March 2013

Week 8 (March 4-8)

This week I finished up my proposal. I also calculated the average cost for the City of Gunnison to treat and supply water to the customer.  Since 2009, I found that on average, it costs the City $2.03 per 1,000 gallons used.  This is a problem that I included with the current system in that the highest tier does not even account for this amount.  In total, my proposal is now 16 pages, with four pages of graphs that compare the rates for the City of Gunnison to other communities that are similar.  I have provided four options for rate increases.  Option A consists of a $5 addition to the monthly minimum, followed by a 5% rate increase to each tier.  Option B consists of a 20% increase across all tiers, Option C a 15% increase and Option D a 10% increase to each tier.  In my suggestions, I ask that Option A be adopted immediately in order to build up the reserves as quickly as possible.  I also suggested that if Option B or C be adopted that they be phased in.  For example Option B would have a 10% increase effective immediately followed by another 10% increase in, or around the month of September 2013.  This would allow for the customers to gradually accept the rate increase! On Friday, I sent Joe a copy of my rough draft proposal.

Week 9 (March 11-15)

This week, I heard back from Joe that my proposal was good and that he would like me to make a PowerPoint for when I will be presenting my proposal to council.  I spent most of the week going through my proposal once again, as well as making a PowerPoint for when I will be need to meet with council.

Once I was done with that, I began collecting the rates for sewer departments around the state.  I did this the same way that I did for the water, beginning by looking at all of their websites for the information and sending out an almost exact e-mail to the cities that I couldn’t find rates for.  I will call the communities I haven’t heard back from when I return from Spring Break.

 

March 18-22 SPRING BREAK

Week 10 (March 25-29)

At the beginning of the week, Joe and I visited Ken Coleman, the City Manager of Gunnison.  I did a preliminary proposal from him and he had lots of changes that he wanted me to make.  First off, he advised that I suggest an increase in the meter prices.  For example, the charge I used as my base was for $3.99, Ken Suggested that I make it $4.00 even.  He also suggested that I re-evaluate my options for rate increase.  Ken liked my option A in which there is a dollar amount increase  to the monthly minimum as well as an increase in the rates.  He suggested that I change my other Options so that each Option Generates the same amount of revenue.  I spent my week fixing both of these issues that Ken had.  I developed only three Options for rate increase.  Option A remained the same while Option B became a $4 raise to the monthly minimum and a 10% increase to the rates and Option C became a $3 increase to the monthly minimum and a 15% increase to all of the tiered rates.

After I was done making these, as well as the other minor changes Ken, Joe and myself discussed, I began working on the sewer rates once again.  I started by calling the three communities I had not heard from and then began entering the rates into an excel graph as I had for the water rates.