HomeMy Public PortalAboutExhibit MSD 93 - Transcript of Public Hearing June 27, 2019 PUBLIC HEARING 6/27/2019
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6 METROPOLITAN ST. LOUIS SEWER DISTRICT
7 MARYLAND HEIGHTS COMMUNITY CENTER
8 2300 McKELVEY ROAD
9 MARYLAND HEIGHTS, MISSOURI 63043
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14 PUBLIC HEARING
15 JUNE 27, 2019
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Exhibit MSD 93
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1 APPEARANCES
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BRIAN L. HOELSCHER, P.E.
3 Executive Director
Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District
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The Commissioners:
5 Lloyd Palans
Brad Goss
6 Chan Mahanta
Steve Mahfood
7 Brandy Bowdry
Paul Brockmann
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The Court Reporter:
9 MS. AMANDA N. FARRAR, CCR
Alaris Litigation Services
10 711 North Eleventh Street
St. Louis, Missouri 63101
11 (314)644-2191
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PUBLIC HEARING 6/27/2019
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 (The public hearing commenced at
3 6:01 p.m.)
4 MR. PALANS: Good evening, ladies and
5 gentlemen. I'm Lloyd Palans, a member of the
6 Metropolitan Sewer District Rate Commission and I
7 will be presiding this evening over our public
8 hearing.
9 With me tonight are the following MSD
10 rate commission members. Starting to my immediate
11 right, Mr. Brad Goss. To his left, Mr. Chan
12 Mahanta. To his left, Mr. Steve Mahfood. To my
13 right, Ms. Brandy Bowdry. And to my left, Mr. Paul
14 Brockmann.
15 I'm going to read a statement for the
16 record before we begin with the presentation.
17 The charter plan of our district was
18 amended at a general election on November 7th, 2000,
19 and established the rate commission to review and
20 make recommendations to the district regarding
21 changes in wastewater rates, stormwater rates and
22 tax rates proposed by the district. The charter
23 plan requires the MSD board of trustees to select
24 organizations to ensure a fair representation of all
25 users of the district's services on the rate
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1 commission. The rate commission representative
2 organizations are to represent commercial/industrial
3 users, residential users, and other organizations
4 interested in the operation of our district
5 including organizations focusing on environmental
6 issues, labor issues, socioeconomic issues,
7 community neighborhood organizations and other
8 nonprofit organizations. The MSD rate commission
9 currently consists of 15 members from organizations
10 and institutions throughout St. Louis City and
11 St. Louis County.
12 The rate commission received a rate
13 change notice from the district on March 4, 2019.
14 Under the district's charter plan, the rate
15 commission must on or before July 2nd, 2019, issue
16 its report on the proposed rate change notice to the
17 board of trustees of the district, unless the board
18 of trustees, upon application of the rate
19 commission, extends the period of time for the
20 issuance for the rate commission report for an
21 additional 45-day period.
22 At its meeting on March 14, 2019, the
23 board of trustees approved the rate commission's
24 request for an extension. The rate commission's
25 report on the rate change proposal must now be
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1 issued on or before August 16, 2019.
2 The MSD rate commission has engaged
3 legal counsel and a rate consultant which are
4 independent of those used by the MSD staff.
5 Under procedural rules adopted by the
6 rate commission as amended, any person affected by
7 the rate change proposal has an opportunity to
8 submit an application to intervene in these
9 proceedings. An application to intervene has, in
10 fact, been filed by Missouri Industrial Energy
11 Consumers and this application was granted.
12 Since March 4 -- since March 4, 2019,
13 the rate commission has received testimony from MSD
14 staff, the rate consultant and intervenors. The
15 parties have also engaged in discovery requests.
16 A prehearing conference for the purpose
17 of identifying any issues raised by the rate-setting
18 documents and the prepared testimony previously
19 submitted will be conducted on the record. All
20 persons submitting testimony may participate in the
21 prehearing conference, and each participant in the
22 prehearing conference shall submit a prehearing
23 conference report describing the issues raised by
24 the rate-setting documents and the proposed -- and
25 the prepared testimony together with a brief
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1 description of such participant's position, if any,
2 on each issue and the rationale therefore.
3 Ratepayers who do not wish to intervene
4 are permitted to participate in these on-the-record
5 public hearings conducted in six sessions beginning
6 on May 14 of this year. The rate commission
7 published a public notice regarding these
8 proceedings in the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the
9 St. Louis American. These notices contain the time,
10 dates and location of each of the conferences and
11 hearings.
12 The public hearing session tonight is
13 for the purpose of permitting the district to
14 present its wastewater rate change proposal and to
15 permit any ratepayer an opportunity to comment. We
16 will begin the presentation this evening by the
17 district followed by a public comment period. The
18 district will be presenting a lot of information.
19 So I would ask that you hold your questions until
20 the comment period as perhaps many of your initial
21 questions will be answered by the end of their
22 presentation.
23 Those wishing to speak should sign a
24 sheet provided to my right on the table which is
25 being held up, and the -- and the order of the
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1 questions will be as called in the order of names
2 listed on that sheet. Each ratepayer should
3 identify themselves and any organizations
4 represented by that ratepayer. If you wish to
5 present testimony or expect that you may have
6 questions or comments or during the course of this
7 hearing if you decide you want to ask a question,
8 please proceed to the clipboard, indicate your name
9 and any organization which you may represent.
10 Speakers, again, will be recognized in
11 the order in which they sign up. Each ratepayer may
12 have a maximum of ten minutes to speak regarding the
13 proposed rate change. As the presiding officer, I
14 can limit or expand that time should I deem it
15 necessary.
16 If you have not already done so, please
17 silence your cell phones.
18 Exits from this room are located to my
19 right and to your left. The restrooms are located
20 through that door and to the left.
21 Are there any questions regarding our
22 procedure this evening?
23 Do the rate commissioners have any
24 questions or comments?
25 Seeing none. I thank you all for your
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1 participation this evening. For your information,
2 our next public hearing will be conducted on
3 July 10, 2019 at 6 p.m. at the UMSL Wellness and
4 Recreation Center. I will again remind everybody at
5 the end of our next public hearing in case you
6 missed that.
7 Having said that, I would like to hand
8 the baton to Brian Hoelscher and allow the
9 presentation to go forward from the district.
10 MR. HOELSCHER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 My name's Brian Hoelscher. I'm the
12 executive director and CEO at MSD. We're going to
13 go over the proposed rate proposal for fiscal 2021
14 through fiscal 2024.
15 The first slide is going to be just a
16 little history and information about MSD and then
17 I'll dive down into the details.
18 Some information about MSD. MSD is a
19 municipal cooperation created pursuant to a
20 provision of the Missouri State Constitution. We're
21 a municipal cooperation. We are not a private
22 company. We have a voter-approved charter that
23 governs how we operate our district. It is our
24 organic law. We use it in cooperation as long as
25 there's no conflict with state law in order to run
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1 the district.
2 We have a six-member board of trustees
3 that I and one other gentleman report to. These are
4 voluntary positions. Three of those positions are
5 appointed by the mayor of the City of St. Louis and
6 three by the county executor, and that is per our
7 charter.
8 One thing I want to stress before we
9 start, MSD is two utilities. We're going to talk
10 today about wastewater and wastewater rates. We're
11 also a stormwater utility. We recently had a vote
12 on a stormwater proposition offering a new service
13 that we had heard folks potentially wanted us to
14 provide. So I am not going to talk about stormwater
15 tonight. I'm only going to talk about wastewater.
16 They are two separate functions. We don't mix
17 revenues. We don't mix resources. They're actually
18 two separate pieces.
19 As I go through this, if you do have
20 stormwater questions, if you have questions about
21 the wastewater system that aren't addressed here, we
22 have got district staff in either blue shirts, raise
23 your hands, or non-blue shirts, got jackets on,
24 that's close enough. We can answer questions
25 afterwards if you've got questions other than what's
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1 on this proposal.
2 A little bit about MSD. We have a 520
3 square mile service area, City of St. Louis and
4 about 90 percent of the county. We go out to about
5 109 in Wildwood. We don't have the area west of
6 that. 1.3 million customers, 88 municipalities are
7 within our service boundaries. We have about
8 10,000 miles of sewers that makes St. Louis MSD the
9 fourth largest wastewater and stormwater utility in
10 the country, right behind New York, Chicago and Los
11 Angeles.
12 So talk about the wastewater proposal.
13 As we do every four years, the major component has
14 to do with the capital program. And this is just a
15 description of some of the things we're proposing to
16 do over those next four years.
17 1: It does fund $1.6 billion in capital
18 work. There's over 300 projects that make up that
19 program. The program is almost exclusively, except
20 for a very small piece, meant to meet regulatory
21 requirements that MSD is under with regard to its
22 wastewater system. The proposal we're putting in
23 front of you depends on whether or not the citizens
24 request -- allow us to have an additional
25 $500 million worth of bonding. That's a vote that
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1 will occur and you'll see this every four years.
2 Before we get into talking about that,
3 so you know, you won't be voting on whether or not
4 we do the program. That's a regulatory mandate.
5 You will have a say on how we pay for it and I'll go
6 over the details of what that looks like.
7 Little more detail on the wastewater
8 benefits. Fifty wastewater overflows, this is where
9 stormwater gets into our wastewater pipes. When it
10 rains, gets in there and it discharges to people's
11 basements and it discharges to local creeks and
12 streams. Those are illegal. We're eliminating
13 those.
14 There are 60 miles of new wastewater
15 sewers that we need to build in order to prevent
16 those kind of overflows. We regularly inspect the
17 system. Within those four years we'll inspect
18 64,000 different manholes.
19 Part of the program is to replace the
20 incinerators at our Bissell and Lemay treatment
21 plant. We incinerate sludge. For the St. Louis
22 area it is the economically best alternative. It is
23 the only sustainable alternative for an entity like
24 us that submits as much biosolids as we do, it's
25 most cost effective and it's actually the safest for
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1 the environment.
