 67 million available currently is our understanding about 11 million, which would service approximately 11,000 residents annually. Based on the your web page, it indicates that there are still over 12,544 enrolled in lifeline. But in reviewing your current report, Customer Service Report, there's an indication that there are only 8139 that's a difference of over 4000 residents. But it also brings to mind that Wayne Metro indicates that they're not enrolling any new residents into lifeline, based on the numbers that we're looking at, and based on the report you're going to present today, there appears to be some room to admit some new clients. So our concern are one, I mean two elements. One, how are clients being enrolled in this process? How do a resident get on the list that appears to be supplied by DWSD based on Wayne Metro's report, and is there availability on the Lifeline program based on the numbers that is in the Customer Service report, and I hopefully you can address those concerns. Thank you very much. Welcome.

    We're going to ask for the remainder of the.

    Comments to be made before we do any response.

    Okay, madam chair, the next person is Narelle Hemphill, thank

    you, Miss Hemphill, welcome.

    Miss Campbell, can you hear me?

    I can now. It took a minute for the mute button to appear. Good afternoon attorney around Hemphill. I have the honor and privilege of serving as the Legal and Policy Manager We the people of Detroit. I just want to underscore everything that Miss McClellan was saying, and also raise that we are see starting to see a lot of the tension and devastation that these rate increases and the diminishing of the lifeline plan is happening. What the effects of what is happening in the community, amongst residents that we run into, there's a lot of panic and concern that their water will be shut off and what that will mean for them. A lot of uncertainty about whether they are in or not in the lifeline and what their bill is or isn't. Some people still say that they never received any notifications in their water bills about recertification. That the only way they found out was by calling in and asking Wayne Metro, some people receive text messages to recertify. So I think that, you know, there's, there needs to be some type of level setting with community, so community knows exactly what is happening, how it's happening. We definitely need more transparency for this transition process, because it just seems to be the more people we talk to, the more stories we get, excuse me, and the more questions we have. So we know that the Lifeline program was a temporary program, a temporary assistance program based upon available funding, and now that DWSD is working to continue the program, knowing that we don't have a lot of those federal funds that became available with Lifeline, there needs to be some transparency in this process. As we go from a lifeline to as we transfer people from lifeline to regular billing, we know that easy pay is not an assistance program, and instead is a bill payment process. You know that that replaced the 10, 3050, billing process, which was not a good way to manage the the bills and arrears. So easy pay is a little bit better, given that it does allow residents 36 months to pay off those arrears. But again, if people cannot afford their water bills, they cannot afford their arrears on top of that. So again, we need to figure out a way to make these water bills affordable for all residents at Detroit. Thank you. Thank

    you. Are there any other

    customers with, or people with with their hands raised, or wish you before the committee, Madam

    Chair, there are no other hands raised, oh, oh, just as I said that, mister Tamiko Williams raised his

    hand. Okay. Mister Williams,

    yes. Hi, good afternoon, King. This is Damico Williams. I'm the Chief Executive Director of hydrate Detroit. Um, I just wanted to get a few answers for check in again, I'm going to throw myself on the body of this table and ask this board to not go forward with shutting off water this year, I am asking that you all do not move in the direction and offer people opportunity as they should. You know, people getting their taxes in the water department has not created any incentive. I'm tired of being fought about this. I'm tired of excuses, but I'm tired of going back and forth with this board with all I wanted to do was to come and work together with this board so that we can assist Detroiters in a fashion that's not fear, inflammatory, or also putting them in further danger, or also in any type of of scaring. I understand you all have financial issues, and the more I pray, the more I continue to try to offer solutionary you. Uh, advice, plans and and even collaboration. But the continuing wall and barrier among the community and DWSD has gotten so large and tall. You could claim that we're all working together, but I don't feel that way. You can claim that you're talking to me, but I haven't been reached. I haven't been reached out by anybody since I offered myself two to three months ago to come up with a plan to work with people and paying their water bills and not being shut off in light of the lifeline being paused. And also, I have not heard from anyone this department, Wayne Metro, or any of the advocates, to have a special meeting so we can all come together and nip this in the bud, so we're not arguing back and forth across this table this summer. In regards to this situation, all I'm seeking, and imma continue to seek, is a solution. I still want water amnesty for the city of Detroit, 30 to 50% off water bills, especially for the first month, and also for residents that have been paying their bills to get relief. Pte has been choking us. We have to worry about paying them and then the water. I mean, after what you all done in southwest Detroit, which is commendable, I would hope that would go Ruby Riley and Auntie Nay, they should have their basements and their furnaces replaced. That's unfair that you're going to replace southwest Detroit and make them whole. But residents from the 2016 2021 2022 floods have not been made whole. I would hope that there will be a solution and a plan for that. Thank you. Is there anyone

    else who wishes to thank you for the committee?

    Madam Chair, there is Gwendolyn Howard. Gwendolyn Howard,

    Miss Howard, welcome

    Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. And I won't be repetitious on my colleagues from we the people of Detroit, water peeps division, but in in that continuing, in that conversation, as we happen to have a neighborhood group that time that was concerned that a lot of them had gotten cut off the Lifeline program, but not understanding why, and not understanding why, because we were in a group setting, we got to make a call to Wayne Metro, and as we asked the questions to the service person that answered the phone, she finally said, Look, we're not taking any more applications. We didn't have anything to do with that letter that they have that they didn't turn in their information. We did not we are not taking any Redeterminations at this time, and that's the end of this conversation. With that being said, we did get to solicit them to do the easy pay, because they were coming off the Lifeline program. They didn't have big, large balances right now, right now on their water bill. But their concern is, since I did everything right and I had figured this into my budget, what am I supposed to do moving forward? Well, we asked that a couple of weeks, I mean, at last month's meeting, thinking that you were going to give it to us in writing or tell us something, because that was your response, and you didn't bring it up at the beginning of this meeting either. So we're still don't know what to tell our residents in our community about this water situation. Things are just we understand, but getting them to understand that they don't want their bill to start building back up and their income didn't change. What? What are we to tell the residents moving forward? Because, like I said, the lady said that your name wasn't on this Oh, that was the other thing. She came back and said, your name is not on this list. You have to contact DWSD, and what list is that because, and how did they get on it? Since they said that, they turned in all of their information, they had copies and and even an email confirmation, but nothing moved. Nothing happened moving forward. So yeah, we're we're hacking on this because they're asking us, and we don't work for DWSD, but we work with DWSD, so therefore, give us some directions, or some directives to tell these customers thank you for taking my call. Thank you, Miss Howard,

    is there anyone else who's asked to speak before the committee?

