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 September 17, 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, September 17, 2024. I. CALL TO ORDER - 5:06 p.m. ROLL CALL PRESENT: Commissioners Alison Rolling Shantel Harrison Sherkera Lucas Emmanuel O. Awe Lauren Shears - Excused Staff Thomas Matich, Acting Executive Director Joseph J. Tomashosky –Finance Bianca Smith, Business Manager Counsel Denis Murphy, Esq. (Weiner Law) Council Members NONE Public Tony Jackson, Chief of Staff D. Talib Aquil, Asst. to City Administrator 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 #91 through #99. All resolutions are in full force and effect. III. ADOPTION/CORRECTION OF MINUTES 7A: The Minutes of the August 20, 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 Director Matich started by congratulating Commissioner Shears. He then gave the floor to Bianca Smith for Customer Service. CUSTOMER SERVICE – Bianca advised the Board that the job postings were approved and are up. There are 2 postings, Account Clerk 1 and Laborer 1. They have been trying to get them posted for the past 2 months and they finally did. They checked on the interest billed, and it was almost $78,000. They had $3,900 in reversals not credits. Those were the accounts that were improperly charged interest. We are continuing to offer payment arrangements which must be satisfied by November 1st to avoid the December lien sale. Also, the agenda and minutes were posted on the website. A brief discussion was held with regards to the website and the functions that will be capable. FINANCE – Joe advised the Board that in terms of collections this month, we collected approximately $32,000 more than what we billed. We billed around $2 million. So, we had a collection rate of 101.6%. That is, as you know, every time we're over 100%, it reduces our accounts receivable. It helps with our cash flow and our goal to collect 100% for the year. There were no unusual expenses. We feel very comfortable that we will beat our cash collections by about $975,000 for the year. That's what we're currently forecasting through the end of the year. In terms of expenses, we are looking at meeting our budget there as well. We still have a lot of pressure in terms of the largest expense that we have budgeted this year, it’s called capital outlay, and two of the largest projects in that are two wells, Dickerson 3 and Dickerson 4. We're getting very close to issuing the purchase order, which would count as an expenditure against our budgeted capital outlay expense. Dickerson 4, we're still hopeful that we can potentially get that purchase order out before the end of the year. That should be somewhere around $1.4 million. From a cash perspective we remain very diligent. Beginning November 15th, we will no longer be able to use turnoffs for collections and then on December 6th we have the light lien sale. When I say light, I mean we're leaning for December 31, 2023, past dues and we have about $1.1 million that we've already sent to the City. We're ahead of the game this year. They are still preparing to send out the first notifications of liens and based upon history, I would assume that we will collect approximately $700,000 of the $1.1 million over the months of October and November as the notifications go out. A discussion was then held with regards to having an earlier lien sale. DIRECTOR’S REPORT - Director Matich advised the Board of the following: Mains - the citywide Leak Detection project is now complete. The final report was provided with 48 areas of concern. Twenty-Five were hydrant related, of which 95% of that has been addressed. A lot of them were just an operation or a valve that just needed to be squeezed. The remaining 23 were a combination of supply line leaks, service line leaks and main leaks. Two water main leaks were also addressed. That would leave us with just around 20 that we need to address in that final report. We should be able to trim that down and complete that by the end of next month. That will have us addressing all our leaks provided by the leak detection company and we'll submit that report also for the WQAA update. Phase 2 Lead Service Line – we just received final updates today from the State Comptroller as well as the DEP. Some paperwork was provided back and forth. We should have the green light within the next two weeks so that we can proceed with Phase 2. I've already spoken to the engineers and once we receive the green light for Phase 2, we're going to go ahead and submit for Phase 3A and B simultaneously. This delay has pushed us back in the governor's mandate to have everything replaced in a timely manner. Sewer Division - the big project coming up on S. Arlington for the 18 inch and 36-inch pipelining is still awaiting the delivery of the lining material. Once that's in play, the anticipated downtime on that roadway should be less than three weeks, barring any other weather conditions that would delay it. We anticipate that taking place probably the first part of October. Meter Division - The three main collection towers are still awaiting final components for the electrical connection. At that point, the automated system will be in place, and we'll run that tandem with our present physical reads and tie in the customer portal in order for that to be updated as well. The Plant/WORPS - although we're still undergoing the well rehabilitation project. In the Phase 2 portion of the Phase 1 yield, there's quite a bit of gain in our production of those wells. We're on track now to meet the goal of former Director Liu in achieving 125% above our water allocation or capability. Even with that, we provide a little over 12 million gallons of water sales to Orange and Livingston. In the chart on the back of the operational overview, you can see that this month we continued with our aggressive turnoffs. We had upwards of 350 turnoffs which also correlates to the curb boxes and the valves located in order to be able to make those accessible. That will continue until several days before November 15th when the mandate comes into play. Water sampling continues. We have not had any major concerns with our water quality. Although, we received some communication about some residents complaining about their internal water conditions. All of those were apartment buildings or multifamily dwellings where the water quality concern is not a water system problem, but an internal problem. We spoke to the health department and property maintenance has been involved in that as well. These are things that the building super or property management has to address. He advised that he has a virtual meeting next week with a company providing satellite leak detection. Although we do physical leak detection within the City because it is viable for our well fields that are in the water reserve and our transmission mains that run from the plant down into South Orange. It's not feasible to do physical leak detection for some of those. He has already gained some information on acoustic ball technology that would do acoustic leak detection within those pipelines. But he is also going to venture to find out a little bit more about this satellite leak detection. He will let the Board know how that goes. A lengthy discussion was then held with regards to the Rate Study and when the Board would receive it. Director Matich advised that they will have the report in the AM. VI. COMMUNICATIONS 141 So. Harrison Street Resident complaint regarding contaminated water in apartment building VII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Legal Matters to be discussed in Executive Session. VIII. NEW BUSINESS NONE IX. APPROVAL OF RESOLUTIONS The following resolutions 13A through 13H were presented to the Board for approval. A Motion to omnibus Resolutions 13A through 13H was approved by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. 13A: Resolution ratifying the August 2024 recurring monthly bills in the amount of $6,155.79 13B: Resolution authorizing the approval and payment of Operating Bills in the amount of $436,371.35 13C: Resolution ratifying the August 2024 Payrolls in the amount of $545,426.75 13D: Resolution authorizing the payment of Capital Invoices in the amount of $1,057.50 13E: Resolution authorizing a reimbursement in the amount of $6,905.22 13F: Resolution amending the 2024 Budget of the East Orange Board of Water Commission from $30,881,911.62 to $31,326,911.62 13G: Resolution authorizing the preparation of Bid Specifications Advertisement and Solicitation of Bids for Underground Utility Locating and Marking Services  13H: Resolution authorizing and approving the award of contract for Accountant and Financial Services to Joseph Tomashosky for a total amount not to exceed $193,200.00 X. PUBLIC COMMENT NONE 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 6:13 pm: 1. Personnel Committee 2. Contracts and Litigation Matters The Board came out of Executive Session at approximately 9:11 pm. ------------------- A Motion to amend the Agenda to include Resolutions 13H and 13I was approved by Commissioner Awe, seconded by Commissioner Harrison, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. I. REINTRODUCTION OF RESOLUTIONS A Motion to approve Resolutions 13I and 13J was made by Commissioner Awe, seconded by Commissioner Harrison, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. 13I: Resolution authorizing the settlement of a Grievance and Demand for Arbitration filed by the CWA – Docket No. AR-2022-480 13J: Resolution authorizing the settlement of a Grievance and Demand for Arbitration filed by the CWA – Docket No. AR-2022-482 There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9:13 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