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 September 19, 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, September 19, 2023. I. CALL TO ORDER – 5:13 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 Bianca Smith, Business Manager Counsel Denis Murphy, Esq. (Weiner Law) Public NONE 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 #97 through #105. All resolutions are in full force and effect. III. ADOPTION/CORRECTION OF MINUTES 7A: The Minutes of the August 15, 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 CUSTOMER SERVICE - Bianca advised the Board that they continue to offer payment arrangements to customers allowing up to 12 months’ payoff terms. They currently have 103 active payment agreements. She then advised that they are continuously pursuing payment from the Proud Living Company. They own over 40 properties in the City of East Orange all are severely delinquent. They owe $800,000 in water and sewer charges. Several properties are being sold. We have received $52,000 to date. Nine additional properties are in the process of being sold. The payoffs at sale will be close to $200,000 as such all the properties with balances as of December 31st of last year have been added to the tax sale taking place next month. There are Federal State Programs taking place to assist our customers with paying their water and sewer balances. The Low-Income Home Water Assistance Program is for low-and medium-income eligible households that are having difficulties paying for their water. Hopefully we'll get some of those monies from those customers as well. Using our disconnect guidelines, the accounts with over $150 + our delinquent is subject to shut off. An analysis of our delinquent account shows that there is $3 million outstanding as of August 31st an increase of $97,000 from July 2023. Hopefully with the lien sale that we have going on next month we'll recoup a lot of that. We are pursuing a Call Management system where we'll be able to contact customers and gather their data so that we can update our system. In doing so, we will be advising customers that “hey, just to let you know I'm looking, and you do have balance.” Hopefully, we will be able to collect that way as well. FINANCE – Joe advised the Board they collected $202,000 less than what he had forecasted for the month. Last month we had a 147% collection rate. This month we had an 87.7% collection rate. When you look at both months, it's better. So, we had the highest collection of the year, then we had one of the lower collections the next month. Some of that has to do with the timing of the billing and the issues with the staffing and equipment. It's just getting worked through in terms of the number of days. We spent a lot of time in a meeting today where we've addressed that situation and going to look for volumes billed per day as a metric going forward to understand better. That was a meeting with me, Bianca and her team and Tom Matich. So, we feel good about that. I noticed I made a mistake on the report, it says $1.2 million but I believe the number is $1.6 million. In the 52+ day past due accounts, they've been noticed, and the second notice has gone out for September. In the first part of October, we're anticipating the lien sale. Now that we go to lien, we should get back to a closer, steadier state of business. We will have a much higher than 100% collection rate this year but that's making up for the jam that we were in caused by restrictions due to COVID. So, at this juncture, we are in good shape to meet our budgeted 2020 and exceed our budgeted 2023 revenues. We're in a good position to hit our collections and expenditures as well. The revenue will immediately increase our fund balance at the end of the year. The expenditures will be put in a reserve account on the balance sheet for one year and then beginning December 31, 2023, we will pick up those lower expense totals to our fund balance and so that's a conservative function that's built in by the state for their municipalities, so we are very happy on where we're going and it's a very positive financial report. A lengthy discussion was then had with regards to billing being lower this month than last and the causes associated with same. OPERATIONS - Tom stated We are also putting in place an 18-month citywide meter replacement. They're going to put together the plan on that schedule to try and coincide with and work in conjunction with the next two phases of the lead service line replacement. This way the impact on the customers is lessened. We can do it all at once, replace the line and reattach it to the meter and change out the meter as well. All of that obviously is contingent on the upfront logistics and scheduling coordination with the residents. Before that happens, I'll get with you Chief and the President, to notify the general areas just to provide more public awareness rather than you know the mishaps that we had the last time with the Main Replacement. We're going to exhaust every avenue to ensure the areas affected will be notified during this process. The Sewer Division continues, we have some smaller failures but are addressing them. As a matter of fact, in-house, a major project will be taking place this weekend on our 72-inch storm drain that runs down Springdale through Fernwood. We will be excavating and repairing the joint to stop infiltration into the storm system through a resident’s backyard. The mains division is continuing to address leaks, assist with the turnoffs for noncompliance and nonpayment. They're also working on the WQA requirements for hydrant tagging. We’re over 90% complete on that, with the remaining sixty that must go out and check. The plant is continuing with the well rehab. We've returned one well back into service and brought another well back online. We're running another set of water quality samples right now from the source for PFAS and Dioxane 14. That is something that has already been discussed at the federal and state level that's a concern for the future of what they will do for enforcement as that links into our PFAS treatment. The graph in the back just shows our monthly work, outsource work this month was very low. DIRECTOR’S REPORT - Mr. Liu advised that they already spoke about the Lead Service Line replacement. In fact, we have 2 ordinances that need to be in place for finance, the $25 million bond ordinance, and an ordinance that we need to access private property. Which essentially will give us the ability to ask for permission and then, if we don't get permission, access private property. I mean so once those two ordinances are in place, we're going to start the lead service line replacement project. The PFAS, we had a meeting with H2M two weeks ago, they are currently working on the treatment method. There are two popular methods, one is the GHC which is granulated active carbon and the other one is the ion exchange. The more favorable one is the Ion exchange because we don't have a sewer, we cannot backwash, so these are things we're going to come up with in the next couple months. We'll have to determine the treatment method, then we're going to start working on the design. We received the rate study proposal back from NW Financial. There is only one proposer. I made a reference call to their clients, and they all have positive feedback on the company. We decided to use them, and they are capable. All the financial data and all the billing collection data, we're going to start collecting before the start date. So, when they start, we will have all the information for them. There are several capital projects that we would like to delay because of all these rates. The Wyoming reservoir, we talk about rehabbing those reservoirs but since we did the underwater inspection, the reservoir is in pretty good condition. We don't have to do it right away. There's  $1.3 million to do the work, so we were thinking about delaying it for a couple years so we can use the money for more critical issues. The redevelopment of the D3 that's going to continue because that's the production we need to be able to do development in the City. The vacant houses are completed. I spoke to the BA and he said the future demolition of those houses will be part of the city's responsibility. V. PRESENTATION NONE VI. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Lawsuits – update in Executive Session VII. NEW BUSINESS/COMMUNICATIONS Termination of the Solar Panels 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 August 2023 recurring monthly bills paid in the amount of $29,360.48 13B: Resolution authorizing the approval and payments of Operating Bills in the amount of $491,418.29 13C: Resolution ratifying the payment of August 2023 Payrolls in the total amount of $399,672.32 13D: Resolution authorizing the payment of Capital invoices for the month of August 2023 in the amount of $5,517.15 13E: Resolution authorizing Reimbursements in the amount of $1,100.00 on lien accounts subject to Tax Sale 13F: Resolution authorizing and approving an award of contract for the preparation of a Water and Sewer rate study and Capital Plan Assessment to NW Financial Group, LLC and Remington & Vernick Engineers for a total amount $47,400.00 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 Shears, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. ------------------ The Board went into Executive Session to discuss the following at approximately 6:47 pm: 1. Personnel Committee 2. Contracts and Litigation Matters The Board came out of Executive Session at approximately 8:18 p.m. ------------------- There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 8:19 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