    Madam Chair, she was the last public commenter. Thank you,

    Mr. Phillips, I'm I'm trusting that we're going to address some of the concerns that we were raised during public participation. I think we've covered some of those things before, but evidently our customers are not getting the same information we're sending out. I I would hope that we'll be. Able to clear up some of the confusion, the misunderstanding and the customer's frustration when we get into your report. Yep,

    Madam Chair, if you'd like I can. I can certainly respond to, I think, the the majority of the questions that were asked, if you

    I would like to you if you can. Mr. Philip, yes,

    all right, if you you said you would like me to Madam Chair, yes, please. All right, I'll kind of go down. I made some notes. So of the question, so I'll just kind of go down the list. So in this, this is my response back. So first of all, dw, SD, does not make the determination of eligibility for lifeline. The determination is made by Wayne Metro. Wayne Metro is empowered to make that decision, which is given by DWSD. Wayne Metro uses the state of Michigan's determination process. It's a system called M, power, E, M, P, O, W, E R. That system is what all applicants use to apply for lifeline. That system is managed by the state of Michigan. It determines eligibility of each individual person that applies based on their income, their household size, as well as all of the documents that they need in order to determine that eligibility is uploaded into the Empower system. If all of those documents are not made available to the Empower system, Wayne Metro cannot make determination, so the system that the state of Michigan offers actually makes the determination and states whether or not all documents have been supplied, whether or not the income is valid or eligible for the program. So that that's number one, number two. Mister

    Phillips, yes, let me stop you there, because that was one area that evidently there is some confusion. Can you hear me? Okay, I can hear you, okay. That there is some confusion about the process for keeping either getting, keeping customers on the Lifeline program, and who has the responsibility? I know the people that were speaking today have been in contact with you, and you have been communicating, meeting with them, and communicating the process. So what is the what from your perspective, what is the confusion between what their, what our friends advocates are are saying, and what is actually happening? Matt

    before you, Matt, before you answer that. Can we I just want to get one other point in also on that, on that same line. Thank you. Director, is this a new system for customers that's different than it was in past years. No, sir,

    it's been in place at least for the last 24 months. So if anybody's been on the program, and this is what this this is what they're concerned about, and their concerns that they're raising is about the recertification process to be on the program before they had to use this system. It's also the same system that they use for for DTE when they're applying for their assistance program, which is through the LIHEAP program. All of this all uses the same system, which is the Empower system. It is, to my knowledge, nothing that's new. No,

    yeah, I'm talking about Empower itself. It was my understanding that, let's say, in the last two years, that that application was changed and it's a new process, but you're saying it's not. It's been, it's been around for a decade or more. No,

    no, no, no. The Empower has been around for just a couple of years, 24 months. Okay,

    all right. I just wanted to be clear about that part. Thank you.

    Well, before you go any further, though, do our advocates understand how this works, how our program works, how customers are notified and recertified, and the process for doing that? Because what I'm hearing is some area of confusion about the process. Madam Chair, Yes, Commissioner,

    I think one of the biggest concerns, maybe, is that communication that's going on between the complaints that we're getting. I think, I think we do whatever we can do. I think it would be important if Matthew or the director would call Wayne Metro and get a little meeting together to find out, are they really out of money? And that's why they're denying people, have they used up all their money? You know, there's a lot of things that we don't know because we're not part of Wayne Metro. So I think that that would be really and patient for us to go that one step further and meet with them and find out if the process has changed. We may have not been notified, had and the communication between us and the people that are applying and complaining that they haven't recertified. Did they miss something at their application? Can they appeal? Process, all of that is something I think needs to be really dedicated to, the information, to getting out to the community. I think that that would be at least we're doing our part. I think

    Commissioner Garcia, I can certainly respond to that. And that is, I have said it, at least since mid December, yeah, every month the funding has been exhausted. Wayne Metro's message has been since December 5, on their phone system that at this time, are no longer accepting applications due to the fact that funding is exhausted. If additional funding becomes available, we'll let you know. The letter that I sent, which was done on behalf of Wayne Metro, said the exact same thing, as funding becomes available, additional residents may become eligible for the program. So it's it's in there. We even took the additional step of enrolling every customer that was not or every resident that was not eligible or could not make it into the Lifeline program. We I'll use the air quotes of auto enrolled them into the easy pay program to try to give them an additional benefit of keeping their water on and in a way, to manage their system. But again, funding is exhausted. I'll say it as loud as I can. Funding is exhausted at this time i i have our entire organization that works on Lifeline has weekly meetings, and it's not just once a week, it's numerous times a week with Wayne Metro. To keep updated on this, we continue to have it every single week, including this week. Funding is exhausted. I asked the question on Monday at 330 when we had our last meeting with Wayne Metro, and at this time, there is no additional funds coming from the state of Michigan for the water assistance program. They know that Wayne Metro is out of funding. If additional funds become available, they've told the state of Michigan, we would, you know, they would accept the funds if nobody else in the state is spending them and other areas. In fact, we even heard the the unfortunate news this week that the the federal at the federal level, the law he program, which is the big brother to lie whoop in the water funding program, the low income housing energy efficiency program, the entire Federal staff has been eliminated from LIHEAP, effective yesterday morning. And that program has been available since August 13, 1981 1981 I'll just repeat that. And now it's been the staff has been eliminated. So yep, I just say that. That, you know. And again, the other question that came up, sorry, I'm just going to keep going to keep going down the list, the difference between 12,008 1000 in the month of February? Yes, 10,000 I'm sorry, 12,000 individuals were receiving the lifeline benefit that was done as a courtesy by DWSD until Wayne metro was able to process all of the applications and review everyone that applied through the Empower system. We do know now today that there is 8136 as my report today states, that is for the month of March. Those are individuals that received the lifeline benefit in the month of March. That's the difference between the two February going into March. So that's all that the funds were available for. As far as a list being provided by DWSD, DWSD does not, does not provide a list of who is eligible for lifeline. That list comes from the Empower system as well as Wayne Metro. We do not make that determination in the Empower system that is done by Wayne Metro. We do not provide a list. In fact, Wayne Metro provides us a list on a weekly basis to tell us who has become eligible for the Lifeline program, and then we put we apply that to the billing our DWSD billing system of who receives the $18 or the lifeline benefits. So the list actually comes from Wayne Metro, not from DWSD. So this is, this is on record. So I just want to make that, make that clear. Mr.

    Phillips, oh, I just got one question, just to clarify, because I also heard a use of a word that I want to make sure we're clear on and that if we can clarify that for everyone that there are recertifications, and the recertifications are also those who are attempting to recertify, the funds are exhausted, yes, And so if you think you've got a safe spot or a safety net, just because you're going to be recertified, that is not that is not happening. It's the funds are exhausted. Is that correct?

    There is there at this point in time, there will be no further individuals added to the Lifeline program due to the fact that. The the funds available to allow that benefit to happen, the lifeline benefit have been exhausted. Does that? Does that answer the question that

    answers my clarifies for me, recertifications. There is no there are no funds. And

    if we're we want to be very specific about recertifications. We can also be specific about somebody that's net new, never been on lifeline. There is no funds available for that either.

