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 July 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, July 18, 2023. I. CALL TO ORDER – 5:07 p.m. ROLL CALL PRESENT: Commissioners Alison Rolling Shantel Harrison Emmanuel O. Awe Lauren Shears Sherkera Lucas Staff Joseph J. Tomashosky, Finance Consultant John Liu, Executive Director Thomas J. Matich, Operations Manager Sheri Lassiter, Customer Service Counsel Denis Murphy, Esq. (Weiner Law) – via Zoom Public Monica Reed, Director of Personnel H2M Architects & Engineers Karen E. Benson, PG Patrick K. Cole, PE 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 #73 through #85. All resolutions are in full force and effect. III. ADOPTION/CORRECTION OF MINUTES 7A: The Minutes of the June 21, 2023, Regular Meeting was approved on a motion made by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Shears and carried on the call for the Board to vote. IV. EOBWC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR REPORT AND COMMITTEE REPORTS Joe advised that Board that collections continue to be a problem. On a year-to-date basis, if you take the six months ending June, we are at $24.383 million against a budget of $23.800 million in terms of billing. On a collection basis, we're at $11,243,802 which puts us at $22.490 and under our budget. When I talk about the collection rate, it is the cash that comes in and the denominator is the billing. We have reduced both our monthly and our year-to-date numbers this month. Over the last two months, we've increased our receivables by over $1.1 million. We have increased, since COVID, are receivables by $2.4 million. In terms of the greater than 52 days past due, before COVID, we were at 34.8% and today we're at 47.2% of our receivables that are in the highest aging category. Now the good news is that since our meeting with the Mayor, we were told that the City was going to go out for liens. We have two tools for collecting receivables and that is liens and turn offs. You know, we have this collection problem but it's primarily being driven by one customer that we've talked about in the past. That represents approximately 13% of our total receivable balance. We are doing a number of things in terms of titles and working to get information about the title transfers. Because even though they may be related parties, the titles are being transferred. They don't get a clean title, if they haven't taken care of things that have been escrowed. We've found that situation and have collected some money. Once you add in this month's billing, you continue to have that amount higher. The lean process will substantially improve our AR process. We typically go out once a year to lien with the City's Tax Department, but this will be the first one since 2019 and 2020 when all the COVID restrictions came on board. So, we haven't done a lien for 2020, 2021 and 2022. It’s been almost four years now since we've done liens and we're hoping for some great success with that. We've also spent a lot of time with the City’s team and they are having the same problem with this customer. We go and turn them off, but the City’s Health Department turns them back on. I think we talked about some of this in the executive session. So, we think the lien is the most efficient, effective and quickest way to get some actions on those receivables. A lengthy discussion was then held with regards to the lien sale and the costs associated with same to the City. Tom Matich stated that with regards to the long standing ACO (Administrative Consent Order), they sent a formal request to DEP advising them that although we are waiting for a component on our emergency generator, it is fully functional with the equipment on site. Their lead enforcement person had agreed with that and suggested that we submit a request in order to close out our ACO. We're waiting for formal documentation on that. Additionally, two wells are due to return shortly. The first is Slough Brook 1, a new pump and motor will be bringing clean water back online. Dickinson 6, is undergoing the first phase of the rehab. That should be back online. Also 1000 GPM well, should be back online. Before you ask, Madam President, I also spoke to our vendor for the collection towers. The supply chain delays took a little bit longer but he still anticipates that we could have it up and running by the end of the summer, so by September 1st. I spoke to him this morning and he should be calling me back tomorrow with the final delivery date. We have spoken to Chief Davis and he's receptive for his two facilities, as well as, the City garage. Since we're going with the side mounted concrete pad on the floor, there's no impact to the building other than a few support bolts to hold it upright. As far as the Mains Division is concerned, right now we’re putting together the next affected area that will be listed as Phase 3. Also, based on the meeting earlier today with staff with regards to the in-house meter changeouts, we're trying to coordinate all that to take place in conjunction with the Lead Service Line Replacement so that we can replace the line and also change the meter at the same time. Sewer Divisions, we had a more in depth conversation about the investigatory needs in order to identify several pipelines that would need to be lined or whatnot in order to avoid the large dollar amount with the replacement. Director Liu advised the Board that they had a meeting with the Mayor and the Chief of Staff and also the BA regarding the PFAS and financing for the project. Joe just gave you the outline on what's coming up on the Horizon and what we need to do in order to finance all these big projects. We already started Phase 2 of the Lead Line service replacement. We started the design phase, so that will continue because we only have eight years to complete the project. The Rate study is out for RFP. We anticipate receiving the RFP by August 31st. We're going to start the rate study in conjunction with all these capital projects, so it will be helpful for how we are going to finance all these projects. The DEP inspector called me regarding the close out of the ACO because he thinks we did a good job as far as meeting the ACO requirements. He suggested we close out the ACO. That's why we sent out the letter asking to close out ACO. They are the ones that actually recommended for us to close out the ACO. For the meter replacement, we are doing the large meter replacement with the contractor, but we want to do all the small meter replacements by ourselves since we are hiring more people and will have more manpower. I'd like to come up with a plan to completely replace all the small meters by the end of next year. We want to make sure that all the meters are new and meet the current meter reading equipment. We can have a smart meter installed and can provide better customer service. We almost finished 2 well rehabs and probably by the end of next month we will finish all the wells for a total of 4 wells. That will give us a lot of water because we are approaching our capacity. Those four wells will definitely help us. By next month we're going to go out to bid on D3. As far as the Wyoming reservoir, we are planning to do a test shutdown to make sure that we can shut it down. Once we have that plan, we'll go out to bid for the Wyoming reservoir. The Surge Tower, remember we had the problem with the water coming up? The engineer finished the survey and they are currently working on the design. So, we are working with the engineer on the Surge Tower to eliminate all these surges. The I&I study, we are working with our purchasing agent to purchase the Eye Tracker and we are also looking to purchase some leak detection equipment. Those things are necessary for leak detection. It's very important because one side should increase production and the other side should reduce the waste of water. V. PRESENTATION H2M Architects & Engineers – PFAS Presentation – (not recorded)  VI. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Lawsuits – update in Executive Session Demolitions – Water Houses VII. NEW BUSINESS/COMMUNICATIONS None VIII. APPROVAL OF RESOLUTIONS The following resolutions 13A through 13F were presented to the Board for approval. A motion to omnibus and approve Resolutions 13A through 13F was made by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Shears and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. 13A: Resolution ratifying the June 2023 recurring monthly bills paid in the amount of $19,616.78 13B: Resolution authorizing the approval and payments of Operating Bills in the amount of $3,223,457.95 13C: Resolution ratifying the payment of June 2023 Payrolls in the total amount of $364,671.98 13D: Resolution authorizing the payment of Capital invoices for the month of June 2023 in the amount of $9,730.00 13E: Resolution authorizing the August 2023 Temporary Budget in the amount of $1,990,151.00 13F: Resolution awarding and authorizing the execution of a professional services agreement with H2M Architects for Design and Permitting and Bid Support relating to proposed Capital Improvements for PFAS Treatment at a cost not to exceed $446,800.00 IX. PUBLIC COMMENT None 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 6:41. pm: 1. Personnel Committee 2. Contracts and Litigation Matters The Board came out of Executive Session at approximately 8:09 p.m. ------------------- There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 8:09 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