Idaho Falls Utility Board Meetings

September 26, 2019 The Idaho Falls Power Board of the City of Idaho Falls met Thursday, September 26, 2019, at the Idaho Falls Power Conference Room, 140 S. Capital, Idaho Falls, Idaho at 7:00 a.m. Call to Order, Roll Call, and Announcements: There were present: Mayor Rebecca L. Noah Casper Board Member Thomas Hally (called in) Board Member Jim Francis Board Member Shelly Smede Board Member Jim Freeman Board Member John Radford Board Member Michelle Ziel-Dingman Also present: Bear Prairie, Idaho Falls Power (IFP) General Manager Stephen Boorman, IFP Assistant General Manager Randy Fife, City Attorney David Smith, City Accountant III Pam Alexander, Municipal Services Director Josh Roos, Treasurer Linda Lundquist, IFP Executive Assistant Mayor Casper called the meeting to order at 7:03 a.m. with the following items: Calendar, Announcements, and Events Update: Mayor Casper reviewed the upcoming board meeting and trade conference schedules and shared some newsletters. GM Prairie talked about hydropower as a renewable resource and is indicative of the Northwestern states, unlike the rest of the country who relies on coal. He mentioned how subsidy credits gave the wind industry an economic boost. Mayor Casper continued that there are organizations who want to see solar tax credits continue and are petitioning Mayors across the West to sign a letter of support, but she thinks solar is not cost effective and since the City of Idaho Falls is already delivering clean power, she’s opting not to sign the letter unless otherwise directed by the board. She also announced that Idaho Power has a new president. GM Prairie replied that historically, when they get a new CEO, they become the president of the board as well. Mayor Casper stated that Idaho Power is the biggest utility provider in the state and a technology board advisor to NuScale, which is highly relevant to us knowing what is going on. They operate dams that are not run of the river, and on the water side they are a huge player including the aquifer recharge. In 2007, 08, and 09, a goal was made to reset the aquifer, as recharging is valuable. The last three years have been good recharge years, with a ten-year rolling average. She continued to say that with plenty of power to meet customer needs, they would like to generate power particularly in the winter, putting pressure on the Idaho Water Resources Board to curtail recharge. Board Member Radford added that batteries are a good bright future, an 80 trillion dollar industry right now. GM Prairie stated that Senator Elizbeth Warren is emerging as a top contender for the Democratic nomination and that UAMPS is trying to get into her office to discuss the Small Nuclear Reactors (SMR). He continued to say that Secretary Perry is the second longest serving cabinet member and will be leaving at the end of the year as Secretary of Energy, and noted that it’s a big risk factor. Secretary Perry was supportive of SMR and good at managing politics. Board Member Freeman encouraged the group to read about Sweden’s Plan. Board Member Freeman stated that the nuclear waste of one person’s lifetime could fit into a soup can. Mayor Casper said that it is spent fuel and can be reused. Board Member Radford added that accidents are rare and 1  September 26, 2019 there are no lung problems like there are in the coal and natural gas industry where there are 636 deaths compared to two deaths per 100 thousand megawatts of energy produced. GM Prairie continued that the death rate is appalling in the Congo where cobalt is being mined for batteries with child labor and added that the auto manufacturers buy verified source cobalt. He concluded that everything we do to produce energy has an impact, the goal is to pick the least impactful. Board Policy 17-POL-02: GM Prairie stated that Mr. Fife offered some great edits to policy number two, the Idaho Falls Power Board Policy, including cleaning up and clarifying some of the language about who attends the meetings and represents the utility, summer and winter conferences, and specifying how travel is paid for when traveling for the utility. Board Member Freeman asked if the policy states how often it will be updated and GM Prairie replied that it is a living document and can be changed throughout the year and he invited the board to markup any policy for review. There was a head nod to accept the policy updates. Board Policy 17-POL-03: GM Prairie reviewed policy number three, the Idaho Fall Power Board Training, and talked about purchasing shirts for the board members to wear when representing the utility in the community. There was a discussion about City Council acting as the Idaho Falls Power Board Members and if the minimum number of members should be more or less than six or a combination of four with two potential proxies. The pros and cons were discussed in each scenario. Board Member Radford stated that 43 percent of municipalities use the City Council model like IFP does. AGM Boorman said that he wouldn’t want to limit the ability of folks running for City Council because they have other jobs. GM Prairie stated that there are additional web trainings available if members are not able to participate in some of the annual conferences and that he supplements training by adding extra reading materials to the end of the monthly board packets and added that he is not in favor of increasing the size of the board. Mayor Casper encouraged the board to attend more of the annual conferences that IFP is involved with, as they provide incredible learning opportunities. Mayor Casper is putting together a packet for candidates who are running for City Council so they know up front their responsibilities. She added that it will be ready by the next election season. GM Prairie