    So, yeah, that's what I heard. I'll just add that extra.

    I'll add that extra piece in there, in case somebody thinks that's a loophole. I

    just wanted to be clear for myself, because I don't know if I yeah, thank you.

    Maybe, Madam Chair, I think that that information needs to be given out to the community that that it does. You know, my understanding is that it doesn't matter if you've had been on lifeline, if there's no monies. I mean, it doesn't matter whether you apply or not there is any funds available. And that happened to the repercussion of what happened in Lansing last year. And I think that we can. We can ask metro to go to the governor and see if there's anything in their budgets that they could look at, but I think the information needs to be out there to the community so they're not taking the blame on, on, on you all, because I think that that's what's happening. I think they don't see a separation between Detroit, you know, water department and Wayne Metro, because they're the ones that are the fiduciary taking care of this issue, you know. So I that's my biggest concern that I see

    to Garcia as as I understand, the communication has gone back and forth with our advocates and our communities and the department that information has been given over and over. It's just that it's not being accepted.

    I think that's it. I think we just gotta, you know, I'm

    have great sympathy for those who are trying to help others and as as we are as well. But I don't know what else we can do but state the facts as they exist over and over. Which is, which is what I understand we are doing with all of our advocates and with our with our customers,

    well, and the other and the other thing, I think Madam Chair, that's real important. Maybe Mr. Phillips can clarify it is, is we need? I think that's why we need to push that other program that says, you know, you apply for a, b and c. And I think that that really important, that they pay their bill. And then every month that program I need, I think may be the only solution. Am I correct?

    You don't let easy pay, easy pay

    Yeah, if you're talking about Commissioner Garcia, if you're talking about the easy pay program, yeah, yes. I mean that that is a that is, it's

    one solution. That's all I'm saying. Maybe we need a

    solution, right? It may not be the solution. No, it can't be the only solution, but it right? It is another solution. And again, I'll just repeat it one more time. Anybody that all the residents that applied for lifeline, that received the letter to say you didn't get into lifeline because the funds have been or, I'm sorry, because they they they were missing documentation, so they didn't get onto the program. And because of that, even if they did turn in their documents today, there's just no more funding left. We took all I'm going off of memory, but let's just use the let's use 4000 of those letters went out all those individuals that received that letter. The director, director Brown, authorized all those individuals to be placed onto the easy pay program, and we we enrolled all those individuals and took their arrearages and spread it out over 36 months to make it easier for them. So so we did, we did that, and so that, and that's already been done, that's already been applied to the next billing cycle. So the only thing that a customer has to do is, if they don't want that, and they just want their normal bill. They can call us and we'll pull them off of it. But as a courtesy, we put everybody on that program. Easy pay.

    Okay? Thank you, Sir, Madam Chair. May I ask one additional question, and it talks about it speaks to just exactly the point that Matt was raising, and that's the transition. So if I were on the Lifeline program, I got the letter. Let me just say, on the Lifeline program, theoretically, would anybody have any arrearages? I mean, if you've been paying all along, and you pay, let's say, and you pay the $18 you know you don't forte,

    yes, if you, if you were, you would assume that if you were on the Lifeline program, paying $18 a month, that you wouldn't have any arrearages, because it was erased when you were originally the first time in the world. The unfortunate part is that is not always everyone, yeah, and I'll report even those that. And I'm looking over at my screen because that's uh. That's actually one of the slides that I'll cover. Is that for all for the 8136 that are currently enrolled, which the majority of those were all recertifications, they still had over a million dollars in arrearages when they came onto the program. So that answers two questions for maybe not what we wanted to hear. Yeah.

    So those, some of those who were recertified or in the program now do have arrearages,

    that's correct, and those that are in it are that was erased when they came back in a second time. Yeah.

    Okay, so they continue to have arrearages, which, in the easy pay program, it may be more costly to them on the transition, because they do have to make arrangements to pay over the 36 months their arrearages. In addition, you know, then they will, you know, have a, you know, a monthly payment. And so I think that's also the source of what's coming up. That's the information the advocates are receiving from some of our customers. Because those customers are indeed, they have arrearages. Even though they were in lifeline, they still have arrearages. And those arrearages will require cash to pay once they enter easy pay. So just so that that's what my understanding is, and I think that is part of the source. You know, there is no Lifeline program to go back to. There is no third time arrearages are going to be taking away. It's now easy pay. I just want to make sure we understand the source of their discomfort.

    I'm sorry to interrupt, but and we have to recess this meeting and open up the HR meeting.

    Recess into the call the chair.

    Did you hear me?

    Yes? Commissioner Davis,

    yes, thank you. Madam Secretary, will now call to order the Human Resources subcommittee. Madam Secretary, could we have a roll call please? Chairperson Davis present, Detroit, Michigan. Commissioner Garcia present.

    Commissioner black president Detroit, Mr. Chair, we have a call. Thank

    you. We will now recess to the call of the chair.

    Thank you. We will resume the Customer Service Committee. I wanted to make sure that Mr. Forte had her questions answered and or director brown if you wanted to comment, yeah,

    I, Commissioner forte made, made a very, a very good point when you got into lifeline, your arrears were paid off. And if you had have made the $18 payment for every month, then you would be going forward without a balance, or with a very, very, very small balance. But the reason that there's an accumulation of a million dollars is because people did not make the $18 payment over more than 18 months, and therefore they they have these balances. But the the point, I didn't want to, I didn't want that point to be lost, that if you had got into the program and you were able to fulfill your end of the deal by making the $18 payment, then you would be going forward with no payment, little or no balance. That's all. I just wanted to highlight that that point. Thank you. Director

    Brown, Madam Chair, I guess the question would be, do we have enough? Do we have an estimate, or at least a percentage of the people that still fell behind?

    We can get those numbers. It's quite significant. We can get you the numbers of the people that never made an $18 payment, they got into the program, they never made one payment. And so we can get, we can get you those numbers. Thank you.

    I think, I think we, Mr. Madam, Madam Chair. I think that reasoning, why I think we need to have that information, is that I think that, you know, an effort has been put out there to assist. And if that didn't help, it isn't Detroit metro problem, or even ours. It has to go back to the residents. And I think that that, I think we've done everything we possibly can to assist and and I think it isn't just Wayne Metro that's out of fun so is thawing, you know? I mean, all of these people are out of funds to assist, and we haven't had any information since then, why they haven't paid their bills. So I, you know, I just think we need to have that information.