2 And also we will build a tunnel from the
3 Fenton treatment plant to the lower Meramec
4 treatment plant. We have a small regional plant in
5 Fenton. We'll build a tunnel to take it offline.
6 Couple -- the main reason for that is it's needed in
7 order for us to facilitate the moving the overflows
8 in that area. We can't just bring the flows to the
9 Fenton treatment plant. We need to get them down to
10 our regional Meramec plant that's located where the
11 Meramec River goes into the Mississippi River.
12 So what I've given you here, the rate
13 proposal we're proposing, the revenues, over half of
14 them, over 50 percent go towards this program.
15 Where do the balance of the dollars go? 20 percent
16 of the program goes to debt service. Both previous
17 bonds that were sold as well as the bonding that's
18 being proposed as part of this rate proposal. 25 to
19 30 percent of the funding goes towards MSD's daily
20 operations to operate the infrastructure that I
21 described earlier.
22 Key issues. There are five factors that
23 MSD staff considered in putting our proposal
24 together. These are the same five factors that our
25 rate commission will be evaluating our proposal on.
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1 They're the same five factors that our board of
2 trustees will be evaluating when they see the
3 recommendations of the rate commission. So those
4 five are -- one is the proposal consistent with
5 constitutional or common law as they exist. That's
6 a pretty obvious one. Does enhance our ability to
7 provide services. It's an obvious reason why we're
8 proposing this. Need to make sure it's consistent
9 with and not in violation of any bond requirements,
10 either past or future bonding. Make sure we have
11 sufficient money to support those bonds. It
12 can't -- the resulting recommendations can't impair
13 our ability to meet federal and state environmental
14 regulations. That's what drives MSD. That's why
15 our program is around. And the final one that MSD,
16 our experience with rate commission and our board of
17 trustees will consider, the last one is whether or
18 not it's a fair and reasonable burden on all class
19 of ratepayers. You'll find that that's where most
20 of the discussion happens on this topic.
21 Again, you'll see I'm going to describe
22 the impact of two proposals. MSD will propose a way
23 to fund this in the most cost effective way with
24 borrowing, which would mean additional bonds.
25 You'll also see we'll provide a provision, though,
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1 without bonding. If the populace decides not to
2 give us additional bonding authority, there's a
3 different set of rates that go in place. I'll
4 describe what both of those are.
5 Checking affordability. A lot of this
6 is driven by an agreement with the federal
7 government. As part of that agreement, we made sure
8 long term that whatever we were going to do met some
9 affordability requirements, how things compare to
10 income. We roll in our customer assistance program
11 with that for low-income individuals to try and take
12 care of those who are on the lower end of the income
13 side when we do our calculation. So that, that's
14 affordability.
15 Equitability. Are we charging everybody
16 for what it is we are -- the service we're
17 providing.
18 And there's some underlying rate
19 assumptions that go into our rate proposal. We're
20 looking one to five years out from today. We make
21 estimates on customer growth. We make estimates on
22 what happens with water usage. If water usage goes
23 down, our revenues go down, we may not collect
24 enough revenues to do business. Water usage goes
25 up, we make too much money, we'll see what that
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1 looks like. We make guesses on inflation. We do
2 have to have consent decree compliance. Again, that
3 consent decree is our agreement with the federal
4 government on how fast we have to make improvements
5 to our wastewater system. And, again, I mentioned
6 the customer assistance program, trying the best we
7 can to provide access and communicate the program so
8 we can get as many people who are eligible to the
9 program, allow them to benefit from the program.
10 Here's the guts of the presentation. So
11 what you see in two columns, you see one that says
12 2019 bonds and one says 2019 pay-go. This is what's
13 going to happen to the monthly bill for a typical
14 customer over the next four years.
15 Now, before I start this, this very
16 possibly is not what you pay per month. This is for
17 a typical customer. The way MSD bills for
18 wastewater for residents is we take your water
19 usage, your portable water usage during the winter
20 months in the November through January or December
21 through February, we assume that will be your indoor
22 usage for the entire year. If we actually measured
23 your usage during, say, the summer, we would catch
24 swimming pools, we would catch watering the garden,
25 we would catch washing the car, water that don't go
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1 down the sewer. So kind of an industry standard
2 method is to use the winter water usage, and we will
3 be measuring that this coming winter. We'll measure
4 that, we'll see what it is and that will then
5 rely -- that will then -- that will be the basis for
6 us to charge in the future.
7 So while these numbers aren't exact, the
8 percentages are. So there's one increase. And if
9 you want to compare these percentages, look at the
10 bill that you're going to get in August 2019, that's
11 our starting point, and you will see each one of
12 these increases is what you'll see over the next
13 four years.
14 MR. O'LEARY: I'm sorry. I have to ask.
15 What is pay-go? Because these --
16 MR. HOELSCHER: So pay-go is without
17 bonding.
18 MR. O'LEARY: What does it mean?
19 MR. HOELSCHER: It means you're paying
20 for this with cash without MSD borrowing any money.
21 So it's as though you bought a car. What's the cost
22 if I just paid cash for the car versus what's the
23 cost if I take out a loan on a regular basis to buy
24 a car. So those are the two options. Again, we
25 have to offer both options because it's not up to us
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1 as to whether or not we get additional bonding
2 authority. That's up to the voters.
3 MR. O'LEARY: Do you look at your
4 reserves when you come up with the pay-go?
5 MR. HOELSCHER: Absolutely.
6 MR. O'LEARY: And your reserves are what
7 right now?
8 MR. HOELSCHER: So I will answer
9 questions --
10 MR. O'LEARY: Let me get my answer.
11 We're on a chart right now. It's a lot harder to go
12 backwards into a PowerPoint.
13 MR. HOELSCHER: Okay. So I'm going to
14 go through those right now, if I can.
15 MR. PALANS: Sir, if you could just
16 state for the reporter your name so it's on the
17 record.
18 MR. O'LEARY: My name is Tim O'Leary.
19 MR. PALANS: Thank you.
20 MR. O'LEARY: I'm sorry. I didn't mean
21 to interrupt. Just I don't know what pay-go means.
22 MR. HOELSCHER: So pay-go is if the --
23 if the residents decide we don't want you to borrow
24 any more money, we want you to pay for the program
25 for the next four years solely on the rates the
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1 residents pay us. And just like if you bought a car
2 or a house, we make a decision do I pay cash, you
3 make a decision do I borrow money. As you'll see,
4 if you allow us to borrow money, the rates are
5 lower, the increases are lower than if you decided
6 to pay cash at least in the first four years, at
7 least four years.
8 So, again, we do rate proposals on a
9 four-year basis. That's why you see four years
10 here. So under where it says 2019 bonds in fiscal
11 2021, the typical customer, again this won't be
12 necessarily your bill, would be paying $56.63 per
13 month for wastewater. That would be a 1.9 percent
14 increase over what you paid the previous year
15 starting this August. Fiscal 2022, a 3.8 percent
16 increase in the average monthly payment. That would
17 be, if you're a typical customer, a little over $2
18 more a month in order to pay for the program.
19 Fiscal 2023, again, a 3.8 percent increase and in
20 fiscal 2024 a 3.8 percent increase. So we're
21 looking at the first year after the rate it would go
22 from $56.63 to $63.36 at those rates per year.
23 So move down. We have good discussion
24 about pay-go. You see where it says 2019 pay-go.
25 The chart above is if the population, if our
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1 customers decide to allow us more authority to
2 borrow money. If they don't, the program has to be
3 paid solely out of the revenues we collect from you
4 on a monthly basis and if so, here's the impact on
5 the rates. The first year there's a 1.9 percent
6 increase. We always set the first year of either
7 scenario at exactly the same increase because we
8 want the ability to determine when are we going to
9 actually have the vote and, therefore, we want to
10 make sure we do those the same. That's the same
11 $56.63. The first year going to our fiscal year
12 2022 would be a 15.1 percent increase in the average
13 monthly charge for the typical customer. Fiscal
14 year 2023 a 17.1 percent increase and in fiscal year
15 2024 a 13.1 percent increase.
16 So those are the two provisions that
17 we'll make sure everybody understands when time
18 comes to vote, assuming this essentially goes
19 through the review process. The citizens will have
20 a chance to look at this and we won't provide just
21 the information for these four years. We'll provide
22 the information going out. We've had folks rightly
23 ask, well, that just means I have to pay off
24 interest on this and you're absolutely right. So
25 when it comes time to voting, we'll make sure people
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1 understand what kind of the long-term outlook is to
2 make a decision as to what you think is the best
3 plan moving forward.
4 Cost savings and benefits. So I'm going
5 to give you some numbers that come from the previous
6 four years, what happened to our predictions as to
7 what our cost would be. In the previous four years,
8 2017 to 2020 our operation and maintenance expense
9 were $43 million below budget for those four years.
10 A lot of that savings had to do with technology.
11 Biggest one I point is we had a technology that we
12 put in place that made it much cheaper to do the
13 mandated inspection and cleaning of our sewers on a
14 regular basis. That's a real important one because
15 those type of technologies are sustainable. They're
16 regular savings. The savings we saw in those
17 previous four years, they get reflected in what
18 we're proposing the expected revenue needs to be for
19 the next four years.
20 Cost of the capital program, it came in
21 over the last four years $110 million under budget
22 or about 7 percent below what we had anticipated.
23 Then the financing. So what is the cost
24 of the debt that we have to take up. The two
25 gentleman here in the jackets happen to be our
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1 secretary treasurer and our director of finance.
2 They're watching our dollars all the time. What
3 they'll do is they'll take existing debt and they'll
4 find opportunities for low-cost borrowing such as
5 through a state SRF fund which gives us a
6 70 percent, 70 percent reduction in the interest
7 cost. If you've heard of WIFIA, there was a federal
8 program we got to borrow directly from the U.S.
9 Treasury, we took advantage of that in the
10 neighborhood of a couple tens of millions of
11 dollars, just reducing those costs. So in that one
12 we saved $27 million in expense from what we
13 anticipated the previous four years. Now, that is
14 not something you could necessarily put into a model
15 and expect it to be available every year. That's an
16 example of a type of opportunity that we'll keep
17 looking for even over the next four years.
