LRPC

The Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) met on December 8th to review several topics that will be discussed with the Board of Director’s (BOD) at the January 2019 Meeting. A summary of the topics is as follows:

• BLSMWC staff has proposed several scope requests be added to the USDA Construction Project. Many of these address safety and liability related tasks that were not included in the USDA Preliminary Engineering Report (PER). The estimated cost of these tasks is within the total USDA allocated budget, however, if approved they will impact our contract contingency reserve. The LRPC requested the staff and MC Engineering review these added scope items with Mozingo (construction contractor) to firm up the cost estimates and work to mitigate potential schedule impacts. They will present their findings to the board at the January 2019 BOD Meeting.
• A revised Asset Management Plan Proposal, received from MC Engineering on November 15th was reviewed. Based on prior discussions with MC Engineering, the proposal included a new task for GIS Database Development which will augment the Asset Inventory. A decision was made by the LRPC to continue progression of the plan in phases, with the Asset Inventory Update and GIS Database Development Tasks included in Phase 1 at a not‐to‐exceed amount of $20K. Once Phase 1 is completed, a progress meeting will be held to thoroughly review these products as well as the scope in the remaining tasks before proceeding forward.
• The committee reassessed the USDA eligible reimbursable costs and their impacts on interim loan interest. The consensus was to recommend continuing to hold off on requesting reimbursement of any MC Engineering and BLSMWC internal costs on the USDA Project as long as possible to reduce our interest liabilities. We will submit only construction cost reimbursements and continue to monitor our financial position monthly as we progress through 2019. We are currently updating our interim loan interest estimate based on a revised draw down schedule which will be presented to the board in January.
• The Reserves Fund Policy and Reserves Operating Procedure were reviewed with final recommendations incorporated. The documents will be presented to the board for approval at the January 2019 meeting.
• The LRPC further discussed the meter usage study data and rate structure. Based on multi‐year analysis through Sept. 2018, it was determined that the current monthly usage allocation and rates are closely in‐line with the study data. The plan will be to continue collecting and analyzing usage data with increased sample sizes throughout 2019 as the remaining meters continue to be installed.