    We Well, the director had, you

    know, like, did 10% not meet their goal? Did 20% you know? I I just need to understand, because we're doing everything we can as commissioners, and it's this department, and I just think that when people come back and say, you know, you're not doing enough, I'm not sure that they understand that all the efforts have been done quite

    well, taken Commissioner. And I think that the director is hearing you, and we will make every bit of information available to all parties who are wanting to be assisting us in helping our customers, as well as to the general community. So thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah,

    Madam Chair, if I could just make one last comment, and that was there was one more question that was, the the advocates and those that made comments today were asking for some type of response from DWSD and I know the director at the last formal session of the board meeting, when that question came up three weeks ago, the director specifically asked for those requests, for those individuals that had stated that They had applied for the Lifeline program they had received the letter that said that they were denied due to missing documentation. But that was not true. Director Brown asked that that those, those individuals come directly to me, or the names be sent directly to me, so that I could check with Wayne Metro, and I have not received one, so I will make the offer one more time that if any of the individuals that spoke today feel that someone did what they were supposed to do, but were some reason denied, I certainly would, you know, welcome that individual's name and address, and I will certainly look into it. And there is to the last part of that question. There is an appeal process that is something that is offered through the state of Michigan, through the Empower system, they can make a formal appeal that something was, you know, wrong. There is that process, and every person that applies knows that that's there, and Wayne Metro knows that as well, and can offer that that assistance.

    Thank you, Mr. Philip, for clarifying, commissioners.

    Okay, I think we have responded as low as we can to the concerns that were raised on that and would you please continue? Sir,

    sorry to send us off track. We didn't.

    Oh, okay, that was public participation. So public participation is closed. We're now moving on because we had communications. We have none unfinished business. We have none under new business. We will now have our customer service presentation.

    Madam Chair, thank you. I will share my screen and Miss Crowell will kick us off. Thank you. Afternoon

    commissioners, how are you this

    afternoon good, well. Are you there?

    Kim, we can barely hear you. Volume is very,

    very low. Can you hear us?

    You're showing a thing on mute. Miss Crowell, you're on mute.

    Thank you. Sorry about that. Can you guys hear me clearly now? Now, there you go. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. How are you today? Kimberly Crowell, customer service manager,

    so during the month of March of 2025

    we received over 59,700 calls, and we responded to over 6600 email inquiries. Our total customer touch points was at 66,350 we also had over 3000 159 contacts per day, versus our average 1400 budgeted calls per day in total, with our customer service calls, our emails and our customer service portal, which are our self service interactions, we had over 158,527 contacts for the month of March, Our customer contact volume was at 126% over forecast per day. 13% of our calls were answered within a two minute time frame. And also, we received over 2900 calls that were all related to the southwest, 54 inch water main break. Our average speed of answer for the month of March, for our emergency line, our average wait time was at 13 minutes and 34 seconds with a 20% service level. Our non emergency line was at 30 minutes and 56 seconds at a 2% service level. Our customer satisfac satisfaction score, which is our CS score, was at 81% and our first call resolution was at 68% I do would like to also it's worth noting that our customer satisfaction goal, we have exceeded this goal for 19 straight months. So even in spite of our 30 minute wait time on our non emergency lines, the customers who feel. Out the survey was still satisfied with the services being provided. And I would just like to really give a shout out to the customer service team for doing an excellent job by keeping our customer satisfaction goal straight for the 19th month for

    you slide, are there any questions or comments?

    I think certainly to note that the customer the customer satisfaction was as high as it is, is is commendable, because it's it would be difficult for me to give a positive comment if I had not had some sort of resolution at that time, or had to wait longer than I thought I should. So evidently, our customers are responding in a positive way that helps us. I think it helps our customer service representatives as well understand they are doing the best they can, and that customers are not holding us responsible for not dealing with their issues in a manner that really helps them understand what's going on for their on your particular account. So I think even though we may not be satisfied, accommodations are in order.

    Thank you very much.

    And question mark, Madam Chair,

    yes. Commissioner Garcia, yes, I would like

    to know the easy pay. And you're talking about 6000 over 6500 EP was related to the cause is that an increase from the month before

    I'm not I have to go and look and see what the call volume was for the easy pay cost for the month of February. I can definitely bring that information back to the board

    now and then. 6000 people that the calls were related to the easy pay. We have no way to track whether they followed it through or not. They were just calling about the information. Am I correct? That's correct? Yes. Thank you. I just interested in that. Obviously people are interested in they have gotten the information. That's good to know. Thank you so much. Thank

    you because he raised that comment. Commissioner, so we received 60 519 easy pay call. How do we determine how many of those got feedback?

    Well, basically, these are the calls that we received out of the the amount of calls that we received, we will have to run a report to actually see how many of those actually enrolled into easy pay. Some may just call just to express interest as to how easy pay works. So I can definitely bring that information back to the board.

    Thank you. I think it would be helpful for us to know, informative for us to know how many of them enrolled in EPK,

    thank you, Madam Chair. Have a question on that, on that page, on the customer satisfaction, 81%

    does everyone? Is everyone required to

    take a survey after their call. I'm just wondering, is that representative, for example, of those that had to wait, you know, that had their calls answered on the non emergency line? Commissioner,

    oh, sorry, Commissioner forte, it's not a requirement that they do it. In other words, there's no penalty if they don't do it, but it is offered to 100% of every single person that calls is offered to take a survey. Then there's three questions that are asked, so every single person has an opportunity to do it. If that but requirement is not

    okay,

    then my next question would be, so what percent of the those that, what percent of the surveys? What does that represent, in terms of numbers of calls? Is that 10% of the calls, or 100% or 50% of the calls,

    we can provide that I don't have that off the top of my head, I think

    that would be helpful information to know how many of them actually filled it out, rather than just what percentage they gave us a customer satisfaction rating. So I think Commissioner fortes question is one that would be helpful for us to see we can

    definitely bring that information back to the board. Thank you.

    Okay, any other questions on this before we go, please proceed.

    Okay, next slide please.

    This slide here, this shows our trend over the last six months. So as you can see, it goes from October all the way up to March, and this is like the calls received. Our key performance indicator, we're staffed to again, 1400 calls per day, which averages out to be like 29,400 calls per month. We have definitely exceeded that for the month of March. Again, the average speed of answer. Which is what I've already indicated on the previous slides. It was at 21 minutes and 36 seconds. Um, our service level again, was at 13% so it you're able to see on this particular slide how our call volume fluctuates from month to month

    before you leave this Do we have customers making comment about how long they had to wait when they finally are connected to one of our representatives,

    customers do express concerns as far as the length of time that they do have to wait.

    For the most part,

    we handled it the best way that we can. We explained to them that, you know, we have enormous, you know, we have a very large call volume, and we're trying to answer the calls as quickly as possible. We thank them for their patience. You know, we express empathy and we you know, for the most part, the customer is satisfied, but we do address their concerns the best that we can.

    I Are there any more questions pertaining to this slide?

    Okay, then I will turn it over to Chief Customer Service Officer Matthew Phillips as he go over the planning calendar, which includes easy pay Lifeline and the Southwest water main.

    Thank you Welcome.