18 The thing I want to leave you with here,
19 those moneys, you may ask where do those moneys go
20 when we came in under the previous four years. We
21 don't have stockholders. It doesn't go to our
22 stockholders. We're a municipal entity. We don't
23 get bonuses. That money goes into this four years.
24 It's the first pot of money that we use to try and
25 keep rates as low as we possibly can. The money
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1 sits there and that's our starting point for this
2 proposal.
3 Through the timeline, and I know I'm
4 repeating some of the things that the chairman did,
5 but MSD submitted this rate proposal to our rate
6 commission on March 4th, 2019. The rate commission
7 does have to have their recommendation completed by
8 August 16th -- 16th? I think the 19 is wrong here.
9 I think it's the 16th, 2019. They will turn that
10 over to our board. Our board will review the rate
11 commission's recommendations the same way the rate
12 commission is reviewing MSD staff's review. They'll
13 take -- they'll take the last part of calendar 2019
14 doing that and they'll decide how to move forward.
15 Any changes we put in place will become effective
16 July 1, 2020, which means you'd see these increases
17 in August 2020. That's the way our billing cycle
18 works. We start our fiscal years in July. So we'll
19 take the July usage and bill you in August. That's
20 when you'll see these increases.
21 I talked about when we would have votes.
22 Again, that varies. We want to make sure we have
23 the opportunity to communicate everybody so
24 everybody understands what they're voting on.
25 Sometimes certain election dates aren't as good as
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1 others. So we will have an election on whether or
2 not our customers want to use bonding to finance
3 this program. Somewhere between spring 2020 and
4 spring 2021 you'll see a vote come up asking people
5 this question. MSD will provide a lot of
6 information prior to that vote. We won't advocate
7 one or the other. It's not up to us as to how we
8 pay for it, but we'll provide a lot of information
9 to you not only in the financial particulars of
10 these four years, but of the years going out so you
11 can decide whether or not bonding is a good option
12 for this particular four years.
13 These are the public meetings. This
14 isn't the only public outreach we've had. There's a
15 lot of other pieces, but these are the public
16 outreach meetings specific to the rate commission.
17 We happen to be on the fourth dot and I think as the
18 chairman indicated we have two more meetings that
19 are still occurring. They'll be public meetings
20 like this and I think one of them's still scheduled
21 to be streamed, if I'm not mistaken. Correct?
22 Yes. So we're on the fourth dot. This
23 is Thursday, June 27th, 6 p.m.
24 Before I turn the floor back over to the
25 chairman, this is the website where all of the
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1 information on the proceedings from the rate
2 commission are on our website. You have access to
3 everything, meeting minutes, submissions, testimony,
4 discovery requests. It's all located at this site.
5 The one thing before I hand it over, I
6 would ask you again remember, we're here and the
7 rate commission's here to answer questions on what I
8 brought you. However, if you've got other questions
9 of MSD, we have other staff here. We will stay
10 until the last person leaves, and we'll also be
11 available after this to answer any other questions
12 you may have about MSD's services.
13 Mr. Chairman, my presentation is
14 completed.
15 MR. PALANS: Thank you, Mr. Hoelscher.
16 May I have the clipboard, please?
17 Thank you. As I indicated when we
18 began, under our general housekeeping rules, if you
19 wish to present testimony or if you have any
20 questions or comments or during the course of our
21 evening, you may have questions, please let us know,
22 raise your hand, we'll pass the clipboard to you,
23 you can sign your name and, and we can go from
24 there.
25 I would ask in making your questions or
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1 comments that you keep your voices audible so that
2 our reporter can transcribe the comments or
3 questions for the record adequately.
4 As I indicated, speakers will be
5 recognized in the order in which they sign up and,
6 Mr. O'Leary, you're the sole signer-upper. So I
7 don't even have to go down to number two unless
8 there are other questions you may think of.
9 Mr. O'Leary, the floor is yours.
10 MR. O'LEARY: Okay. Great. Not like
11 the tax meeting we were at two days ago. It was
12 horrible. It was a nightmare.
13 I'm retired and I live on Social
14 Security and so I have lots of time to look at,
15 like, Google and research stuff and not the least of
16 which are reports to the Department of Energy
17 regarding rate-setting policies. Several of these
18 surveys I'd like to mention, and you're probably
19 familiar with them. You've probably read them
20 yourself. You know them as much as I do, but the
21 first one was to the Department of Energy, it was
22 the office of energy efficiency and renewable
23 energy. It was the water and wastewater annual
24 price escalation rates for selected cities across
25 the United States. It was published in September of
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1 2017. This was made to the -- to the federal energy
2 management program basically to inform decisions
3 using life cycle cost analysis on water efficiency
4 projects. The studies were -- the studies were
5 conducted by the Pacific Northwest National
6 Laboratory in Seattle. Are you familiar with this
7 report?
8 MR. PALANS: I'll ask the district if
9 they have any familiarity.
10 MR. HOELSCHER: So we have them writing
11 it down. I don't know if that's specifically one we
12 referenced, but we do reference industry-specific
13 nationwide studies both that are in -- that are in
14 the proposal that's on the website. So I can't
15 answer right now whether or not that's specifically
16 one that we looked at.
17 Does it sound familiar to you guys? No.
18 MR. O'LEARY: There's only two. So if
19 you haven't got one or the other of these, then I
20 would suspect that you're not doing enough homework
21 on what the rates are across the country.
22 MR. HOELSCHER: So I would ask that you
23 look at our rate proposal and find there are more
24 than two sources. I'll even show you the rate
25 proposal afterwards. We are comparing against
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1 what's going on throughout the rest of the country.
2 MR. O'LEARY: This is a 60 water
3 districts and utilities and 40 cities with
4 wastewater surveys. These surveys typically go out
5 every year. They are voluntarily submitted by sewer
6 districts and because these 40 cities that I found
7 that were sewer related, the closest one to us was
8 Olathe, which is Kansas City. Kansas City, like
9 St. Louis, has very high sewer rates, very high
10 water rates. They use target affordability
11 benchmarks as specified by the, the federal
12 government, the U.S. EPA affordability ratings.
13 Kansas City is a mess. It's an absolute
14 nightmare. They have a target date of -- a target
15 amount of $80 a month for affordability. They are
16 currently at $110 a month. You should know this. I
17 mean, they are our neighbors and they are in hot
18 water because of all the cities, the Midwest stands
19 out, in all the regions across the entire United
20 States, the Midwest, which includes St. Louis, are
21 the highest increases in the entire United States
22 over the past five years, six years. Okay?
23 Census data is changing. We have a new
24 census coming out next year -- or no, September I
25 think, if I'm not mistaken, and the census data will
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1 help drive median household incomes, what they
2 really are. Those numbers fluctuate wildly. The
3 EPA has dictated that the affordability guidelines
4 should be 2 percent of median household income, but
5 if you look at the median household income of the
6 county versus the city, if you're looking at rates
7 for cities across the United States, then you're
8 saying, okay, if Olathe was 5.3 percent increase per
9 year and we are 10.6, we know that we are twice as
10 expensive as Kansas City.
11 So these reports are really important.
12 I'd be happy to leave you with websites that I have
13 on my phone that you can read these reports for
14 yourself and print them out.
15 Anyway, 50 largest cities. We are the
16 21st largest city in the country. We've lost to
17 Baltimore. Baltimore just moved up with the census
18 report data. If we're going to be talking about
19 cities, then we need to be in these surveys. So
20 this information, we need to submit this information
21 to these surveys so that we can benchmark meetings
22 such as these to know whether we are on track or way
23 over the dot.
24 In the past when these meetings have
25 come up, everybody has said Missouri's sewer rates
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1 are not too bad. They're, you know, they're kind of
2 averaging out below what other cities are paying.
3 This is simply not true anymore.
4 Since -- this is very startling when you start
5 looking at your bills and you start -- I was happy
6 that the website for the sewer district does have
7 rates going back to 2012, at least you can look at
8 the base charge and the volumetric charges and you
9 can say how much we've spent. The striking fact is
10 that from 2012 to now our rates have increased
11 224.2 percent. This rate includes the next one
12 starting July 1st, which is the last of the months
13 being 10.6 percent increase per month. 224.2
14 percent is not going to put us anywhere close to the
15 median for what the average rates are being charged
16 across the country. If we're competing with cities
17 like Seattle and San Francisco and Austin, Texas,
18 cities that have much higher median household
19 incomes, yeah, maybe that will make sense, but it
20 doesn't. We have much less median household incomes
21 than those types of cities.
22 If we're talking about cities that have
23 substantial growth and populations and need
24 additional infrastructure, we're not one of those.
25 We don't deal with drought. We don't have to deal
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1 with those costs. So why is our infrastructure out
2 of line with all these other regions, the south, the
3 west where markets are -- the prices of delivering
4 water and the prices of treating water are going way
5 up? Why are we -- why are we so high?
6 MR. HOELSCHER: Okay. So I'm going to
7 provide contradictory information to what you
8 provided. So I will let -- I serve on the board of
9 an organization called the National Association of
10 Clean Water Agencies. It's every large wastewater
11 utility located throughout the country. They've
12 done studies. We know we are slightly -- right now
13 slightly above the median cost for wastewater per
14 customer throughout the country. We don't pay $120
15 a month like Atlanta. We don't pay in the nineties
16 like New York. Kansas City is a little bit
17 different, but what really drives the immediate need
18 has to do when these entities were enforced upon.
19 There are 208 entities throughout the United States
20 who did not meet the Clean Water Act. We were all
21 moving towards that. We were all spending money,
22 and in St. Louis it meant $11 a month. That's all
23 we wanted to spend. I would guarantee you $11 a
24 month would not allow us to meet this.
25 When we signed this consent decree, we
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1 were one of 208 entities throughout the United
2 States the Department of Justice decided we are
3 going to make sure we set a schedule based on you
4 meeting the Clean Water Act considering
5 affordability and we're going to push you to
6 affordability. That's what that agreement we had
7 with the Department of Justice was.
8 One of the reasons our rate increases
9 were so great early back from $12 a month is because
10 we were doing nothing. We were not raising enough
11 funds to get anything done. We were given 23 years
12 to solve what now is $6 billion worth of issues
13 throughout our district to meet the Clean Water Act.
