I had to chuckle while reading the comments of this story this morning. Look who came out of his internets cave;
First off, clarification, Costner. The Reclamation (sewer increases) a few months ago were justified because the extra revenue was going to go towards fixing the sewer pipes. So why all of sudden we need to raise water rates? Secondly, does it really matter what fund fixing pipes comes from? It’s not that the money wasn’t there in the previous administration to fix these pipes, it’s that Munson’s priorities, for the lack of a better word were FUCKED. We had record sales tax revenue. Making it sound like the city was too broke to fix pipes makes me laugh, every time I drive down the $3 million dollar street to nowhere. Who pays rate increases? Taxpayers. Who pays sales taxes? Taxpayers. Who pays property taxes? Taxpayers. Does it really matter where the money comes from to fix pipes? No. We had the money to keep up with these upgrades, but our pussy-whipped council and mayor decided that rock/wood thingies in McKennan Park were more important. So shit hit the fan, literally.
As for your snow gates dig. I thought you were for snow gates? Did you have a change of heart?
Somebody’s lobbying for a Huether ‘no function but big title payday’. A rate increase will not go where designated. It’s mad money to be directed at Caesar Huether’s Coliseum. Go figure, a city of 120,000 residents with an annual budget of $330,000,000 is always broke.
Costner still is a no-show here. If huether could be Edgar Bergen for a day, then ol’ cos would surely want the lead role as Charlie McCarthy, or Mortimer Snerd.
🙂
Why do we have to keep repeating the facts in th4e face of these rants – Yes Lewis – it DOES matter where the funds come from. Again – BY LAW – the sewer and water systems MUST be supported by fees for those services. OTHER REVENUE SOURCES are PROHIBITED by law from being used.
Ruf – I have already stated that is true, but operational expenses are different then infrastructure repairs and upgrades (for ex: Lewis and Clark or Sewer pipes). The city can legally bond for upgrades as long 1) They can pay them back thru rates or 2) thru sales tax revenue. So let me repeat myself, as I did with Costner. There is a difference between operational costs and infrastructure. Not sure how operational costs would go up when we have more users and use less water. Doesn’t make sense.
Why do we have to keep repeating the facts in th4e face of these rants – Yes Lewis – it DOES matter where the funds come from. Again – BY LAW – the sewer and water systems MUST be supported by fees for those services. OTHER REVENUE SOURCES are PROHIBITED by law from being used.
Are you 100% sure of that Rufus? I was listening to a segment of knobe’s program the other day when Vernon Brown was on. They were talking about shifting money around so we could have more set aside for “special” projects. I didn’t catch it all, so I e-mailed Rick and asked if he could elaborate on it. Here’s what he sent me back.
warren,
vernon was talking about changing the funding source for paying off some utility bonds…going from pledging the second penny sales tax to actual utility revenues….below is some additional information…..
rick knobe
That additional info was an e-mail from Vernon to Rick. Since Rick had no problem sharing Vernons e-mail to himself with me, I figure whatever I choose to do with it is fair game. Here is Vernons e-mail to Rick.
Rick,
You had a question on bond interest rates yesterday. These are the bonds where we’re pulling the sales tax pledge and relying only on the waste water fund cash reserves, now that we finally have healthy reserves thanks to the responsible increases in utility rates.
The interest rates will not change on either bond. They are 3% and 2.5%. Can’t get much better than that!
Vernon Brown
Looks to me like waste water issues have been dealt with in the past with second penny sales tax money to me. But now that we have healthy reserves thanks to the responsible increases in utility rates we can put more 2nd penny sales tax money into huethers Event Center cookie jar. Just another in a long line of BS to have Joe SixPack pay for this thing with a regressive tax.
I have never understood why the water department needs to build a reserve? The city as a whole? Sure. But when emergencies happen we can pay for them with bonds or from the city’s general reserve. A utility should be self-sufficient operational. But it shouldn’t have a savings account.
13, I agree with you. Also instead of spending so much money on these Event Center studies, why haven’t they been using some of that money for necessities. I realize it was set aside for other uses, but lets face it politicians have a tendency to juggle a lot of things around.
Juggle? More like swindle.
” A utility should be self-sufficient ”
Thus rate increases. There are many expenses associated with providing clean water other than simple infrastructure so why don’t you stop kicking this dead horse?
Jim – You don’t think double-digit increases for several years should not be questioned? (Water rates have doubled in less then 6 years) You don’t think 51% of costs being wages should be questioned? Especially with a butt load of middle management? During these discussions at the council meetings, the water department has had all kinds of reasons why we need to raise rates, but have said ZERO about what kind of cuts could be made. That is ludicrous and unacceptable.
You don’t think 51% of costs being wages should be questioned?
Yes it should be. I do not know how many of the 58 water department employees are mid to upper management. I suspect quite a few based on these numbers.