    Thank you. Well. Thank you,

    Madam, madam. Thank you Kim, madam. Chair. Can we move on to the next item, which is the planning calendar? That's okay with you? Yes, please. Alright, and I'll answer Commissioner forte question. There was 2338 individuals that took a survey after call survey during the month of March, out of the 59,701 calls is equal to, if I'm good at I'm not good at percentages, but I believe that's 4% 3.9% of individuals that called us took a survey and provided a response. Thank you. All right, let's

    So Madam Chair, just make one comment. So those 2000 people were at the level of 81% very satisfied with their, you know, with their interaction. But we do have a large amount we don't know

    absolutely correct? Yeah, yep. And

    sometimes it's just a matter they don't want to take the time to do it. Is that? Is that the case? Mr. Phillip,

    I would just, I would just say, How many of you all, at the end of the phone calls, you make, stay on the call afterwards, when, when the rep says, All right, thank you. Have a nice day. Miss forte, and you, do you take the survey afterwards, or do you hang up? So it's,

    I'll just leave it at that. Thank you.

    Alright, so we'll move on to the planning calendar, lifeline. Receiving the lifeline benefit for the March billing cycle was 8136 the benefits that that have been provided since the in the new fiscal year for lifeline, which began on October 1, 2024, $2.6 million in gap payments and $1 million in arrears forgiveness have been provided to those Receiving the lifeline benefit since October 1, there are 25,734 individuals on easy pay. And to date, $5.1 million in installments have been made through easy pay. That's not the normal monthly payment. That is just the installment amount, whatever that dollar amount is divided by 36 so I think that's a pretty large number. When we look at it divided by 36 and director Brown, I can see him clapping in the background, so I know he's very pleased. And again, I just obviously it was part of the presentation, because I there was no way I could have typed it in while we were here. But I've indicated in writing, Wayne Metro indicated on the 31st which was Monday, funds have been exhausted and have been committed. What they have through September 2025, because remember, they still, when I say the word committed, they still have to pay the gap payment every month through september 30. So I just want to make sure that it's it's both exhausted and committed. Any questions about that?

    Any questions commissioners?

    Thank you. All right. All right. And I just wanted to wrap up just and I know director brown might have a few comments after this, but I just wanted to call out that the DWSD team in general has done an absolute fan chat. Fantastic job on the we call it project 54 but that is the Southwest Detroit water main. Break that happened six weeks ago is six weeks on Monday, I am very proud to work with Director Brown and be part of his his leadership that he committed to six. Six weeks to get a lot of work done in southwest Detroit. And I just want to say that being part of the team and being part of director Brown's team has just been an absolute wonderful experience. And I think that the men and women of DWSD that jumped out at four o'clock in the morning when this happened on day one to get out there and rescue individuals and be part of the first responders to cleaning up the mess, to replacing people's homes and the mechanicals in it to get ready. And I just wanted just to point out I think this is kind of the the big remarkable stuff is 161 out of the 408

    homes that were in the impact zone, is what we call it. 161

    basements have been cleaned and sanitized in the last six weeks. 132 new furnaces have been installed. 135 hot water heaters or tanks were installed. 60 electrical panels were replaced. 22 major plumbing repairs were completed. Since furnaces were out, pipes did freeze and burst in the home, we created a call center and a hotline for residents to call outside of our typical 267, 8000 number within just a matter of days. Up and running, I believe Kim correct me if I'm wrong, we hired what, 1618, people our HR department came right up to speed and found individuals at a rather rapid play pace. And so I'll just kind of leave it at that, but that's just the accomplishments that have been made in the last six weeks. Director Brown, anything you'd like to

    Yeah, well, certainly there. There are a lot of thank yous to go around. And I think we're going to have to do something special for all the people that were involved in this project, as I said in an interview on Channel Four last night, you know, there's not a project that I'm prouder of than project 54 and all the men and women at DWC that jumped in, you know, especially Dominique, our project manager. She kept us all in line. She's been working seven days a week, 12 hours a day. You know, I was getting emails as late as nine o'clock almost every night from Dominique. She's really stepped up. BARRY BROWN came over from from our permits department. He works on green infrastructure. He was on site every single day, seven days a week, camera from from the customer service jumped in and and so many others, I can't name them all. We also gave customers a credit, you know, 418 customers within the footprint a credit for two months so that they didn't have to pay a water bill. And we're making provisions for everybody to get at least a one year warranty on all of the appliances and the work that was done. So there's a lot more to go on. I wanted to thank everybody. At a later date, we're going to have a more formal presentation on all that was done in that area. Secondly, I just wanted to, I just want to, I just want to level, set the expectations for lifeline, just just to put it, you know, a period on it for today. Anyway, you know, if we and Matt knows the exact numbers, but in order to service everyone that we had in lifeline a year ago, it would take $25 million and as you heard from istaker in the budget presentation a couple of weeks ago, the Great Lakes authority will give us approximately $2.3 million of the rap dollars that we use in lifeline. The state of Michigan's new budget starts in October of this year. And if we don't get any money from the state of Michigan, if we don't get any grant funding. We're certainly going to be pressing them for funding, but if we don't get any, all we have is the 2.3 that we get from gleam that are wrapped dollars for this program. Now, next week, 1000s of water utility workers, executives, staffers, will be in Washington for Water Week. I'm going to be there. I'm presenting every day there, trying to find federal dollars for lifeline, and that posh piece has got me well prepared for the meeting with Congress, folks from the folks in the Senate and from EPA and and the staff in Washington to try to find long term dollars for lifeline. And I know that the water advocates will also be there. And so you. You know, we thank them in advance for standing with us to try to find additional dollars. We all want the same thing. We know that lifeline is a national model. It's a great program. The only thing it's missing is long term funding, and we're going to spend all next week. It's water week in the industry, uh, trying to find these dollars in order to get more people on lifeline. But right now, we have to live within our budget. And we're going to have $2.3 million approximately, coming from Glee, what, July 1. And so if no further dollars come, that's all we're going to have to work with. But we won't stop fighting in Lansing and in Washington and with foundations trying to find additional additional money. So I just, I just want to level set the expectations going forward as to what we're going to be able to do with Lifeline. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you, sir. Thank

    you, Madam Chair, yes. Ma'am,

    yes. I want to express my gratitude. You know, our agencies in southwest Detroit really had really put themselves together and try to help out these community I mean, the community residents that really were devastated, I'm I'm very grateful for what, what we, what you all have done. Gary, I know that we called Mr. Phillips because we didn't think the deadline was sufficient. We got some understanding about it, but I know that the deadline was something that they were brought up to us at La set and dhdc. And I just wanted you to look at that. I know that Mr. Phillips did explain about that, as long as they put in a claim, you know that they will be looked at. There was some people that lost a lot. They were renters, so there weren't owners. So those were the ones that we were trying to help financially. We got some grants to give them down payments to move somewhere else, because some of the owners, you know, refused to give them any you know, just like always, when there's a crisis, you always have some issues. But I wanted to make sure I went on record as someone that lives in southwest Detroit who is on the board of directors and the chair of the oldest Hispanic organizations that really have put our staff on on call. They were there Saturdays, they were there Sundays, they were there, you know, late at night, so along with the people from the water department. So I just wanted to make sure you all know that it really was an issue when you think about Detroiters, how they come together in a crisis. So much. Gracias. On behalf of a lot of the people in our community that don't have a voice. Gracias.