14 The evaluation found that that would keep us just
15 under the affordability number. We're fully aware
16 that the affordability of median household income
17 number is different throughout our area. Typically
18 whatever you have in the county, whatever you have
19 in the city, the median household income -- let's
20 see, how do we do? Whatever you have in the county,
21 the median household income in the city is one-third
22 of that. That's the way the calculation works. If
23 our rate was a 1.5 median household income, that
24 means 1.3 percent was the county and 2 percent was
25 where the city stood. We understood that. We knew
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1 that was in the negotiations. We had to use that
2 information, from a lot of others. We also have
3 consultants provide the same data who compares us to
4 everybody else. That was considered in this
5 evaluation.
6 We recently got a five-year extension on
7 our consent decree. There was some regulatory
8 changes that changed our program. We brought
9 affordability to the Department of Justice. They
10 extended our program from 23 years to 28 years.
11 That has a great increase. It's one of the reasons
12 we're actually early in coming to the -- to the
13 ratepayers with a relatively small increase compared
14 to what we've had in previous years.
15 We could have a long, long discussion,
16 but since you've presented to these folks, I would
17 suggest after this both the information is in our
18 rate proposal, the information that we've referenced
19 in the rate proposal, we can go over where all of
20 the sources of our data are that led us to the
21 conclusion we're being cost effective. We're
22 slightly over median cost per month. We know that.
23 It has to do with where we're at in our consent
24 decree. I will tell you St. Louis was one of the
25 last cities to be enforced against. We don't have
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1 beaches. We have very, very, very large rivers
2 which, unfortunately, have a lot of water right now.
3 We're just downstream of the Mississippi, Illinois
4 and Missouri River. That makes our impact on the
5 environment less. We happen to be towards the
6 tail-end of who the Department of Justice has
7 decided to go over to have them fix these things.
8 Quite honestly, it probably took that
9 for the St. Louis community to decide to have the
10 will to actually pay to meet the Clean Water Act.
11 We are paying for a lot of, of -- a lot of costs
12 associated with having ignored the system for
13 decades. That is where we stand.
14 MR. O'LEARY: Well, I mean, the rates
15 were -- my rates were $16 in 2012, $16 a month.
16 MR. HOELSCHER: So if they were that,
17 then they would --
18 MR. O'LEARY: Now 35.
19 MR. HOELSCHER: What's your cost right
20 now?
21 MR. O'LEARY: My cost right now is 32.65
22 a month.
23 MR. HOELSCHER: Okay. So that 32.65
24 will go up 1.9 percent --
25 MR. O'LEARY: 10.6.
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1 MR. HOELSCHER: 10.6 percent, right, to
2 get us to August 2020. Right, that's the current.
3 That's the current last increase that goes in with
4 the rate proposal --
5 MR. O'LEARY: That's the four-year plan.
6 MR. HOELSCHER: Right. So what you see
7 is the next four years. We thought we were going to
8 be in the 10 percent number the next four years.
9 We've done some things to be able to provide
10 affordability, and that's where the 1.9 and the 3.8
11 and the 3.8.
12 MR. O'LEARY: But this 10.6 percent has
13 been going on for a long time. It's been going on
14 since 2012.
15 MR. HOELSCHER: Since 2002 or '03 is
16 when we actually had to start raising rates.
17 MR. O'LEARY: MSD was 10.6 percent in
18 2012.
19 MR. HOELSCHER: Right. Way below any
20 possibility of maintaining the system to meet water
21 quality. We were ignoring federal regulations
22 because of the funding. We were doing everything we
23 could with the funds we had. Eventually we were
24 enforced to do this by the Department of Justice,
25 and we had to get the program done within the time
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1 frame that we negotiated with the Department of
2 Justice. When we agreed to them how fast we're
3 going to do this, at this time we had the longest
4 consent decree that the Department of Justice had
5 ever said we could have, 23 years, and we've now
6 gotten that extended another five years to 2039 to
7 get this whole program done.
8 So we can sit and talk about the
9 particulars. I will tell you every issue you
10 brought up has been considered since MSD was made
11 aware in 2001 that the federal government was
12 considering suing us over this issue.
13 MR. O'LEARY: I only bring it up because
14 we don't have links like this to inform ourselves
15 until we go onto the line and find a report like
16 this. This is not -- this is all valid information.
17 It's a true report.
18 MR. HOELSCHER: So we can take it with
19 all the other reports that show exactly -- and
20 matter of fact, some of them may have -- may be
21 source data with what you've got. We also have
22 reports that show -- we compare ourselves to the 50
23 largest --
24 MR. O'LEARY: You're using Raftelis
25 Financial Consulting.
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1 MR. HOELSCHER: That one. There's also
2 something from AWWA.
3 MR. O'LEARY: AWWA is what I just quoted
4 to you. That was the survey that was done.
5 MR. HOELSCHER: And we knew that one
6 existed.
7 MR. O'LEARY: That was done with
8 Raftelis and AWWA --
9 MR. HOELSCHER: And that's part of what
10 we had.
11 MR. O'LEARY: And the other one is Black
12 & Veatch. And these are two very big reports.
13 Black & Veatch, I'll just mention this because I
14 want to be brief, but Black & Veatch is the 50
15 largest cities water and wastewater rate survey, and
16 that was actually the one that really spelled out
17 what was a problem with Kansas City. And when I
18 think about what's happening there and what's
19 happening here, they are very similar. So I'm
20 imagining they're trying to get from behind the
21 eight ball, too, but their rates are only 5.3
22 percent. Ours is 10.6.
23 MR. HOELSCHER: Well, you're talking
24 about -- now, it depends on where you're at. Kansas
25 City is nowhere near as far along as we are in
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1 completing all the environmental requirements.
2 They've got issues coming down the road. You have
3 to look at the particulars. I happen to know this
4 one. I know Terry Leeds who runs the wastewater
5 utility in Kansas City. I know everyone who runs
6 wastewater utilities throughout the country.
7 Depends on where you're at. We have the City of San
8 Francisco. Their consent decree is done. The EPA
9 is ready to enforce to get them for a different set
10 of environmental regulations. It depends on where
11 you're at in the cycle.
12 We're comparing ourselves to what -- to
13 the numbers we've got, we're comparing ourselves to
14 meeting household incomes with St. Louis based on
15 the time frame when we were forced by the federal
16 government to finally fully meet all the wastewater
17 requirements over a certain period of time.
18 So I will completely stand by the
19 analysis we've done to try to both make it
20 affordable and meet the numbers. We are doing way
21 better than an awful -- again, I don't want to be in
22 Atlanta paying $120 a month. You mentioned the west
23 is doing good. They changed their accounting. You
24 won't find it to be $120 in this report. They
25 changed their accounting system.
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1 MR. O'LEARY: Well, the accounting is --
2 I can -- the accounting actually bases everything
3 on -- they have to go with the standard and they
4 work out a water rate per kilogallons. I've worked
5 those out. We are not San Francisco, we are not
6 Boston, but these are expensive markets. We are not
7 any of those type of markets. And if you look at
8 the spread of the dots for affordability index
9 target, it's somewhere between 80 and $100 a month.
10 Most of -- that's just as an average, 80 to $100 a
11 month, but right now there are six cities that are
12 more than us and all the rest of them are less than
13 us. We're talking out of 40 cities. The closest
14 one to our city for rates and for target
15 affordability is Indianapolis.
16 MR. HOELSCHER: So two things I would
17 press. Indianapolis is almost exactly the same
18 place as we are in their consent decree. Mr. Tom --
19 darn, I can't believe I can't remember the gentleman
20 who's in charge over there, but they're almost
21 exactly the same place as we are. We work with them
22 all the time. I would put to you, you got to
23 consider where you're at in the program. And we've
24 looked at exactly those numbers, exactly the ones
25 you're expressing. I would put to you, you can read
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1 those, also consider, and this is an impact that
2 won't show up in those numbers, MSD's costs. Our
3 revenue source is only what I'm presenting to you
4 here. What you don't see in those numbers and you
5 don't know where they're at, there's also -- a lot
6 of those entities are actually city-run
7 organizations. Revenues come from other hidden
8 sources that aren't included in that billing. We
9 know that from having know how the data is put
10 together and knowing how they report. So it's
11 really, really important we really concentrate on
12 the affordability here, what our costs are. We know
13 you'll find in the study we do a cost per unit
14 survey analysis based on surveys throughout the
15 country. You will find we are in the top quartile
16 of affordability for just about every service we
17 provide, how we maintain the system, the cost for
18 being treated, you'll find that is the case. But I
19 will give you, you're right. You hit on a big
20 point. Fourth largest sewer system in the country,
21 that's where the problems come from, and the 21st
22 largest municipal area. There's a disconnect there.
23 I think we've done a real good job in trying to make
24 this as cost effective and as affordable as we can
25 while still satisfying the requirements of the Clean
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1 Water Act.
2 MR. O'LEARY: Well, there was one other
3 thing I wanted to mention, and this is also
4 available in these two reports, and we are one of
5 three cities that has the slowest growth of revenue
6 in the United States. Do you know what those cities
7 are?
8 MR. HOELSCHER: No, but we do know that
9 we on an annual basis check the growth specifically
10 to St. Louis and how it compares to our rates. So
11 that's something we're tracking all the time. Do
12 I -- do I believe it's something different? I have
13 no doubt it is.
14 MR. O'LEARY: Well, it's L.A., St. Louis
15 and Pittsburgh.
16 MR. HOELSCHER: Okay.
17 MR. O'LEARY: And those are somewhere
18 between 1.6 percent growth, that's all in L.A. 1.8
19 percent for us and Pittsburgh. So you're looking at
20 markets that with lower median household incomes,
21 you're looking at markets that don't have a lot of
22 revenue to put into capital expansion projects like
23 this without somebody paying more money, you know, a
24 lot more which, unfortunately, happens to be seniors
25 also, and that's what I -- I'm a senior. I'm here
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1 to kind of say -- also you'll probably see my
2 application for a customer assistance program.
3 MR. HOELSCHER: I hope so.
4 MR. O'LEARY: I think that's a very good
5 plan. I think it's a very good thing that you're
6 offering, what we're not seeing from county taxes or
7 anything like that for seniors.
