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 BOARD MEETING August 20, 2024 MINUTES Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Water Commissioners held at 99 South Grove Street, East Orange, New Jersey on Tuesday, August 20, 2024. I. CALL TO ORDER - 5:12 p.m. ROLL CALL PRESENT: Commissioners Alison Rolling Shantel Harrison Sherkera Lucas Emmanuel O. Awe - approx. 5:38 pm Lauren Shears Staff Thomas Matich, Acting Executive Director Joseph J. Tomashosky –Finance Bianca Smith, Business Manager Counsel Denis Murphy, Esq. (Weiner Law) Council Members NONE 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 Sunshine Law for the record. Commissioner Rolling read the Rate Statement. II. STATUS OF RESOLUTIONS The Mayor has returned Resolutions #82 through #90. All resolutions are in full force and effect. III. ADOPTION/CORRECTION OF MINUTES 7A: The Minutes of the July 16, 2024, Regular Board Meeting were approved on a motion made by Commissioner Harrison seconded by Commissioner Lucas and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. IV. PRESENTATION NONE V. STAFF REPORTS FINANCE – Joe advised the Board that we remain ahead of our budget for both forecasted cash and for our expenditures in total. As we're in the second half of the year now and moving forward, we are going to be meeting on some of the larger expenses just to try to tie out the full year’s budget. Tomorrow we're meeting on our largest expense, which is the Capital outlay expense. Tom and I generally meet each month to have discussions on those projects as they can swing the financials massively. But if we swing, we're going to swing to a better financial performance versus a worse financial performance. In terms of the cash, we've had a dry spring and especially the end of June and July. That has positively affected our billings for the month. We've had the largest billing this year to date, and we’ve also had the largest collections this month. It showed that we had a 110% collection rate and anything over 100% reduces our accounts receivable, which is our objective. A big part of that was our biggest past due account, who has had some properties go into bankruptcy. These are all good properties. They're not, in other words, they're money producing properties. When the trustee takes control of those, that protects us because they're trying to protect their positions in those properties. Our position is ahead of theirs because they can't liquidate in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy without paying us off. In your confidential package, there is a status report that Sherry put together, and they still represent about 9.61%. of our total accounts receivable at the end of July. I'm looking at their balance as of today and comparing it to the end of the month July. They have been up into the 18% range before liens and things were put in place last year. The City’s liens are not going to be until December. That would be one thing if, if we could influence that with the City. That would be a good thing, because it would benefit both the City and us to collect monies owed up through the end of the previous year. If we do it in May, we would be earning interest on that money and we would be reducing our receivables faster. In terms of the Tax Collector title, it provides that they do it at their discretion as long as they do one a year. So, they've chosen December. That will be the next time that we get a huge hit. Once we file, which is three months before we file the liens, the banks and the lawyers start to get notified and we start receiving funds when they know that they're going out for a tax lien sale. We're still under 100% for the year, but our year-to-date collections increased to 97.7% in the month from a 95.4% year to date through June. From a year-to-date perspective, we have increased our receivables, but I anticipate that that will be coming down, especially as we've been more actively addressing that major player in terms of our past due accounts. We've been getting paid by the trustees monthly. All the properties were listed. All the amounts are listed as of today for what they owe. They list the properties that are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the ones that are on payment agreements. We've had them on payment agreements, and we've had to reinstate them after they've missed them. Bianca and her team are aggressively managing that account. We reduced our receivables by $231,561 this month. It looks like we may get a benefit from the collections of the billings that will occur for July in the month of August. You know with dry weather conditions; this is one of the years where we should benefit from a weather perspective. CUSTOMER SERVICE – Bianca advised the Board that for Customer Service there was a total of 7,707 transactions for the month of July. We are continuing to offer our payment arrangements. We're working to secure larger deposits. However, for our payment arrangements, if they're big accounts, we're extending them out for 12 months. We did develop the form for interest and penalty relief following our last meeting. It was a recorded total of $3,963.10 in interest of which $838 was reversed, but that was due to the system. If they make a payment on the date they're supposed to, but it doesn't post until the next day, we'll just reverse it back. To date, we haven't received any customer request for interest relief, but we did do the form that way you can review and approve it. We are in the process of trying to fill vacancies and are currently awaiting final approval from the City