    Thank you, Commissioner, glad to hear those good reports.

    Any other comments, alright?

    Are there any other matters to come before? Where are we now? Our next? Yeah, any other matters to come before this? This committee, our next meeting is May 7, and chair will entertain a motion for adjournment.

    So moved support.

    In support of this meeting stands adjourned. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

    All right. Thank you, Madam Chair, we will now resume the human resources and Organizational Development Committee. Is there a motion to approve today's agenda? So movers here,

    that motion has been made, and is there a second you

    I will second it

    all in favor of the motion signified by the sign of Aye.

    All opposed and that motion is carried. Is there a motion for approval of the minutes of March? 5 approval, Mr. Chair, and I will second that motion as well. All in favor, signify by the sign by all right, all opposed, and that motion is carried. We'll now open up public participation. Mr. Peckinpah, are you there and do we have any hands up?

    Mr. Chair, we do have Damico Williams, hand up.

    Okay. Mister Williams, welcome.

    Hi. Good afternoon, Commissioner Davis, and good afternoon to this board. Damico Williams, Chief Executive Director hydrate Detroit, we service the people in addressing their water shut off issues. And I just want to respond to the conversation that have been had. You know, in regards to moving forward, I would look forward to hearing when the dates and times and if there will even be invitations for general community members to join the meeting, to find more resources and to find. The moneys. But I don't know why we're doing that when we're all we're being told is it has to come from federal and state rates. And, you know, there's no opportunity or no date of when we're going to meet with Mr. Trump and the Congress about this. You know, I just don't see any hope or any forth coming for bareness, as we had a water affordability legislation that has been denied but was fumbled by some entity within the state. You know, I really want to remain hopeful and I want to remain positive, but it's hard when I'm being told, as well as the rest of the community, oh, well, there's people paying $18 but they haven't paid since they've been on the program. And we don't have no numbers or how do we even track those residents? You know, because I'm pretty sure they have, there's a valid explanation for everything, and if the water department is not responsible, there should be representatives from rain Metro that should be coming to these meetings or should be providing a report on this. Really want to give faith to this board and this body that they're going to overcome the hurdles and just do the work that's needed. You wouldn't have water advocates like myself keep continuing to pander about your responsibility and how your effectiveness could be to the customers in order to solve these issues so nobody has their water shut off. If you're making a commitment not to shut off water, okay, then you would make a commitment to make sure that people wouldn't be in a situation to where they be placed back in shut off status or or having the hounds at their door. And, you know, I really want to work forward on this, but the promises and the the the assurances is not giving a surety and a commitment to make sure, I mean, out of all of us, we're all responsible, including water advocates, we're all responsible. We have to do a better job. And instead of dividing us from that wall, you should be inviting us in the door. Mister Brown, you should invite us in with you, so that we could campaign with you. Stop being against us and start being with us. We all can work on this together. We gotta work on this together. Thank you for taking my comments.

    Alright, Mister Williams, Mister Peckinpah, do you see any other hands?

    No. Mister chair there. There are no other hands raised. Alright.

    Yes. We need to pause and recess for the opening of the legal committee.

    Okay? We will now recess to the call of the chair.

    Yes, the Detroit Board of Water commissioners, legal and Government Affairs Committee meeting will now come to order. Would you please call the roll? Chairperson Kinloch present. Commissioner

    Blackmon present. Detroit. Commissioner einheld present,

    Mr. Chair, we have a quorum.

    Thank you. We'll now recess to the call of the chair.

    All right, thank you. We will now resume the Human Resources Committee, and we will move to communications. We have none, nor do we have any unfinished business. Our new business will be HR metrics, and that will be presented by director Thornhill of human resources. Good

    afternoon commissioners, good afternoon I will share my screen. You.

    Okay, and we will go through our human resources metrics. Since last month, we have acquired 11 additional employees, and that brings us to a total headcount number of 682 employees. And

    you will see our breakdown here of residents and non residents. And again, our head count is climbing in comparison to the previous years. Are there any questions?

    Yes. Mr. Chair,

    yes. Commissioner Garcia, yeah. I can

    remember going back several years, I think when I started, there was the total was like 500 and something. So over the years, Mr. We have actually increased quite a bit, haven't we? Yes, we have Commissioner Garcia. Was there a goal that we were supposed to Well, I can see the numbers from 2020, you know, 555, 50, all the way down to, is there a, I guess, is. The question is, there was a goal that you saw, wanted to meet before we didn't need the the H, you know, before we didn't need to hire new employees. Was there a goal you were going to reach?

    No, we didn't have any goals. Our head count needs are determined by the business needs, okay? And that's how we drive the numbers based on the business needs,

    okay? So the 600 well, then so am I saying the customer this is not just customer service. That's the whole entire department. Am I correct?

    Yes, the entire Detroit water and sewage division. Yes. Okay,

    and out of that, 682 what are the what is the number for customer service? You know, for the customer service representatives. Do you have an idea?

    I have the exact number. I can give it to you. I can send it to you, or Matt can send it to you. Okay, we have it. I

    appreciate it. Just wanted to know how much is customer service, especially because people still call in and want they want help. Thank you. I appreciate it.

    Sure thing

    next you'll see our retirement breakdown again, as our head count increases with new employees, the amount of retirement eligible employees decreases, obviously. So this is the lowest I've seen it in six years. We're at 17% of retirement eligible and speaking of retirements, we've had one retirement since last month. Mr. James Singleton. He had 21 years and eight months of service, and he worked in our maintenance and repair division. We like to wish him a very, very happy retirement.

    Yeah, Mr. Chair, may I ask another question? Of

    course, Commissioner Garcia, yeah, Miss thunder,

    is there still in the people that have 40 years, 20 years, 25 years, whatever they are, I don't know where to stop that they still have a pension when they retire. Yes,

    and if you could take a look at the screen Commissioner Garcia, you will see we have the breakdown as it relates in years and age. So this is retirement eligible and retirement criteria, which does consist of a pension, but you have to meet one of those five criteria in order to obtain a pension.

    So the pensions are still so the pensions are still in place. Then, yes, okay, I thought that it had gone to 401, K or something instead of a pension. So anything after 10 years you have a pension? Am I correct?

    Well, it could be eight years if you're age 65

    or older. Okay, so it's age and years. Thank you. Appreciate it. You're welcome

    any others, okay,

    next you'll see I'm sorry,

    sorry, Mister Chair, I have seen this is not a question, but a comment. I've seen advertising that that shows that, well, I don't know if it's specifically DWSD, but that there are careers in the water industry. Are we a part of those ads that are going on, or is that just something dlw is doing?