8 MR. HOELSCHER: So let me -- since you
9 compared to Kansas City, one of the advantages we
10 have of being the type of entity we are, we can
11 offer for those for low-income and retired folks,
12 depending if you meet thresholds, we'll charge
13 everybody one-half of their rates per month for
14 wastewater services.
15 MR. O'LEARY: For two years.
16 MR. HOELSCHER: Well, sometimes it can
17 be for more than two years.
18 MR. O'LEARY: You can get extended.
19 MR. HOELSCHER: Yeah, you can get an
20 extension.
21 I will let you know Kansas City, as a
22 municipal entity, their legal opinion is because
23 they are a municipal entity created under the state
24 statutes and state of Missouri, they can't, in their
25 opinion, offer a customer assistance program. MSD
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1 can.
2 MR. O'LEARY: Well, it's a worthwhile --
3 it's going to help me.
4 MR. HOELSCHER: So it's a thing I will
5 let you know that --
6 MR. O'LEARY: I shouldn't really be here
7 complaining about the rates --
8 MR. HOELSCHER: Well, that's fine.
9 MR. O'LEARY: -- when it's going to
10 affect me half as much.
11 MR. HOELSCHER: But I want to distribute
12 information.
13 I will let you know working nationally,
14 what MSD does, this the national organization, I've
15 met with the Department of Justice, I've testified
16 in front of Congress, we have met with
17 representatives and senators, we have this issue.
18 One of the biggest things we have is a federal
19 program that addresses affordability issues. This
20 is what's on the plate. It's not going to make this
21 fiscal year. Over the next fiscal year we're
22 fighting for something similar to LIHEAP where
23 there's federal low-income dollars for other
24 utilities. MSD is not just looking after itself,
25 every place we can to try and be as fair with our
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1 customers as we can.
2 MR. O'LEARY: Your application actually
3 asks if you were currently on a LIHEAP program.
4 MR. HOELSCHER: So, and I'll give
5 Mr. Gee credit for this. Prior to him becoming our
6 director of finance, LIHEAP was out there working.
7 We now cooperate with them. If they get an
8 applicant, they're immediately checked and asked if
9 they want to also apply for our program.
10 MR. O'LEARY: Great. That's great.
11 Thank you. Thank you.
12 MR. PALANS: Mr. O'Leary, did you have
13 any other question or comment?
14 MR. O'LEARY: Well, I'm, I'm just -- you
15 know, I've got a lot of numbers. I don't -- I don't
16 want to bury anybody with numbers. So I'm trying to
17 get the top line ones to get what I think really is
18 the story here.
19 If you look at an interesting graph in
20 one of these things, they talk about where your
21 sewer and water used to be relative to where your
22 cable and your electric and your gas and some of
23 your other monthly expenditures were. And for the
24 first time now that this 10.6 is kicking in in July,
25 I'm finally paying as much to flush my toilet as I
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1 am to get onto the internet. My internet is $40 a
2 month. Now my sewer is 40. And by the time you add
3 inflated water charges, water and sewer are now
4 equal to my telephone and my cable and my -- and
5 my -- that's insane. Okay? Because I started -- I
6 said, okay, I'm going to get really cozy with my
7 water meter and I'm going to look at all these
8 numbers. I'm going to figure out just if I don't
9 take a shower, if I don't use my dishwasher, if I
10 don't use a washing machine, how much water I use in
11 24 hours. And I figured it out and it works out to
12 about two units, 1,600 gallons a month which is
13 about 55 gallons a day. So when you start getting
14 down to the granular data of how much it costs me to
15 flush a toilet, there's a problem. You know,
16 there's, there's a problem because I'm like I don't
17 like to think about my phone and my internet prices,
18 but I really don't like to think about how much it
19 costs to flush a toilet, and that's basically most
20 of the water I'm using except for maybe washing a
21 dish or two. I live by myself. I'm a senior who
22 goes to the bathroom a lot. I go a lot and I'm
23 flushing toilets probably -- I was going to put that
24 on the calendar. I was going to make a little
25 hashmark for which one, because I have a low volume
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1 toilet upstairs and I have a regular toilet
2 downstairs, and a toilet's about 5 gallons of water.
3 13 of those a day.
4 So, anyway, that's where I start with
5 this stuff and I don't want to hog the floor, but I
6 do have one other issue I want to bring up.
7 MR. HOELSCHER: So let me respond. This
8 is very short. This is a simple thing, before you
9 do that. You've hit on a point that I think is
10 probably true. There is an urban legend that's true
11 that somebody in the EPA in the 90s said, oh, my
12 gosh, people are paying more for cable TV than they
13 are to meet the Clean Water Act. That's what
14 started this process. That's what led to over 200
15 communities being sued to meet the Clean Water Act
16 on a given schedule. And so I just wanted to relay
17 that to you since you brought it up. I hadn't got
18 to tell that story in a long time.
19 MR. O'LEARY: I actually have rabbit
20 ears. So that's -- I live on a budget, but I do
21 really well until the county raises my taxes because
22 somebody next door has just flipped a house for
23 $200,000. I'm behind the eight ball on that.
24 Anyway, but that brings me to a very sad
25 issue, and we have the sewer people out with their
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1 spray paint and they were marking stuff and I said
2 what's going on, and previously they had a really
3 high-tech instrument that -- I have a manhole right
4 outside my driveway and they had the manhole open
5 and they were down in the hole and they had this,
6 like, really cool device that was making some kind
7 of tone and it was going under.
8 MR. HOELSCHER: It was some of the
9 technology I mentioned earlier.
10 MR. O'LEARY: Yeah. And so I said what
11 you got there? They said we're looking for, you
12 know, low spots, root intrusion, collapsed sewers.
13 I thought, well, that's interesting, but now I'm
14 talking to the sewer guys because whenever I see a
15 hard hat and a fluorescent vest, I go bend over
16 because you're not going to like what you're going
17 to hear. And this guy said to me, he said we're
18 going to cut all the trees down on this street. And
19 this cul-de-sac that I lived in this house for 21
20 years in Mystery Hills, it's 144 homes, charming
21 little homes, very close together, very close
22 together, zero lot line planning back in 1973. He
23 says we're taking out all this growth in the
24 cul-de-sac. And I said you're going to take that
25 whole bush? Yeah, that one and that one and we're
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1 taking all the trees out along this street, these
2 mature trees.
3 MR. HOELSCHER: So I can only offer you
4 to replace the deepest underground infrastructure
5 that exists under your streets, sometimes we do have
6 to do things that we wish we didn't have to. We try
7 to avoid them, but I'm going to give you the
8 opportunity.
9 Brad, raise your hand. You knew this
10 was coming.
11 You see that gentleman? He's our
12 assistant director in charge of design. Let him
13 know where you're at. If nothing else, Brad can go
14 back and he can shed what possible provisions we do
15 to see if we could have possibly avoided that. We
16 don't do it because it's easiest. We try to avoid
17 it, if we can. And I would ask you talk to Brad
18 afterwards and he can get back to what are the
19 particulars of that particular project, why it's
20 having to be done that way. Now, I will also say,
21 if it's actually being done that way.
22 MR. O'LEARY: Well, I called my trustee.
23 After I talked to this gentleman, I called my
24 trustee. I got right on the phone, and George said
25 to me two days -- yesterday I talked to him. He
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1 said I called MSD, I had to call three people. He
2 goes it is correct, they're taking out all the
3 trees.
4 MR. HOELSCHER: Okay. Well, Brad can
5 give you -- again, Brad's got well over 100
6 projects --
7 MR. O'LEARY: It will definitely impact
8 this neighborhood. It's a small neighborhood. The
9 houses are extremely close together, and to take all
10 those trees out. First of all, the county came out
11 last year because of the Emerald deal, whatever
12 the -- the ash borer, and took out all the mature
13 ashes and that was big damage. You know, these
14 trees were however --
15 MR. NEVOIS: We can talk after.
16 MR. O'LEARY: Okay.
17 MR. PALANS: Mr. O'Leary, if I could ask
18 you if you'd meet with Brad afterwards.
19 MR. O'LEARY: I will. Thank you.
20 That's all my -- that's it for me.
21 MR. HOELSCHER: Enjoyed the
22 conversation, I really did.
23 MR. PALANS: We do have several other
24 participants that have asked to ask questions. I'm
25 going to --
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1 MR. O'LEARY: I'm sorry. Went way over
2 my ten minutes.
3 MR. PALANS: Before we do, I do want to
4 mention just a couple of points. You referenced two
5 consulting professionals that are recognized
6 industry-wide for this particular industry,
7 wastewater. One is Raftelis. The other is Black &
8 Veatch. Raftelis is the industry-wide consultant
9 that the district has used and has consulted with in
10 formulating their proposal. Black & Veatch is the
11 consulting professionals firm that we have engaged
12 for our rate commission.
13 We are independent of the district. The
14 district has proposed a rate. It is vetted before
15 our commission. I think that you understand from
16 your own research that the Raftelis consultants and
17 the Black & Veatch consultants are recognized as
18 leaders in their field. So we are not getting bad
19 advice.
20 Also, I would suggest that if you
21 haven't already, go to the MSD website and look at
22 the record of these proceedings. You will find it
23 replete with written information, studies, surveys,
24 Raftelis surveys, Black & Veatch surveys that I
25 think will go along with and answer many of the
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1 points that you raised. Thank you.
2 MR. O'LEARY: Thank you.
3 MR. PALANS: Our next question is from
4 Diane Shenker. Yes, Ms. Shenker.
5 MS. SHENKER: Well, I was just curious.
6 When this was handed out, I was looking at this and
7 I was wondering this form showing what the final,
8 will these be handed out or sent to people's bills
9 or where will these be sent out? The average person
10 will see this?
11 MR. HOELSCHER: So that information is
12 going out in presentations like this as well as
13 we've used social media, that information has gone
14 on social media, it's gone out on live streaming,
15 it's gone on radio, TV, newspaper, internet site,
16 mailers. We've done everything we can in support of
17 the process that our rate commission is going
18 through.