Total personnal expenditure for 2011?
$5,649,612
minus
$223,920
for part time no benefits help
=$5,425,692
divided by 58 fulltimers
=$93,546.41 average taxpayer funded compensation per employee.
UNSUSTAINABLE
http://legislativeaudit.sd.gov/Municipalities/Accounting_Manual/mam_table_all.htm
A little light reading for everyone. Water and Wastewater funds are considered Enterprise Funds. They are intended to be self sufficient funds. It is legal to supplement with general fund dollars but is generally not a recommended practice by the Department of Legislative Audit.
Savings accounts are necessary within enterprise funds. The State won’t consider loans or grants unless a City has a down payment/local dollars otherwise known as “skin in the game” towards a loan. Plus when emergencies occur (i.e. sewer line break) a municipality needs cash to pay a contractor. It takes a minimum of six weeks to set up bond financing for a project.
Sky – Thanks for clarifying this for us. I always assumed that. As for emergencies, the city has a cash balance. We don’t really need to have another one in the water department, but that is just my opinion. Currently the city is trying to pull a fast one by switching all the previous bonds for the water/sewer department to be paid off entirely by the enterprise funds. They were originated with sales tax funds. Why is the city trying to do this? They are trying to free up sales tax revenue to pay off bonds for the EC, that is my educated guess anyhoo.
“…..Why is the city trying to do this?…..”
To satisfy the desires of STATE government, as represented by the legislative audit – you know, so that IF the city needs to borrow some $$ or get some emergency assistance from THE STATE they need to have a history of behaving in a manner consistent with the state’s requirements/preferences. Thye city of SF is just another municiplaity as far as the rest of the state is concerned – despite it’s “home rule” CHARTER – it still needs to behave as a responsible corporate body/citizen of the state. SF has not yet declared itself an independent city state, with its own army etc. and toll gates at every entrance.
Ruf – Have you been reading any of this, you goof? First off, they are not required by law to do it. Secondly, they are awash in middle management, and their personnel expenses need to be audited. And Thirdly, water usage is down while users are up. Can you do math?
Since you don’t know, plant operators have various licenses with some pretty long time commitments to get them, as well while the process is simple it takes money to work. I agree it seems top heavy in management but perhaps that is because that is the only position that would pay the well experienced operators a proper wage? Our water is cheap, consider if you had to buy 1,000 gallons of the cheapest bottled water then thank your lucky stars we don’t.
Jim – I would agree, there are certain Federal guidelines they must meet, and that may include having as many employees as they do, BUT, I don’t see anything wrong with an expenses and employee audit of the water department when they are asking for such high rate increases. You are almost saying we shouldn’t be asking questions because we are ignorant to the process, shouldn’t the ignorant be asking questions? I’m just saying.
Over the years we as city have used about the same amount of water for the last decade each year. Right around 8 billion gallons per year, give or take. Yet in the last five years, revenue from water bills have doubled. We have a right to question what sinkhole that extra money has been falling into …JIM.
From 2007 to 2009, the number of water meters paying into city coffers increased by about 1500. In 2007, the city processed on average about 22.4 million gallons of water per day. In 2009 the city processed 2.7 million gallons of water per day LESS than in ’07. This anomoly is in large part due to the city making even odd watering days effective in 2008. Other water conservation efforts also contribute to the usage going down even as water meters increase. The reward for being good stewards to the environment? That’s right. Higher water rates to cover the lost gallons per day usage. The same rules apply to landfill rates. Landfill usage goes down because hundreds of tons of elecronics and hazardous waste are diverted at the household hazardous waste facility. Once again the reward for being good stewards to the environment? Increased rates for garbage haulers, passed on to Joe SixPack…of course.
The city made $27,264,591 in 2010 in water bills. Where is that money going? Well, in part it goes to pay salaries at the water department. City water workers like to whine that they had no COLA last year. But if you look at the city budget from ’07 to ’10 their personnel expenditures increased by 19%. IN THREE YEARS. Jim, you’ll have a hard time convincing Joe SixPack 58 city water workers are worth $5,649,612 in compensation. Not when the median SF income hovers at $14.00 an hour.
Total personnal expenditure for 2011?
$5,649,612
minus
$223,920
for part time no benefits help
=$5,425,692
divided by 58 fulltimers
=$93,546.41 average taxpayer funded compensation per employee.
UNSUSTAINABLE
I bring this back for one reason. I made one small error. The number of fulltime city water workers is 48, not 58. That brings the compensation package to $113,035.25 average per water works employee.
Jim. Do you really believe those kind of numbers are sustainable in this town? And now that we’re here, let’s talk a little about thos part-timers you got working there. For 2011 you have $223,920 allocated for part-timers. I’m guessin’ you all pay these Joe’s about $11.00 an hour with no bennies. That comes out to about 20,356 manhours. Part time city employees cannot work more than 1400 hours a year. A little math tells me you got 15 Joe SixPacks working there for $14,928 a year with ZERO benefits. Do you see the disparity there Jim? Prolly not.
