East Orange Water Commission

CITY OF EAST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY EAST ORANGE WATER COMMISSION 99 South Grove Street East Orange, NJ 07018 TED R. GREEN, Mayor REGULAR MEETING April 18, 2023 MINUTES Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Water Commissioners held in the Conference Room of the East Orange Water Commission, 99 South Grove Street, East Orange, New Jersey on Tuesday, April 18, 2023. I. CALL TO ORDER – 5:16 p.m. ROLL CALL PRESENT: Commissioners Alison Rolling Shantel Harrison Sherkera Lucas Lauren Shears Staff Joseph J. Tomashosky, Finance Consultant John Liu, Executive Director Thomas J. Matich, Operations Manager Fatimah Bey, Customer Service Counsel Denis Murphy, Esq. (Weiner Law) Public Odell Rolling – 23 Madison Avenue, East Orange The meeting was called to order, Commissioner Rolling determined that there was a quorum and convened the Regular Meeting. Commissioner Rolling read the Rate Statement. II. STATUS OF RESOLUTIONS The Mayor has returned Resolutions #34 through #47. All resolutions are in full force and effect. III. ADOPTION/CORRECTION OF MINUTES 7A: The Minutes of the March 21, 2023, Regular Meeting was approved on a motion made by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas and carried on the call for the Board to vote. IV. EOBWC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR REPORT AND COMMITTEE REPORTS Joseph Tomashosky advised the Board that we reduced accounts receivable from last month by $707,000.00. However, all of those productions over $1,000,000.00 of reductions occurred in the current and the 31 to 41 days past due. The 42 to 51 days past due and the 52 plus days past due have grown and they are at the highest percentage of total receivables since June of last year. Those two areas remain a challenge to us. Our collection ratio, which is collections divided by billings, shows very high. Part of that is that we had a short billing in terms of the number of days. The quality of those receivables continues to get worse. Up until March 15th, we were not allowed to shut off. We're now beginning that shutoff process and I do anticipate seeing some better performance around that. Through Monday we collected just under $1,000,000.00 so about 1/2 of a month we're tracking well in terms of collections. In terms of our expenses, we anticipate that we will exceed our budget. This year I'm anticipating going into November 15th, we'll be making a massive effort to reduce our receivables. I believe that we will exceed our collections because we're still sitting on about $750,000 of COVID created receivables. I expect that we will beat our budget, but we have got to get it done before the November 15th date when we can't turn off anymore. We're still early in the year and at this time, we generally push to wrap up purchases. Tom Matich advised that they continue to do large meter change outs with the secondary vendor. They completed another one the other day and have another half dozen scheduled in the coming weeks. He also met with the vendor yesterday to discuss the remaining collection towers. Supply chain delays have been improved so he’s still looking at end of the second quarter to have the three installed. Those will capture all the meters that are in the system regardless of age of the meter. The V4 meters are the ones that can provide the more current, I guess the term would be live readings for leak detection purposes. One of our customers is field testing the new 360 customer portal. We'll be able to piggyback off their findings and troubleshoot certain things. When we're ready to bring the customer portal online, we've already had someone who has guinea pigged the system. We anticipate that by middle summer, all four towers will be up and reading our system. The Sewer Division has been addressing sewer work, curb head repairs and inlet repairs. That will continue, as well as TV’ing some of our sewer lines in order for us to better identify priority sewer mains that need rehab prior to failure. This last month we had another sewer main failure. We're hoping to be able to capture some of these breaks before they become catastrophic and allow us to pipeline the inside before we have to do an excavation in order to repair. The Mains Division is addressing leaks on a daily basis with the personnel we have inside in addition to offsetting the loss in some of the other areas for long-term disability, long term illness. In the Meter division we are utilizing personnel to do meter repairs, meter reads and also change outs to offset the losses in different divisions. Up at the plant, WORPS, they have multiple capital projects going on that the director will get into. This month's production was just under 250 million gallons with about 25 million gallons going to both Orange and Livingston. Our daily demand is creeping up to almost 8,000,000 gallons a day before the summer peak. Mr. Liu advised the Board that two of the capital projects will actually go out as soon as next week. The four well rehab is going to go out as soon as next week. The D3, which is a completely new well they are going to develop, is also going out to bid next month. The Wyoming reservoir is going to be rehabilitated. They are going to review the specs tomorrow. Mr. Liu then advised that the Lead Service Line replacement, which is going to cost roughly $100 million dollars. He advised that the funding source for these capital projects will come from NJIB loans. Mr. Liu then showed the Board a PowerPoint presentation. In the presentation he spoke about the need to have the City prepare an ordinance allowing them to apply for the NJIB loans. He advised the Board that the Lead Service Line Replacement project has to be completed by July 22, 2031, that only gives them about 8-9 years to go. He advised that Commission has already replaced 20% of the lead service lines so that means, they are pretty much right on the border as far as timing goes. There