19 The other time you'll see this when this
20 information goes out, MSD can't advocate what to do.
21 You'll find a pretty massive process that MSD will
22 use as we get near election date providing all the
23 information everybody needs so they understand if I
24 vote yes this is what happens, if I vote no this is
25 what happens. And so there's another major process,
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1 and in between that our board of trustees will spend
2 a couple of months in public hearings as well as
3 part of their process to review the recommendation
4 that comes from our rate commission.
5 MS. SHENKER: Well, at first when I
6 looked at it, psychologically right away you say,
7 oh, my God, I better vote for it because if not, the
8 percentage of change is enormous, but also according
9 to this gentleman in front of me, he mentioned he
10 was paying $12 and then he was paying 32. If you
11 take 10 percent times that, it doesn't come to 55.
12 MR. O'LEARY: No. I paid 16. I started
13 at 16 and now I'm 32 and now it will be 36, so...
14 MR. HOELSCHER: That would be your
15 starting point.
16 MR. O'LEARY: That's only two units a
17 month. I've learned this stuff.
18 MR. PALANS: Ms. Shenker, did you have
19 another question?
20 MS. SHENKER: No. I was really just
21 kind of curious as to this information, the way it
22 is presented and if anybody would look at it, if it
23 was being mailed with your bill or something, you'd
24 say, well, I better vote for it, it's written out
25 psychologically. I personally from what I'm paying,
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1 to change for 10.6 percent, it would have to be a
2 lot higher for me to justify 56.
3 MR. HOELSCHER: And, again, that's a
4 typical customer. Every one of you may not pay that
5 number. That's for a typical customer at MSD.
6 MS. SHENKER: What is considered
7 typical?
8 MR. HOELSCHER: Six CCF or according to
9 the calculation it was 7,500 gallons of water --
10 MR. O'LEARY: No. 7,500 gallons is ten
11 units.
12 MR. HOELSCHER: Did I just do it
13 backwards?
14 MR. O'LEARY: Yep. The reason I'm
15 saying that is because --
16 MR. HOELSCHER: No, no. It may well be.
17 MR. O'LEARY: -- the U.S. Geological
18 Survey Department --
19 MR. HOELSCHER: 4,500 gallons. I'm
20 sorry. So the typical customer is 4,500 gallons,
21 and that's based on actual measurements from the
22 water usage of our customers.
23 MR. O'LEARY: Could you change that
24 graphic to be consistent with the U.S. Geological
25 Survey which says everybody uses 89 gallons a month?
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1 MR. HOELSCHER: Ours is based on the
2 actual utilization within the St. Louis area. We
3 think that's more accurate for this particular.
4 Now, when we compare to other cities, we normalize
5 those rates using the same rates you just said.
6 MR. O'LEARY: Because, I mean, it looks
7 pretty light, you know, compared to ten units. Six
8 units looks pretty light.
9 MR. HOELSCHER: I will tell you in
10 St. Louis people do not -- the typical customer does
11 not use ten CCF.
12 MR. O'LEARY: That's 100 gallons a day.
13 MR. HOELSCHER: We are traditionally
14 seeing usage, water usage go down in St. Louis both
15 because of conservation as well as just think of the
16 types of facilities they put in new homes, water
17 saving devices. We're seeing in the rate commission
18 those we've seen actual usage go down. And so we're
19 using actual historical data from MSD measurements.
20 I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman.
21 MR. PALANS: Ms. Shenker, have you
22 concluded your questions or comments?
23 MS. SHENKER: I am. Thank you.
24 MR. PALANS: I'm going to move on to our
25 last question or comment. If any others would like
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1 to sign up. The last question or comment at the
2 moment is Mr. and Mrs. Mehta.
3 MR. MEHTA: Thank you.
4 Tim, thank you for the tremendous
5 amounts of research that you've done. We really
6 appreciate that.
7 MS. SHENKER: Yes. Very good.
8 MR. MEHTA: Now, I do have some
9 questions about water usage and that, that relates
10 to two bills that I had. One is up to August 2018
11 which showed I was using four CCFs and the rate at
12 that time was $3.97 cents for four CCFs. This year
13 it changed to six. My usage frankly jumped up to
14 six CCFs. Now, it's just the two of us. We don't
15 have any hidden kids or anything like that, no pets,
16 and I'm wondering what caused that to jump up.
17 MR. HOELSCHER: I'm glad you asked that
18 question. So understand MSD does not measure the
19 wastewater coming out of your home. As I said
20 earlier, it will be based on the potable water
21 usage, your drinking water, for the three winter
22 months. So if you think there's something wrong in
23 the amount of usage, that's reflective of the
24 information we're getting from the water company.
25 Your water bill has gone up by exactly the same
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1 amount. So what I'd suggest, if you feel there's an
2 error or mistake, you can contact us, we'll
3 immediately say you ought to contact your water
4 provider because we do run into occasions with their
5 mistake, the meter doesn't read properly, there's a
6 leak, there's a break. So as far as the number of
7 units used, MSD is not generating that data on
8 itself ever. It's just getting it directly from the
9 water provider.
10 MR. MEHTA: So American Water I'm
11 assuming?
12 MR. HOELSCHER: Probably, assuming
13 you're not in the city or in Kirkwood.
14 MR. MEHTA: Creve Coeur.
15 MR. HOELSCHER: Creve Coeur. It would
16 be Missouri American Water. And if you've got a
17 question about that and what they do is if you
18 find -- so in this way you also may even get a
19 correction off the water bill you've received
20 previously. Whenever they make those adjustments,
21 they notify Marion Gee's office and we make
22 adjustments to your wastewater bill including
23 historically.
24 MR. GEE: Brian, he needs to look at his
25 winter quarter billing, not the bill in the summer.
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1 You need to look at -- if you call
2 Missouri American, the bills you really should look
3 at are the ones that cover, like, from December
4 through April.
5 MR. HOELSCHER: So are you talking about
6 the utilization we show on your wastewater bill?
7 MR. MEHTA: Well, I get one bill from
8 MSD per month.
9 MR. HOELSCHER: Per month, right. And
10 that number of usage has jumped from last year?
11 MR. MEHTA: Correct.
12 MR. HOELSCHER: Okay. So that would be
13 the winter billing. That's the only place you get
14 the data.
15 MR. GEE: Correct.
16 MR. HOELSCHER: So if you had a jump of
17 50 percent increase, there's a chance we have an
18 issue and you have an issue with the information
19 that's being provided by the water provider. So I
20 would ask them the question, hey, you show my usage
21 went up 50 percent, something's not right, and that
22 will kick off the process of them doing the review.
23 And, again, anything they find that there should
24 actually be a change, they'll communicate to us and
25 we'll credit you back the appropriate utilization.
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1 MR. GEE: Let me talk to you afterward
2 about that process.
3 MR. HOELSCHER: Yes. That would be a
4 good way to do it, yeah.
5 MR. O'LEARY: I would urge people to
6 check their toilets first, and I'm a classic example
7 of this because I moved to Idaho for five months and
8 I was getting these huge sewer and water bills and I
9 couldn't figure out why, and when I came back from
10 Idaho, I checked this toilet and it had the high
11 water mark was just seeping over the top of the
12 tube, the drain tube, and that turned out to be the
13 reason my water bill and my sewer bills were
14 300 percent more than normal. You don't think
15 that's much water, but --
16 MR. MEHTA: No, no. You're right.
17 MR. O'LEARY: -- toilets are evil. You
18 got to have them, but they're evil.
19 MR. HOELSCHER: In some ways I agree
20 with you.
21 MR. O'LEARY: They're not advanced. For
22 all the technology you have, you know, with checking
23 the sewers and everything, we need better toilets,
24 you know.
25 MR. MEHTA: The second question, if I
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1 could --
2 MR. PALANS: Ma'am, please, I'd like
3 Mr. Mehta to have the opportunity.
4 MR. MEHTA: The rate jumped up from
5 $3.97 to $4.40 which is 10 percent. Is that -- is
6 that what you expect?
7 MR. O'LEARY: Well, for the next bill.
8 MR. MEHTA: No. It's already happened.
9 I'm just saying.
10 MR. HOELSCHER: So what you will see in
11 your August bill, you will see from whatever bill
12 you got last time, the cost per unit will go up
13 another 10 percent based on the previous rate case,
14 the last one before this kicks in. So in
15 August 2019 you'll see about a 10 percent increase
16 in your cost per volume usage. That's our starting
17 point. That was the last thing that we went through
18 and approved.
19 We're showing this 1.9 percent increase
20 will be compare your August 2020 bill to your
21 August 2021 bill and the rate -- the rate will go up
22 1.9 percent approximately.
23 MR. MEHTA: The last one I'm looking at
24 is the September of 2018.
25 MR. HOELSCHER: Which should be the same
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1 as August 2018 and October of 2018 and November
2 2018. Should be the same money.
3 MR. MEHTA: So that's already the higher
4 rate?
5 MR. HOELSCHER: No. It will go up again
6 in August of this summer. It will go up -- the
7 volume rate will go up -- the rate will go up about
8 10 percent.
9 MR. MEHTA: Wow.
10 MR. HOELSCHER: Effective July 1, but it
11 will be reflected in the bill you get in August.
12 MR. MEHTA: So that's not shown in your
13 chart already?
14 MR. HOELSCHER: So what we've done is
15 we've already gone through this same process and
16 gotten to what that increase is. This will be the
17 increase that you will see starting with your
18 August 2020 bill.
19 MR. MEHTA: 110 percent you got to keep
20 on -- I've seen your numbers.
21 Second question I have is the
22 $500 million, the bond, what rate are you getting
23 and what's the maturity of that?
24 MR. HOELSCHER: So they depend. As I
25 mentioned before, our finance folks, they try and
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1 find the best deal they can. There is something
2 called state revolving fund. This is a federal
3 program that we would borrow money from the state.
4 They discounted 70 percent of the interest cost. We
5 tell the state we want all the money they have.
6 They won't give it to us when there's other people.
7 When those people don't use it, we'll grab that as
8 well. Those are 20-year bonds at 70 percent of the
9 going interest rate. It's a really good program.