    We have our recruiting, talent and acquisition team, led by manager Carla Calhoun, has participated in outreach programs, and in fact, I'm going to touch on that shortly, where we've spoken to children and in high school children about careers within water. In fact, we did have an event I'm going to report on very shortly. So we do participate Commissioner Blackman in outreach programs, and we talk about careers, and I believe we did partner with glwa as well. Okay,

    one further question, are we working at all with any of the community colleges? And have we been able to establish a program or a class that lets them become eligible for employment with us? Well,

    it depends on the division right, and I know that as far as customer service, there has been some outreach with with, I believe, Henry Ford Community College, and I know we were looking at school craft for some potential paralegal services, but we do partner with various schools, whether if it's for training or for future employment. As you know, we have a lot of employment partners that we work with to fill our positions. That's how we're able to fill them so quickly.

    Thank you. Yes, I know we do have other partners. I was just wondering how specifically we were what community colleges we might be working with, but thank you for the answer.

    I can follow up though Commissioner black black men and tell you exactly what colleges and what programs, and I'll do that for you. Okay?

    Director Thornhill, yes, it's Matt Phillips, yes, we are. DWSD does participate with Henry Ford College, and they do have a customer service certificate program. It consists of five courses. Once they complete those five courses, they get a customer service certificate. And I am actually on the advisory board for that, so I'm very familiar with it, and they those students do get to send their resumes, and I keep them up to date on when positions become available. So we are a partner, and we do work with them. Thank you. Thanks, Matt.

    So here you'll see our current open positions, and we have 12 open positions, and this is one additional position from last month. Actually, it's 12 requisitions, and it equates to 21 open positions. However, in light of the 54 inch water main break that occurred last month in southwest Detroit, DWSD initiated a hiring freeze as part of a cost cutting measure. So in essence, we really have, in addition to these 21 open positions, about 4041, or 42 other positions that we've put on hold. As we assess our budgeting needs, we are filling back fills for people who either retire or resign or are terminated. We are back filling those positions, but other open positions are on hold.

    Any questions.

    So we had a career event, and we worked with the National Association of Black women in construction, where we were able to speak to students and introduce them to the water industry and discuss possible careers our recruiting team, you know, they spoke with some of those future leaders, and they talked about the various career opportunities here at DWSD, and the participants were very well pleased and very interested in our business. There was also a round table discussion with students, where they the students had the opportunity to interact with invited guests and talk about career paths. So

    some of the recruiting team and notable guests included representative Rashida Talib and Adrian Bennett, the first black female master plumber in North America. We also participated with our procurement manager marqua Welch and Tiffany Jones, our business opportunity director Kendrick Jackson, who's also an HR and safety training and the remaining of the Safety and Training Team.

    Are there any questions?

    Mr. Chair, where is the Job Corps Center located?

    Could you hear me?

    Yes, I heard your Miss Thornhill, did you hear Commissioner Blackman,

    okay, I know it's in Detroit, but exactly where? I'm not sure. Commissioner Blackman, I'm sorry I was trying to google it very quickly for you.

    That's fine. Thank you.

    It says short. I just wanted specifically where it was, but that

    right? Any other questions? Okay?

    I in training and development. Performance management is currently what DWSD is focusing on. And we talk about this every year, and we come to you and we kind of explain our process. What has changed this year in our process is that ot Pro, our HR information system that we're now using is now going to house our performance evaluations. So before, we used Adobe Acrobat to fill out the form and we had to print it out and keep a hard copy. Now the copy can be stored electronically in ulti pro with an employee's record. Also an employee can perform their own self assessment, as well as the final management assessment. So here's a timeline, and again, we share it with you commissioners every year, as you know, at the beginning of the fiscal year, every year, we conduct our goal setting and throughout the year, management and the employees discuss where the employees are performing as it relates to their goals. Sometimes goals are adjusted and they're changed. Mid Year, if there are any employees that have performance issues, we conduct an additional review, but that's only mid year, around December, if they're performance concerns. However, right about now, we're starting to train all of our managers and employees on our new system with an ulti. Pro and also management will start to complete those performance evaluations in a week or so. Those performance evaluations must be completed before merit planning begins, and we target that right towards the end of the fiscal year. So again, same process as before, but a different system, where, you know, now improving our technology and taking advantage of ulti Pro. Are there any questions

    next we have on our planning calendar, we have environmental health and safety, and as I mentioned last month, we've hired a new environmental health and safety manager. She was supposed to be here with us today, but she's under the weather, so I'm going to speak for her, and I'll bring her on next month. But her name is Natasha Hooten. She previously worked at Great Lakes and came highly recommended, but here on the screen, you will see some of her Great Lakes Water Authority, excuse me, you will see her background, professional background and experience and some of her certifications.

    Are there any questions?

    We're very happy and pleased to have Natasha on our team. You um, and next. Commissioners, last month, commission, I'm sorry,

    uh. Commissioner Blackman, I

    was just going to ask her, How do we what did we do to woo her over to our side?

    It was all left up to me. Commissioner Blackman, I'll make it happen.

    Thank you. Just one question.

    Commissioner kiddlock,

    so this position, glad to hear that she was able to join us. Was it posted internally externally? Did we have any internal candidates who are interested in this position?

    Great question. Commissioner can lock Yes, we did post the position. When we post the position, we also send an email out to all of our employees, letting them know it's posted. So both internally and externally, anyone could have applied. And we did have, I believe, one or two internal candidates, Miss Hooten with her experience. You know, by far, you know, was a leader as it related, in terms of experience and education and certifications as well.

    Okay, okay, thank you. That's something I absolutely zero in on, and making sure that you know that we look internally as well, you know I'm saying, and creating opportunities for folks to grow and expand. You know, who's been working with us and been loyal with us? Yep, absolutely.

    Hey, last month,

    Commissioner Davis, you asked us about injuries, work related injuries, and I wanted to share that information with you. Please do so this year, we've had a total of 16 injuries, okay, or body part injuries. We actually only had 12 injuries, 12 people, but some people had multiple injuries. So that's why there was a total of 16 injuries, 12 people. And you'll see here on this chart, here's a breakdown of where those injuries occurred. So part of the safeties team responsibility is to make sure they investigate those injuries, to see if there are any ergonomic causes or any issues that we can mitigate so that those injuries do not occur again here at DWSD.

    Here's another breakdown by body part,

    and since February 17, we have not had any recordable injuries, and that means injuries that require anything other than first aid. So we're on a good trend, and we want to stay on that trend here.

    Commissioner Blackman, does that

    mean that? Well, I'm just looking at the at the risk injury Now, does that look that mean that we took some precautionary measures of training to ensure that that would that total, would that number would come down, or those numbers would come down period?