concluded that board training and the revised board book will be topics for discussion at the January meeting and meanwhile he asked the board to provide edits and comments for next month’s meeting. Title 8, Chapter 5 Ordinance Revision: GM Prairie stated that every year there is an opportunity to change the fees, clean up the ordinance, and put them into place before the rates go into effect Oct. 1. He continued to say that he is trying to weave electric and fiber, but also wants to keep separate as fiber continues to grow. He mentioned an area of clean up would be the fee in place, if the power factor is below 85 percent and added that this would be a good topic of discussion for January with general electric training. GM Prairie said there is an added online application for electric services as he’s been working with Municipal Services to transition to an online application and the ability the make changes to customers’ accounts, etc. (p18) He stated that the utility runs into easement/access issues from time to time so he would like to update the ordinance to gain access or if refused access give the ability to disconnect electric and/or fiber. Mayor Casper offered that it might serve us well to provide some education to the public on the new meters and remote disconnect. (p22) GM Prairie continued to say that language will be clarified on the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) opt out because currently, we don’t know if the opt out customer meters have been tampered with, so we get out to inspect them once per year. If they don’t pay their bill, they can be removed from the opt out list. He said that about 40 customers remain on the list and added that Rocky Mountain Power is in the process of changing out their meters and they will not be offering an opt out option. Board Member Francis asked for clarification on 85 nonowner occupied and what is the agreement with the rentals and City Attorney Randy 2  September 26, 2019 Fife stated that the Idaho Supreme Court rules that the contract is with the customer and not the property owner. Title 8, Chapter 13 Ordinance Revision: GM Prairie proposes to add language to the fiber chapter as we are installing more fiber to the premise. He noted the changes are needed because of the fiber to home network that is a “lit” network as opposed to our other dark network that has operated since 2002 and will also stay in service for our community. There is also the potential for providers to enter into a Service Level Agreement (SLA), which is a separate agreement for entities that require a higher level of service, for example, cell service. He stated that we would like to provide great service to everyone all of the time but an SLA can help us clarify those customers whose business needs require a higher level need. And continued to say that with 96 strands of fiber on dark service, it could be three hours to splice and that the SLA provides a higher level of service. Section 8-13- 10C should state that if the customer is not on the electric system, then they cannot be on fiber service. Board Member Radford pointed out that is critical because we need fiber to support our electric system. GM Prairie continued to review the proposed changes in section 8-13-12, which separates the two business models and stated that section 8-13-25, by eliminating the “fee for service” and referencing the fee ordinance, it gets rid of some of the complexity about cost-sharing. Mayor Casper announced that the proposed changes to the fee resolution will be on the Council’s agenda this evening and that she appreciated GM Prairie cleaning up the language. Natural Gas Heater Conversion: AGM Boorman stated some of the reasons that it makes sense to convert the shop, warehouses and old truck bay to natural gas radiant heaters are that the heat is conductive and radiant like from the sun and provides a more comfortable workspace in large areas like warehouses. He added that the existing electric heaters have past their usability and that when they break down, there aren’t any available replacement parts to repair them. GM Prairie added that we use a lot of energy to heat the ceiling and leave a cold warehouse floor area and that it makes sense to upgrade the new truck bay next year with radiant heaters as well. Mayor Casper asked it the goal is to have warm concrete in the winter so the trucks don’t slip? AGM Boorman said that radiant heat is more comfortable to work and walk around in and that it heats up materials in the room. GM Prairie added that with electrical forced air heat, all the heat goes out once the doors are opened and noted the importance for bucket trucks to be parked indoors because they are dielectric and not a grounded apparatus, thus adding another layer of safety. Board Member Francis asked it once we head down the gas route, will we be stuck with it? AGM Boorman replied that there is a four to five-year return on investment. Board Member Radford asked if there are already gas connections and AGM Boorman replied, yes that work had already been done. Board Member Radford asked if there are waste-oil collectors for shops and that he didn’t know if there would be a high carbon release and AGM Boorman answered that there are some available. Brown & Kysar Inc. Generation Protection Services: AGM Boorman explained how relay components work in substations and on the line and noted that there are a lot of them in power plants. He stated that the older ones are good and reliable for 50-60 years, but the limitation is they cannot communicate with the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system. GM Prairie added that it offers more protection for the machine and it reduces false trips, which will eliminate a two-hour call out every couple of months. GM Prairie would like to