10 MR. MEHTA: So it's a 20-year bond?
11 MR. SNOKE: So we borrow from multiple
12 sources. We don't know what the rate is going to be
13 until we borrow the money and borrowed money will be
14 borrowed over time, but when we borrow from the
15 state revolving funds, we get rates that are a
16 70 percent subsidy. So right now if we borrow under
17 that plan today, it would be under 2 percent.
18 MR. MEHTA: So what was used in this
19 assumption?
20 MR. HOELSCHER: This was used an
21 estimated -- we are estimating kind of a profile of
22 how much state SRF money we think the state will
23 give us. That's the real good rate Tim explained.
24 Whether or not we can get anything else like a WIFIA
25 loan or something. That's kind of hit and miss.
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1 The balance of it, most of it has to do with when we
2 go out to the market ourselves what is the market
3 rate, what is the amount of interest that they'll
4 charge us when we go out to the market. And I'm not
5 exact number. They're 20 to 30 year.
6 MR. SNOKE: 30 years when they go out to
7 the market. The average rates used in this analysis
8 are in the 4 to 5 percent range.
9 MR. MEHTA: And it's a long-term bond,
10 you know, right?
11 MR. SNOKE: Yes, correct.
12 MR. MEHTA: So how's that going to be
13 reflected in years beyond what you've shown here?
14 MR. HOELSCHER: So that question's come
15 up in the last two meetings. So what we're giving
16 you just right now I admit for this rate proposal,
17 the rate commission has a projection we gave them
18 for the next four years. That's not the totality.
19 This goes well beyond that. Based on what we've
20 heard at these meetings, before everybody goes to
21 vote, in the informational process MSD sends out
22 we're going to give a multiyear, 16 years, 20 year
23 outlook if you go one way or the other what do the
24 rates look like. As you expect, what will happen is
25 you'll see with bonding you'll see the rates staying
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1 kind of down. You'll see with cash you pay a lot
2 more now and then all the sudden those lines will
3 cross at some point. We're going to provide that
4 data, that information to everybody. We have been
5 starting to hear those kind of comments over the
6 four years -- well, actually starting eight years
7 ago, but four years ago. The question is long-term
8 what's really most cost effective for us and what do
9 we think is -- I think we've heard the term am I
10 mortgaging my children's future, that type of thing.
11 So we're going to provide that information at the
12 time of the election.
13 The rate commission, we gave them our
14 analysis. They're doing their own analysis with
15 some of their experts as well to see what is the
16 most likely.
17 What we've given is the most cost
18 effective bonding scenario that we could come up
19 with as far as percentage of bonds versus percentage
20 of pay-go and versus percentage of rate and we've
21 provided that for an analysis by the rate
22 commission.
23 MR. MEHTA: And the new rates,
24 obviously, reflect the servicing of the older bonds,
25 correct?
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1 MR. HOELSCHER: Yes.
2 MR. PALANS: That's correct.
3 MR. HOELSCHER: One year. Plus the
4 rates we're proposing are also the service costs for
5 the borrowing we suspect we may have -- that we're
6 proposing to use over the next four years. That's
7 also in that.
8 MR. MEHTA: But is that the only time we
9 borrow?
10 MR. HOELSCHER: The voters have voted to
11 bond this program since 2003. They voted the bond
12 option every time, 2003 to '07, 2008 to '12, 2013 to
13 '16, 2017 to '20. We've gone to the public every
14 time we had one of -- one of those. The voters have
15 always decided that they wanted the bonding option.
16 MR. MEHTA: Are those bonds also
17 refinancing the old bonds or are we paying them off?
18 MR. SNOKE: Both. So as interest rates
19 have been low, we have refinanced where we could for
20 savings. So we've done two refinancings in the last
21 three years to lower the interest rate on the bonds
22 outstanding. And then these 30-year bonds, they're
23 not -- the principal is not all due in 30 years.
24 There's a little bit of principal due almost every
25 year throughout the life of the bond. So every year
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1 we're paying off some past bonds.
2 MR. MEHTA: Last question I have is
3 other than this charge that we get every month,
4 there is -- on a real estate tax bill there's
5 something called sewer lateral, it's a 28-dollar
6 charge. I know it's a one year -- don't get
7 monthly, but what is that?
8 MR. HOELSCHER: So there is -- I'll add
9 that to the other ones for full disclosure. So on
10 your property tax bill you'll see that MSD is
11 charging everyone 2 cents per year per thousand
12 dollar -- per hundred-dollar valuation of your home
13 in a property tax and that has to do with the
14 environmental aspect of stormwater. If you looked
15 on your property tax bill, it would be the cheapest
16 one at the very bottom of the line.
17 There's also another charge that was
18 passed, the voters voted in in April 2016 that that
19 property tax be used to operate and maintain the
20 public storm sewer system district wide. That's
21 also on that bill.
22 The one you're mentioning, the sewer
23 lateral program is for the private lateral owned and
24 maintained by the property owners. Those programs,
25 depending on where you live, are either administered
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1 and collected by the county or by the municipality
2 you live in. MSD doesn't have anything to do with
3 that particular program.
4 MR. MEHTA: But it shows up on the MSD
5 bill?
6 MR. O'LEARY: No. It shows up on your
7 taxes.
8 MR. HOELSCHER: It shows up on your
9 property taxes.
10 MR. O'LEARY: It's basically insurance.
11 MR. HOELSCHER: It is insurance. If you
12 want to look at the status of that, it's the
13 provider of that service, usually municipalities.
14 If you contact them, they give you the particulars
15 of that program.
16 MR. O'LEARY: You made me bring up one
17 more question, which is really important, and this
18 is to the committee, the commission. And it was the
19 Black & Veatch report that was talking about and
20 you're doing some experimentation in Mexico,
21 Missouri and stuff. I pay something like $11 per
22 kilogram, but someone who has 15,000 gallons of
23 water a month pays six. And so my thought is
24 shouldn't the people that are using the most water
25 be paying higher rates? Do we have a conservation
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1 signal in our billing that basically says you've
2 gone to 15,000 gallons, you're using well over
3 200 gallons per person or whatever, and you're
4 saying 100 gallons is too much. But my point is
5 that are people that are single households, we're
6 paying a lot more per thousand gallons for water
7 than someone who's using a lot more water. Well,
8 it's called --
9 MR. HOELSCHER: There is a --
10 MR. O'LEARY: It's called an increased
11 block rate structure.
12 MR. HOELSCHER: There is a volume charge
13 in our rate that if you use more water than you pay
14 for than somebody who uses less water, that's the
15 way our rate is set up.
16 MR. O'LEARY: That's a uniform charge?
17 MR. HOELSCHER: Yes.
18 MR. O'LEARY: That's a uniform charge.
19 That is not an increased block rate structure. So
20 when you're looking at pay-go, you might consider a
21 new rate price structure that will make the richer
22 people pay more for the more water they're using
23 than, than seniors, because basically if you take
24 the base charge, that's where the amount is set
25 whether you're spending 15,000 gallons or whether
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Page 67
1 you're spending in my case probably close to
2 3,400 gallons. 15,000 gallons a month is using
3 wastewater. It has to be treated. It has to be --
4 you know, that raises your costs, too. I mean,
5 so --
6 MR. HOELSCHER: And that cost is
7 captured in the volume portion of the bill they get
8 for being billed more for using more water.
9 MR. O'LEARY: That is captured?
10 MR. HOELSCHER: That is --
11 MR. O'LEARY: Why is the national trend
12 going to increased rate block structure while
13 uniformity is, is actually going down?
14 MR. HOELSCHER: I don't know that that's
15 true and I don't know that we've reviewed that.
16 MR. O'LEARY: It's in the Black & Veatch
17 report.
18 MR. PALANS: Mr. Mehta, did you have any
19 other question?
20 MR. MEHTA: No.
21 MR. PALANS: We have one more question
22 that is on our list. Mr. Coleman, you have a
23 question?
24 MR. COLEMAN: Yes. I just want to find
25 out if -- this question is regarding the winter
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1 billing system, the water usage and the sewer rates.
2 In the event that a customer has an exception
3 situation during the winter cycle where there is
4 water usage that is not going into the sewer, for
5 example if someone has their lawn seeded in the fall
6 and the watering then is taking place in the month
7 of November which is captured in that winter block
8 elevating that winter bill up over the normal
9 billing for other seasons throughout the year, when
10 that situation happens, is there a process where a
11 customer can go to MSD directly with that bill
12 comparison and have that adjustment happen at MSD
13 rather than happen at Missouri American Water?
14 Because when it comes to Missouri American, there
15 seemed to be a lot of confusion on how they would
16 actually update and send the revised figures over to
17 MSD to get to make that correction. So, and they've
18 said they would try to do it. I'm not confident
19 that's going to happen. So, I wonder if that fails,
20 is there a way I can work that out with MSD?
21 MR. HOELSCHER: So what I'm going to
22 recommend is our director of finance happens to be
23 here, I think start the conversation with him.
24 You're talking about a very unusual one-off type of
25 circumstance, and I think just talking with our
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Page 69
1 director of finance directly and see if there's
2 something we could do, that would be the best way to
3 start it.
4 MR. COLEMAN: Okay. Great.
5 MR. PALANS: Mr. Coleman, any other
6 questions?
7 MR. COLEMAN: No.
8 MR. PALANS: Any other questions or
9 comments from those in attendance?
10 Do any of the commissioners have any
11 questions or comments this evening?
12 Seeing none. I'd like to thank
13 everybody for participating with us this evening,
14 and just a reminder that our next public hearing is
15 scheduled for July 10th at 6 p.m. at UMSL Wellness
16 and Recreation Center and there is the final public
17 hearing that would conclude on July 24th at MSD
18 headquarters.
19 Thank you all very much.
20 (The public hearing concluded at
21 7:19 p.m.)
22
23
24
25
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Page 70
1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2
3 I, Amanda N. Farrar, a Certified Court
4 Reporter for the State of Missouri, do hereby
5 certify that the foregoing hearing was taken by me
6 to the best of my ability and thereafter reduced to
7 typewriting by me; that I am neither counsel for,
8 related to, nor employed by any of the parties to
9 the action in which this hearing was taken, and
10 further that I am not a relative or employee of any
11 attorney or counsel employed by the parties thereto,
12 nor financially or otherwise interested in the
13 outcome of the action.