    Yes, you never want an injury, right? Commissioner Blackman, we know that, but our goal is to make sure we prevent any injuries from happen happening, or when they do at the very least, we investigate to make sure we do all that we can to make sure they don't happen again. So that's our goal, zero injuries, zero lost time, zero recordables. We want people. At work, and we want people healthy at work,

    there would be retraining, or at least reorientation as to what not a job to be done properly.

    We also conduct stand downs and retraining. Yes, absolutely, absolutely, yes.

    Any other questions?

    Yes. Ms Thornhill, if my memory serves me correctly, I remember mentioning the possibility of a cave in when workers are working in a pit down in beneath the surface. I remember inquiring about what we do? How do we train to prevent that from happening? Because that's the worst thing that can happen that can very easily lead to death.

    Absolutely. Commissioner Davis, and what we have is called trenching and shoring training. So to shore up the different materials, the wood. We also have a box that shores up the dirt so that it does not cave in. So we do conduct the training. The safety team also conducts a regular site inspections. In addition, we will periodically work with operations and conduct load checks. So what that means is, before the crews actually go out in the morning. Safety will work with operations and check those trucks to make sure they have the proper trenching and shoring materials. Okay.

    Then lastly, our slide here are the injuries by month? And of course, we're going to go back and take a look at January to see if any of those injuries were related to a slip and fall, or if there's anything that we can prevent. So currently, the safety team is looking at that data. And that concludes my report. Are there any questions?

    Thank you and thank you. Ms Thornhill colleagues, I think that covers it very well. Let's see what our agenda looks like. Got that, if there are no other matters, our next meeting is May 7, 2025, and chair will entertain a motion to adjourn.

    Mr. Chair support that motion

    has been made and properly supported. We are now adjourned. Thank you all thank you. All

    right. Okay, let me pull the agenda. I'm trying to pull the agenda up one

    second. Okay, the next item on the agenda is approval of the agenda. Motion is in order.

    I move, go ahead.

    Okay, I move, I move. We approve the agenda as presented. Is

    there support? It's been moved and supported to approve the meeting agenda. All those in favor signify by saying, aye. Aye. Those opposed. This item stands approved. Next item on the agenda is approval of the March 5, 2025, meeting minutes. Motion is in order, approval, Mr. Chair, it's been moved. This is their support. Support moved and supported all those in favor. Signify by saying, aye, aye. Those opposed. This item stands approved. Next item on the agenda is public participation. Who will read the public participation instructions? But before I ask for instructions to be read. Mr. Picken Paul, if it is you or whoever's reading, has anyone raised their hand to be recognized?

    Yes, Mister Chair, it is me. Brian Peckinpah, Public Affairs Director for DWSD, we do have one hand raised, and this gentleman has, and the others in the list have been in the other committee meetings. So do you want to go right to Mr. Dmiko Williams, sir,

    yes. Let the record reflect that the that the instructions are consistent through all of the meetings. And like you said, there's no new no one knew joining the meeting, so they heard those instructions. Thank you. You're welcome.

    Who's next? Mister Damico Williams,

    yes. Hi. Good afternoon, Commissioner Kinloch and Commissioner Eisenhower. How are you guys today?

    Doing well? Thank you. Sure,

    good, good.

    I just wanted to bring light to concerns in this committee meeting in regards to the flood that happened in southwest Detroit. You know, a lot of residents are really upset about this city council public comments have been lately. Have been very concerning as to residents wondering, Where is their help on making them whole? You know, Miss Ruby Riley came to this board, and she had a grievance with her flood in 2016 now the Detroit water department offer her $3,600 but it did not cover enough to where Miss Ruby Riley needed to have her belongings, her basement, her furnace and everything restored. Uh Sonia Brown, over at Auntie NAS community is has dealt with the same thing for years, and they have not been redressed. There have been excuses. There have been told nos by Mr. Brown and southwest Detroit happens. How did those people end up with their being made whole? What would the what were the qualifications? What were the criteria to determine if their homes were eligible. I'm pretty sure that there has to be some explanation made of this, because some community meetings, people are wondering, I have a list here of people that were denied from the Go w a responsibility of forms and claims. I also have the copies of people that have went through those floods and have been denied. Uh, what are we going to do for those persons to be made whole as well? I think that's very unfair. Now congratulate the Detroit water sewage department and the workers and the administration for handling southwest Detroit, but is setting a precedent of unfairness that you jumped for a community and not for any other community, that that's becoming a problem. And then also, I want to regards to mister Daniel Hayner, please leave him alone and stop harassing him, sending him threatening messages and people to his door to deliver a cease and desist. I think Mr. Hanor As a deaf individual, and that's harassment of persons with disabilities. That's an ADA violation as well. You know, to harass someone and let's just be keep the record clear that Mr. Hanor, he has he should. He's doing what he's supposed to do, and to keeping you all honest and accountable, and you all can't get mad at that. Thank you so much for taking my comments. Have a great day. Thank

    you. Mr. Williams. Mister Peckham power, there? Is there anyone else to be recognized? Mr.

    Chair. He was the only public commenter. Thank you.

    Then let the record reflect public participation is closed. The next item on the agenda. Agenda is Item six. And under six, we have six a item 2025, dash, eight, four, receipt of correspondence. DWSD for here,

    you lost you. Mr. Chair. Hello,

    anyone there?

    Well, I'll move we receive and file.

    No. One second, one second. Okay, so let's do this here, audio. See the audio? There you go. Okay, thank you. And so it's been moved by Commissioner Eisenhower and supported by Commissioner Blackman. Is that correct?

    That's correct, but I was going to move a and b, but that's correct. Okay, that

    is in order. I'll accept that. I accept it as a friendly amendment, okay, okay,

    it's been accepted by the motion maker and supported by the with the second. Okay, so all those in favor and receiving, receiving and following the the FOIA report for March 2025 and the litigation report for March 2025

    all those in favor signify saying, aye, aye.

    Those opposed, both these actions stand approved, and the next item on the agenda is

    yes. Can you hear me? Yes, this is Scott McGriff, DWSD, General Counsel. I want to point out that with respect to item 6b the litigation report, you had requested that for entities that we had brought suit for non payment, that we include the service address. Uh, in that litigation report. And I just want to point out that pursuant to your request that's included in the litigation report,

    I appreciate that, that highlight, and also the additional information. And so thank you for that. And we will now move on to item seven, unfinished business, there is none. New business, there is none. And then under the planning calendar, our council, our council, court Council, and I will meet General Counsel, and I will meet to establish a planning, planning calendar for the remainder of the year. I'll be reaching out to him within the next week, and the next item on the agenda is the other item. Other matters I know of none. The next meeting of this committee will be May 7, 2025, and now a motion is in order to adjourn. It's been moved by Commissioner Blackman support, supported by chair eyes Howard all those in favor, signify by saying aye, aye those opposed. The meeting stands adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you

    everybody. Applause.