Willdan will complete its original study in early 2021 and found that the city would need to raise an additional $10 million annually ($7 million for water and $3 million for sewerage) to maintain and improve the nonprofit utility. I discovered something. Willdan also presented options for how the city could set the tolls so that it would generate enough revenue for expected maintenance and improvements over the next few years.

The City Council voted in May 2021 to select preferred options for water and wastewater tariffs, and the new tariffs officially went into effect 60 days later, on July 1.

But when the new rates were set, many multi-family residents (particularly homeowners association condominium developments) and RV park operators saw their sewerage bills increase significantly, more than doubling. I noticed. HOA was reportedly put in a difficult position as the charges were set after his HOA budget for the year had already been set. As a result, we were unable to respond to sudden increases in costs.

The City Council revised rates again in October, lowering the monthly base sewerage charges by $20 per unit for multifamily homes, $30 per unit for condominiums and other multifamily developments, and per space in RV parks. We’ve lowered the base price of the by $15. These changes have been implemented retroactively to July 1, 2021.

At the time, city councilors said they viewed the amendment as a temporary fix and decided to revisit the issue about a year later to obtain more data on water and wastewater use under the new tariff structure. I was.

During the city’s annual budgeting process in early 2022, the council predicted that at current revenue levels, the city’s water fund would be in the red within the next five years.

On Tuesday, the council publicly revisited the issue for the first time, hiring Wildan Financial Services to conduct another utility survey for $51,465 in 2023. The council approved the deal, he voted 5 to 2. Aldermen Nancy Campbell and Michele Lynn voted against it.

Willdan was one of three companies to respond to Havasu’s request for proposals, earning the highest possible score from the city’s review board while offering a significantly lower price than either of the other two companies. Carollo Engineer was priced at $136,593 and Raftelis Financial Consulting was priced at $184,999.

The City of Lake Havasu paid Willdan $58,820 to conduct the original investigation in September 2020.

Wildon’s project manager, Kevin Barnett, told the council that Wildon will work with them to determine the council’s goals in restructuring the toll.

Burnett said Willdan’s research will produce a financial management plan for the water and wastewater system, cost of service analysis, and provide rate design analysis. Wyldun also presents preliminary and final reports to the Council.

“Staff will have the model at the end of the study, as will our ongoing support,” Burnett said. There were some deviations, so if something similar happened again this time, the staff could do some modeling to see what those impacts would be, and also the impact of the changes that happened. As you can see, you can also run the scenario.”

Willdan plans to hold six meetings with staff, seven meetings with the city council, and three stakeholder meetings with citizens, businesses and the HOA during the investigation.

Burnett said he expects the investigation to take about three months to complete, but said the timeline could be extended if there was interest in adding more meetings with the council or stakeholders. rice field.

Mayor Cal Sheehy started the discussion by reminding the city council and attendees that the utility bills currently being charged are not enough to cover the city’s costs. He said the city is waiting to collect a full season’s worth of data under the new pricing structure to better understand how usage changes throughout the season. Note that time is critical in setting reasonable water and sewerage rates.

Campbell said he believed that a previously completed investigation by Wildon for the city had already provided Havas with the information necessary to set the toll, and that city staff and the city council had made the investigation. Or, she said, if the council wants to do another study, she’d like to get a second opinion from another company so they can compare the studies. rice field.

Sheehy said two other bids the city received were about $85,000 and $134,000 higher than Willdan’s price, so another firm would come at more than double the cost.

“We’re benefiting from the work they’ve already done,” Sheehy says. “They will base their new rate modeling on new decisions to the extent that the Board will give direction at a subsequent meeting.”

Alderman David Lane said he felt Campbell made some good points, but said he looked at the issue differently.

“There is organizational knowledge here,” he said. “We have an organization here that basically knows what our system is. I have.”

Alderman Cameron Moses asked staff to make sure the HOA was invited to attend the utility rate stakeholder meeting so the HOA would not be surprised by the new rates.

Sheehy said he hoped the study would include more public input, noting that the previous study was conducted at the height of the covid pandemic.

“There is much more civic participation in the scope of work here, and the processes in which civic participation takes place are much more conducive,” Sheehy said. “Last time we did this in 2020, we were doing hybrid he meetings on certain things, and we weren’t always comfortable with public meetings, so this time there was much more outreach to the public. increase.”

All of the city councilors who spoke at the hearing said a relatively minor misunderstanding the last time the charges were revised led to the decision to adopt the charges they made.

Campbell and Sheehy said they were unaware that the increase in multifamily developments described in the previous report applied to each unit within the development. Because the report didn’t say “per unit” like other types of properties.

Lane said he was unaware last time that the condo owners were jointly paying the utility bills.

“I thought everyone was paying their water bill,” Lane said.

Moses was aware that multifamily developments’ water bills would rise significantly under the new tariffs, but he wasn’t familiar with how the homeowners association’s finances were handled.

“I didn’t realize that the Homeowners Association hadn’t adjusted the HOA fees in time. So, in a way, we would have bankrupted them,” Moses said. .