2014-12-04 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

Home

Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well, what we would like to do, ultimately I think, is what we did the last time around, which is where you set a schedule out and you say in year one the fee will go to let’s say $40, in year two it would go to $45, in year three and rather than having to go back every year and fight over whether it should go up five bucks or ten bucks, is set out a schedule and you do that in your study and then you have it planned and then you get it approved all at one time so you don’t have to go back every year to change your rates and you have an automatic adjustment. Just to keep up with the increase in expenses you almost need to have that set into your rates. Mr. Perry: Like the Water Department which is I think is a three year. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well, one thing that we thought about when we looked at Water, is the ability to pass through our increased electric costs. Right now the cost of gas and everything is going down, but there been times when our bills have gone up significantly because the cost of electricity has gone up and we have no ability to pass that through, but if you look at your electric bill if you get it your house, if you look at your water bill, there is a pass through for the additional expenses that the Department of Water Supply does not have control over or that HELCO does not. If it costs them more to purchase fuel or pay for electricity, they’re able to pass that cost on. Down the road I would love to have that ability for Wastewater that if for some reason the electricity bill goes up or the cost of diesel goes up to operate our machinery that we’re able to pass that cost on. Mr. Perry: When the Water Department, I was on the Board. So when the Water Department needs to raise electricity rates nobody argues about it. So everybody sort of assumes that that’s going to happen, but it makes it much easier to do. Mr. Medeiros: The people that are not hooked up, they’re the ones that is hard to take control of because they have a cesspool unless the Board of Health comes down with a ruling that they can’t use them no more. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well for those people we’re going to have to go after them to force them to hook up. That’s going to have to be the other half of this, is that for those who are hooked up we can shut off water, for those who are not hooked up I’m going to have to pursue them to force them to hook up to the system. Mr. Matsuda: How’s the tipping fee going at the scale house at Solid, going back to Solid Waste, but the collection of monies. Ms. Leithead-Todd: The collections are much better since we instituted cutting off access to the landfill for the haulers. They have a business, they can’t come and dump the rubbish, then they come in and they enter into a payment plan and we’ve done that and its dramatically reduced delinquencies. Mr. Matsuda: And it’s collected right there? The person can do their collecting right there? 7