put out a Request for Proposal contract for time and material that will likely come before City Council in October. Q3 Financial Update: 3  September 26, 2019 David Smith, City Accountant III announced that he will report quarterly for both power and fiber. GM Prairie stated that fiber to home is $30 and pays for capital costs and that the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency payment covers operations to run the network. The City provides interest- free loans to service providers. Fiber will be following the electric policy where if a customer is 30-days past due, there will be a four percent fee added on. Board Member Ziel-Dingman asked for clarification on QuickNet. GM Prairie stated that fiber shutoffs are a little more complicated with customers that run online businesses. He added that the contributed capital of 1.4 million dollars has not been added in yet and Mr. Smith said that it gets added in once per year. Mr. Smith reported that the electric audit went very well with a small variance of only $4,000 on a $3,663,725 inventory. He said we are just short of 5 million dollars a month in revenue. GM Prairie emphasized how transfers are shown on the balance sheet. He pointed out that the interest income of $670,000 made through investments by the Treasurer’s office is much greater than the $39,000 the year prior. Board Member Radford asked about the usage rate. GM Prairie said that in reviewing the budget, that $426,353 came to us from Bonneville Power Association and noted that the price of natural gas had gone down and electric usually follows. He added that he put a little hedge on the books so as not to be cut short in the Winter months. He continued that Jackson and the Palisades are a little fuller than normal and said that it’s expected to be colder and wetter over the next two weeks. GM Prairie concluded, the flows in August had really dropped off the Columbia without much moisture in the Northwest but was an overall good year that should carry into next year. Mayor Casper proposed to table the Carbon Free Resolution discussion due to lack of time. Utility Billing Update: GM Prairie stated that there will be a discussion in the November meeting relating to billing. Josh Roos, Treasurer said that he meets monthly with a committee to discuss billing and how to best serve our customers. He added that credit card usage has increased dramatically and costs the City up to $3.00 per customer transaction, which equates to an expense of about $400,000 per year to the City. Mr. Roos stated in the proposed fee resolution for Oct. 1, 2019 that a fee of $3.95 will be charged to the customer for using a credit card to pay their utility bill. He continued to say that two kiosks will be added for customer’s convenience; one downtown operating 24 hours per day, and one at the Electric Administrative building open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Board Member Radford asked what percentage of payments are made with credit cards and Mr. Roos responded that at least half of utility payments are made with credit cards. He added that the City has been promoting autopayments and noted that the usual monthly signup had gone from 30 new customers per month to 400. He continued to say the City has also been promoting paperless billing, which gives the customer back $1 per month (the cost to send a paper statement). There was a discussion on the new look of the bill and the wording of the utility newsletters. Mr. Roos added that he is working with the committee on developing text and email alerts for customers on their billing. He also said that the interactive voice response in Spanish went live yesterday for online signups and disconnects. Fiber Pilot Wrap-up and Next Steps Discussion: GM Prairie announced there will be a Fiber Pilot Open House on Oct. 17, 2019 at Sunnyside Elementary. He explained the fiber network and its importance and added that the cost of service is broken down by aerial and conduit installations. He stated that aerial is very inexpensive compared with direct bury, which is more that double the drop cost, but includes landscaping. GM Prairie said that a large electrical upgrade went in along with fiber and the utility had upwards of 50 staff working in neighborhoods and noted that some areas in particular had difficult rocky soil and in these direct bury areas, it ended up being a large 4  September 26, 2019 undertaking. He stated that other areas of the City have much better soil like the Westside, where there is a need for electric line replacement. There was a discussion on the Governor’s Broadband Task Force and service provider’s return on investment. GM Prairie announced a proposed reduction in the City infrastructure charge from $30 to $25 per month to begin in January. He added that the reduction will put IFP out one more year from payoff, but noted that the chart doesn’t consider there will likely be more customers than projected because of lower costs. He stated that with a continued buildout, by working on aerial service throughout the winter, starting up direct bury in the spring, and continuing to add new fiber huts in set areas, that by early next summer there will be 4000 additional customers the network will pass by. AGM Boorman added that there are some high priority underground issues that will get resolved. There was a discussion on the general format of the fiber open house meeting. GM Prairie concluded with a reminder to the Board to read the additional packet, and that there is good information on conservation. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 11:10 a.m. s/ Linda Lundquist__________________________ s/ Rebecca L. Noah Casper_______________ Linda Lundquist, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Rebecca L. Noah Casper, MAYOR 5