was a brief discussion regarding if the 20% that was completed was on our side. He advised the Board that there was two ways to recover costs for the project: 1. You do it and then put a special assessment on the homeowner; or 2. The Board pays for it and adjust the water rates accordingly. Based on all the seminars that he has attended, people recommend that you not do a special assessment on the owner because if you tell people you're going to replace their lead service line and they are going to be assessed $8,000 to $10,000 nobody is going to let you into the house to do a replacement. The best way to accomplish it appears to be a rate adjustment. Mr. Liu then spoke about emerging contaminants. The DEP current standard for the PFOA is .014 parts per billion and also PFOS is .013 and the PFA is .013, that's the current standard. The EPA is going to have a hearing in May in which they intend to lower the standard to .004 parts per billion. Based on their schedule, they're going to try to implement the new standard by the end of this year. But they're going to give us maybe two to six years. We don't know exactly the time that they're going to give us a grace period in order to meet that standard. Our current output from our wells combined is about .009 or .01 parts per billion so we currently meet the standard. When the new standard comes in, we're not going to meet it. With that in mind, we will need capital improvement. It is going to cost about $20 million to put in a treatment system. We are talking with two engineers now to submit a proposal to alleviate this problem. We anticipate the proposal coming back by the end of May. Then we'll determine which engineer we're going to hire to design and alleviate this problem. Next is the (WQAA) Water Quality Accountability Act. So, state law says we must renew all our water mains every 150 years. That means we have to replace water lines every 150 years. They also talk about other pumps, wells and hydrants based on the assessment of the department. With that in mind, we are talking about a billion dollars but that's 150 years. So, we are talking about in the next 10 years probably around eighty $80 million to upgrade all these hydrants, water mains and other stuff. All these assets need to be certified by the license operator or the professional engineer. We are working with the distribution supervisor and with the operation manager to come up with a capital improvement plan that needs to get it done within the water system. Mr. Liu then went on to talk about the funding. The lead service line is about 80 to $100 million. We will need it for the next 9 years to complete the project. The emerging contaminants, which is the PFAS, we will need about $20 million and probably within the next 6 years. We need $80  million for all the WQAA probably for the next 20 years. Mr. Liu then went over the funding sources they could apply for to assist in funding some of these projects. Joseph Tomashosky then went over the Boards current financial situation and how they could finance the funds for these outstanding projects. In summary, he stated that they are in an excellent position to meet these plans but they are going to have to have rate increases. V. PRESENTATION NONE VI. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Lawsuits – update in Executive Session VII. NEW BUSINESS LAWSUITS TO BE DISCUSSED IN EXECUTIVE SESSION East Newark Billing System VIII. APPROVAL OF RESOLUTIONS The following resolutions 13A through 13K were presented to the Board for approval. A motion to omnibus and approve Resolutions 13A through 13K was made by Commissioner Lucas, seconded by Commissioner Harrison and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. 13A: Resolution ratifying the March 2023 recurring monthly bills paid in the amount of $1,212,480.92 13B: Resolution authorizing the approval and payments of Operating Bills in the amount of $252,347.58 13C: Resolution ratifying the payment of March 2023 Payrolls in the total amount of $579,770.72 13D: Resolution authorizing the payment of Capital invoices for the month of March 2023 in the amount of $315,248.59 13E: Resolution authorizing the May 2023 Temporary Budget in the amount of $1,990,151.00 13F: Resolution authorizing the amendment to resolution No. 148 of 2022 increasing the contract award for accountant and financial consultant services to Joseph J. Thomashosky for an additional $33,000 for a total cost not to exceed $183,000.00  13G: Resolution authorizing the preparation of and re-issuance of a revised request for proposals, the advertising solicitation and receipt of sealed proposals for the provision of accountant and financial consultant services 13H: Resolution authorizing and awarding a contract for accountant and Financial consultant services to Joseph J. Thomashosky in an amount not to exceed $47,250.00 13I: Resolution ratifying the change of location for the Board of Water Commissioners meetings to the conference room located at 99 South Grove Street and the amendment to the annual notice of the meetings 13J: Resolution authorizing the amendment of the Bylaws of the Board of Water Commissioners of the City of East Orange 13K: Resolution authorizing appointments of three (3) Laborer 1 positions IX. PUBLIC COMMENT Odell Rolling – Board is doing a wonderful job. Keep up the good work. X. EXECUTIVE SESSION 14A: Resolution for Closed Session Resolution 14A was approved on a motion made by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. ------------------ The Board went into Executive Session to discuss the following at approximately 6:50. pm: 1. Personnel Committee 2. Contracts and Litigation Matters The Board came out of Executive Session at approximately 8:52 p.m. ------------------- There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 8:52 pm. THESE MINUTES ARE OF NECESSITY CONDENSED AND ABRIGED AND DO NOT PURPORT TO CONTAIN THE FULL CONTENTS OF THE MATTERS DISCUSSED. SONYA BUTLER TRANSCRIBER