Administrator for that. In addition, we are enhancing our asset management system to improve the efficiency of our inventory and work order processes. DIRECTOR’S REPORT - Director Matich advised the Board of the following: If you look at the graph in the operations report, this month, we did 850 turn-offs. Although we don't do them every day, when we do them, we saturate. Mains is obviously doing a lot of preparations for those turn offs and the turn off exercises as well. We're also undergoing a citywide leak detection effort to meet our annual WQAA standards. Once those results are complete, we will prioritize them and address them based on the severity. Phase 2 Lead Service Line – we had an update meeting with Boswell this morning. We're scheduling a meeting with the DEP because the confusion now seems to be between the DEP and the Comptroller and documentation required by both or by each for it to move on forward. Part of the delay in all this also was a changeover in who was handling the actual submission of the project. We hope to get that cleared up at that meeting. Sewer Division - still handling internal rehabs. As for the relining project taking place on Arlington, submissions were reviewed and approved, and the lining material was ordered with the lead time now probably remaining about a week or two. The final traffic plan should be submitted to me by the end of the week. So that we can submit it to the City for them to plan for delays in that area. The Plant - is still awaiting the final piece to the new generator. Although functional right now, we're functioning on the old transformer. The new transformer is still anticipated being here next month. Once that's in place, the wire runs have already been installed and it should be a smooth transition of one business day for power off to reconnect to the new transformer. Dickinson 3 – the package for the new contractor that was approved two months ago. The contract was ratified and executed. We'll be making arrangements for them to have it in hand, and we'll be scheduling a pre-construction meeting probably within the next few weeks. PFAS - design is continuing with interaction between different departments of the DEP about any kind of hazards that we may have as far as indigenous animals and trees and historical preservation. Capital Projects that we have ongoing right now are still on track with the latest updates listed on the back of the report. There is one thing that I would like to add, we anticipate having an onsite meeting with a potential vendor that the President was contacted by. They perform Satellite Leak Detection, which is something that we can utilize in the well fields which is non-impactful. Once that comes into play, we'll be able to do a full scan of our production system in our well fields and see if there's any production water loss. Although that water is not counted towards our production because it's raw water, it does impact our draw from the ground and our water allocation. There are not many updates to the pending projects that are going on right now. The next one that we anticipate launching is the Lead Service Line. Dickinson 3 Well Replacement - we don't anticipate a shovel in the ground for probably another 30 to 60 days. Once that's in play and we can return Dickinson 3 back to production, that'll add another 1,000,000 gallons per day back into our coffers that we can utilize as we continue with the next phase of our well rehab. July being one of the hottest months, the average demand was only a little over 8,000,000 gallons. Affording us the opportunity to provide both Livingston and Orange with 15,000,000 gallons throughout the month and still being able to produce and provide for the residents of East Orange. VI. COMMUNICATIONS 141 So. Harrison Street – Water Meter Dispute VII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Legal Matters to be discussed in Executive Session. VIII. NEW BUSINESS NONE IX. APPROVAL OF RESOLUTIONS The following resolutions 13A through 13G were presented to the Board for approval. A Motion to omnibus Resolutions 13A through 13G was approved by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. 13A: Resolution ratifying the July 2024 recurring monthly bills in the amount of $1,254.38 13B: Resolution authorizing the approval and payment of Operating Bills in the amount of $666,310.74 13C: Resolution ratifying the July 2024 Payrolls in the amount of $395,590.57 13D: Resolution authorizing the payment of Capital Invoices in the amount of $17,339.11  13E: Resolution authorizing an employee reimbursement in the amount of $45.34 13F: Resolution authorizing a Personnel Appointment for Laborer 1 13G: Resolution authorizing a Personnel Appointment for Supervisor Water Repairer X. PUBLIC COMMENT Jennifer Mantle – 32 Woodland Avenue Came in to talk about the flooding that is happening in her home during storms. Director Matich indicated that he would reach out to DPW and the Engineer for the City to see if they are aware of the situation on her end/side of the street. Melgily Valdez – 29 Lindsley Place Came in to advise that the Board agenda and minutes are not up to date on the website. XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION 15A: Resolution for Closed Session Resolution 15A 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 6:16 pm: 1. Personnel Committee 2. Contracts and Litigation Matters The Board came out of Executive Session at approximately 7:37 pm. ------------------- There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:37 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