GVAC Meeting - Budget presentation - February 4, 2015

I have sent the following email to GVAC members prior to above meeting:

 

"It appears I will not be able to attend tomorrow's meeting although I would have dearly loved to do so. I have family commitments which could not be postponed.

 

I would vote against the budget and would make a motion to "have a moratorium on budget items that would go towards projects that were identified in the MWP Referendum". I have difficulty identifying all the pipes and projects that would have furthered the current MWP but staff knows what those are and, hopefully, they would identify such projects. One such project is the purchase of the UVT Analyzer. What is "Capital project contingency.... Is this a slush fund?

 

I would vote against any increase in the budget. Last year we had $2 M for dam upgrade. That is now embedded in the budget.

 

I would not allow any more addition to the reserves until we know where we are going.

 

We have over $7 M in both Statutory and Operating reserves. We should not put in anymore till we get new directions ($736,000).

 

The Water rate calculator is an abomination. We should not determine the rates on a hit-and-miss basis. All those variables (volumes of a,b,c,d,e are estimated each with a potential error term). Using a normal user pay system will reduce the error to the estimated volume of water sale (5,766,696 cubic meters for 2015 and the number of customers "Base  24,325", this latter is not even important). Using the budget need as the "fixed cost" ( we must get all the revenues to cover all the expenditures) we get the true unit cost of water delivered to a customer's tap. To make sure everyone contributes to the costs we should set a minimum fee (access fee of say 10 cu. m.) that every connection must pay. Anyone using more than the 10 cu m will pay by multiplying consumed volume with unit cost.

 

More increase following the 23% increase from last year is a major blow to the citizens of Greater Vernon - like a penalty for voting down the referendum. Had either Vernon or Coldstream increased taxes at this rate there would be different people occupying those seats. So let's give a break to the ratepayers.

 

I am sorry again for missing the meeting but I am sure you will make wise decisions.

 

Gyula"

 

Obviously, the majority of directors believed that a 2% increase was still necessary. I am sure the operation and maintenance portion of the budget contains reasonable coverage of repairs and unforeseen expenses but be it. That was the decision by the majority.

 

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