I’m sure Theresa could tell us a very similar story with substitute teachers, many of whom are permanent part time teachers making $90 friggin’ dollars a day.
Disgraceful.
Poly – I shot you an email. Where did you get those employee numbers? Link?
Theresa has taken some heat in the past for supposedly putting forth “cooked” numbers in regards to water consumption rates. Specifically by one big bidness advocate…COSTNER. But alas, costner has crawled into his bank bunker and has not been heard from in a few months. His handlers prolly have him in charge of public relations after their recent embezzling frenzy. I’m here to say Theresa was very close to right on in her “typical” family water usage and billing. In 2004 residential water usage in SF was 5 billion 142 million gallons. Our population that year was 141,000. A little math says thats 99.91 gallons per day per person. 2002 and 2003 were over 100 gallons per person. Those numbers have gone down slightly in the past few years thanks to water restrictions. Not by much though.
Stick with me here. It gets better. If a typical family of 4 in SF used 400 gallons a day for 30 days thats 12,000 gallons. In SF we are billed by CCF’s. There are 748 gallons per CCF. That turns out to be right at 16 CCF’s. We are now being charged $2.92 per CCF. That’s a bill of…
$46.72.
Of course good ol cos would have us look to Harrisburgs rates where we hold them hostage to whatever we wanna cherge em.
How bout some other places in the good ol USA with the same water usage numbers.
Sioux Falls….$46.72
Fresno………$21.95
Chicago……..$24.12
Baltimore …..$39.50
New York…….$41.76
Salt Lake City.$22.89
Dallas………$37.81
Las Vegas……$32.93
Jacksonville…$30.04
Milwuakee……$26.83
There are more. But I think you get the picture.
It’s also a fact that less use means higher rates…just like they’re trying to pull off here in SF.
Here is a good link that sums it all up.
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/the-price-of-water-a-comparison-of-water-rates-usage-in-30-u-s-cities/
More number crunching. In 2004 we had 50 water department employees who processed 8 billion 272 million gallons of water costing the city $4,017,527 in employee expenditures.
In 2009 we had 48 water department employees who processed 7 billion 200 million gallons of water.
In 2010 we had 48 water department employees who cost the city $5,740,876 in employee expenditures.
Something here does not make sense.
Although my head hurts, I think I want to get into the water business.
I hear ya Scott. Was gonna have a scotch and water. Think I’ll have a vodka tonic instead.
🙂
Oh, Poly, how did you know, my favorite cocktail, the vodka tonic?
You also have to take into account we have had a 50% population growth between 1990 – 2010. More users, more revenue (53,000 people).
Who said anything about 1990? What I have said is we have been right at 8 billion gallons a year since 2000. Since 2008, that number is around 7.8 billion. And yes, if you have a meter, you’re gonna get charged a user fee, even if you don’t draw a drop of water.
Here’s to Vodka…and Tonic.
http://static.footballguys.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/sudsy.gif
I am just pointing out population growth. That’s all
I know. That’s what’s wrong with blogs. Hard to read tone. Maybe some night at Falls Landing? Our favorite stop.
Count me in!
Good lord Poly! I will at first confess ignorance to any part timers at the water plant, but I will also add that the water/waste water system will be/is being upgraded to handle more capacity and to replace existing buildings/processes. There is nothing wrong with questioning, but outright pissing and moaning is what gets my goat. I don’t know if private citizens are allowed, but you should see about getting a tour of the plant and find out how it all works, you might be surprised at all the steps along the way to your faucet or how the waste water is cleaned and what challenges they are getting ready for.
Jim – Trust me, if someone knows about ‘government’ processes it would be Poly! LOL!
I think we all understand that it takes alot to get clean water, that is not the issue here. The issue is why is it costing more in RATES when we have more users. RATES should go down, not up when we have more users and less capacity.
Jim.
I understand what you’re saying. I’m not sure where the proper line is that can be drawn in the sand. What I do know is Joe SixPack cannot continue to function in our society being economically beaten down every direction he turns. Water rates are no different than gas prices. When supplies are down, the price goes up. When the price goes up, Joe, by necessity, uses less. That translates to less money for infrastructure upgrades. Our licensing fees are going up for vehicles because people are driving less or using conservation mode vehicles. Bottom line. Joe is still going to pay one way or another.
Jim, you may not feel the economic impact of such actions, but believe me, those part-time, no benefits employees at the Water Department do.
http://lakesideviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-news-us-urban-residents-cut-water.html
http://www.sosalliance.org/file-library/doc_view/250-the-perfect-storm-setting-priorities-at-the-austin-water-utility-in-a-time-of-fiscal-crisis