14
15
16
17 ________________________
18 Certified Court Reporter
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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A
ability 13:6,13
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Act 30:20 31:4
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action 70:9,13
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additional 4:21
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28:21
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benefit 15:9
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56:6,7 57:13
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58:21 59:11,18
64:4,10,15,21
65:5 67:7
68:8,11
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billed 67:8
billing 22:17
39:8 55:25
56:13 66:1
68:1,9
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31:12
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50:8 54:10
56:2 57:8,13
biosolids 11:24
Bissell 11:20
bit 10:2 30:16
63:24
Black 36:11,13
36:14 49:7,10
49:17,24
65:19 67:16
block 66:11,19
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blue 9:22
board 3:23 4:17
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51:1
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63:25
bonding 10:25
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63:16,17,21,22
64:1
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borrowing
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Boston 38:6
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18:1
boundaries
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Bowdry 2:7 3:13
Brad 2:5 3:11
47:9,13,17
48:4,18
Brad's 48:5
Brandy 2:7 3:13
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Brian 2:2 8:8,11
55:24
brief 5:25 36:14
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45:6 65:16
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Brockmann 2:7
3:14
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32:8 35:10
45:17
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45:20
build 11:15 12:2
12:5
burden 13:18
bury 43:16
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C
C 3:1
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calendar 22:13
44:24
call 48:1 56:1
called 7:1 30:9
47:22,23 48:1
60:2 64:5
66:8,10
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20:20 40:22
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68:7
car 15:25 16:21
16:22,24 18:1
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58:13 67:1
cash 16:20,22
18:2,6 62:1
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15:25
caused 54:16
CCF 52:8 53:11
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54:14
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27:24,25
28:17
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cents 54:12
64:11
CEO 8:12
certain 22:25
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CERTIFICATE
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certify 70:5
chairman 8:10
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24:13 53:20
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changing 27:23
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19:13 29:8
38:20 41:12
47:12 61:4
64:3,6,17
66:12,16,18,24
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44:3
charging 14:15
64:11
charming 46:20
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59:13
charter 3:17,22
4:14 8:22 9:7
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57:6
checked 43:8
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checking 14:5
57:22
Chicago 10:10
children's 62:10
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68:25
cities 25:24
27:3,6,18 28:7
28:15,19 29:2
29:16,18,21,22
32:25 36:15
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40:6 53:4
citizens 10:23
19:19
city 4:10 9:5
10:3 27:8,8,13
28:6,10,16
30:16 31:19,21
31:25 36:17
36:25 37:5,7
38:14 41:9,21
55:13
city-run 39:6
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Clean 30:10,20
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cleaning 20:13
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24:16,22
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48:9 67:1
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Coeur 55:14,15
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67:24 69:4,5
69:7
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23:4 28:25
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comes 19:18,25
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coming 16:3
27:24 32:12
37:2 47:10
54:19
commenced
3:2
comment 6:15
6:17,20 43:13
53:25 54:1
comments 7:6
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25:1,2 53:22
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commercial/i ...
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commission 3:6
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5:2,6,13 6:6
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56:24
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considered
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13:8 52:24
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Constitution
8:20
constitutional
13:5
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5:14 49:8
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consulting
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65:14
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26:3 37:11
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Department
25:16,21 31:2
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30:17
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E
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Eleventh 2:10
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employee
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32:25 34:24
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Enjoyed 48:21
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27:19,21
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39:6
entity 11:23
21:22 41:10,22
41:23
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Equitability
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essentially
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established
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estimating
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evening 3:4,7
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Eventually
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everybody 8:4
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41:13 50:23
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62:4 69:13
evil 57:17,18
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Exits 7:18
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expressing
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extended 32:10
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February 15:21
federal 13:13
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five 12:22,24
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full 64:9
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Gee 43:5 55:24
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Geological
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Metropolitan
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Mexico 65:20
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mortgaging
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occurring 23:19
October 59:1
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offering 9:12
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office 25:22
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offline 12:5
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56:12 69:4
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option 23:11
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order 6:25 7:1,11
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organic 8:24
organization
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ought 55:3
outcome 70:13
outlook 20:1
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overflows 11:8
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owners 64:24
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P 3:1
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paint 46:1
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43:12 48:17,23
49:3 50:3
51:18 53:21,24
58:2 63:2
67:18,21 69:5
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part 11:19 12:18
14:7 22:13
36:9 51:3
participant 5:21
participant's 6:1
participants
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participate
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participating
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participation 8:1
particular 23:12
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use 8:24 16:2
21:24 23:2
27:10 32:1
44:9,10,10
50:22 53:11
60:7 63:6
66:13
users 3:25 4:3
4:3
uses 52:25
66:14
usually 65:13
utilities 9:9
27:3 37:6
42:24
utility 9:11 10:9
30:11 37:5
utilization 53:2
56:6,25
V
valid 35:16
valuation 64:12
varies 22:22
Veatch 36:12,13
36:14 49:8,10
49:17,24
65:19 67:16
versus 16:22
28:6 62:19,20
vest 46:15
vetted 49:14
violation 13:9
voices 25:1
volume 44:25
58:16 59:7
66:12 67:7
volumetric 29:8
voluntarily 27:5
voluntary 9:4
vote 9:11 10:25
19:9,18 23:4,6
50:24,24 51:7
51:24 61:21
voted 63:10,11
64:18
voter-approved
8:22
voters 17:2
63:10,14 64:18
votes 22:21
voting 11:3
19:25 22:24
W
want 7:7 9:8
16:9 17:23,24
19:8,9 21:18
22:22 23:2
36:14 37:21
42:11 43:9,16
45:5,6 49:3
60:5 65:12
67:24
wanted 9:13
30:23 40:3
45:16 63:15
washing 15:25
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wastewater
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10:12,22 11:7,8
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18:13 25:23
27:4 30:10,13
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37:16 41:14
49:7 54:19
55:22 56:6
67:3
watching 21:2
water 14:22,22
14:24 15:18,19
15:25 16:2
25:23 26:3
27:2,10,18
30:4,4,10,20
31:4,13 33:2
33:10 34:20
36:15 38:4
40:1 43:21
44:3,3,7,10,20
45:2,13,15
52:9,22 53:14
53:16 54:9,20
54:21,24,25
55:3,9,10,16
55:19 56:19
57:8,11,13,15
65:23,24
66:6,7,13,14
66:22 67:8
68:1,4,13
watering 15:24
68:6
way 13:22,23
15:17 22:11,17
28:22 30:4
31:22 34:19
37:20 47:20
47:21 49:1
51:21 55:18
57:4 61:23
66:15 68:20
69:2
ways 57:19
we'll 11:17 12:5
13:25 14:25
16:3,4 19:17,21
19:25 21:16
22:18 23:8
24:10,22 41:12
55:2 56:25
60:7
we're 8:12,20
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12:13 13:7
14:16,19 17:11
18:20 20:18
21:22 23:22
24:6 28:18
29:16,22,24
31:5,15 32:12
32:21,21,23
33:3 35:2
37:12,13 38:13
40:11 41:6
42:21 46:11,17
46:23,25
53:17,18
54:24 58:19
61:15,22 62:3
62:11 63:4,5
64:1 66:5
we've 19:22
23:14 28:16
29:9 32:14,18
34:9 35:5
37:13,19 38:23
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50:16 53:18
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62:9,17,20
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website 23:25
24:2 26:14
29:6 49:21
websites 28:12
Wellness 8:3
69:15
went 49:1 56:21
58:17
west 10:5 30:3
37:22
wide 64:20
WIFIA 21:7
60:24
wildly 28:2
Wildwood 10:5
winter 15:19
16:2,3 54:21
55:25 56:13
67:25 68:3,7
68:8
wish 6:3 7:4
24:19 47:6
wishing 6:23
wonder 68:19
wondering 50:7
54:16
work 10:18 38:4
38:21 68:20
worked 38:4
working 42:13
43:6
works 22:18
PUBLIC HEARING 6/27/2019
www.alaris.us Phone: 1.800.280.3376 Fax: 314.644.1334
ALARIS LITIGATION SERVICES
31:22 44:11
worth 10:25
31:12
worthwhile
42:2
Wow 59:9
writing 26:10
written 49:23
51:24
wrong 22:8
54:22
X
Y
yeah 29:19
41:19 46:10,25
57:4
year 6:6 15:22
18:14,21,22
19:5,6,11,11,14
19:14 21:15
27:5,24 28:9
42:21,21 48:11
54:12 56:10
61:5,22 63:3
63:25,25
64:6,11 68:9
years 10:13,16
11:1,17 14:20
15:14 16:13
17:25 18:6,7,9
19:21 20:6,7,9
20:17,19,21
21:13,17,20,23
22:18 23:10,10
23:12 27:22
27:22 31:11
32:10,10,14
34:7,8 35:5,6
41:15,17 46:20
61:6,13,18,22
62:6,6,7 63:6
63:21,23
Yep 52:14
yesterday
47:25
York 10:10
30:16
Z
zero 46:22
0
03 34:15
07 63:12
1
1 10:17 22:16
59:10
1,600 44:12
1.3 10:6 31:24
1.5 31:23
1.6 10:17 40:18
1.8 40:18
1.9 18:13 19:5
33:24 34:10
58:19,22
10 8:3 34:8 51:11
58:5,13,15
59:8
10,000 10:8
10.6 28:9 29:13
33:25 34:1,12
34:17 36:22
43:24 52:1
100 38:9,10
48:5 53:12
66:4
109 10:5
10th 69:15
11 30:22,23
65:21
110 20:21 27:16
59:19
12 31:9 51:10
63:12
120 30:14 37:22
37:24
13 45:3
13.1 19:15
14 4:22 6:6
144 46:20
15 4:9
15,000 65:22
66:2,25 67:2
15.1 19:12
16 5:1 33:15,15
51:12,13 61:22
63:13
16th 22:8,8,9
17.1 19:14
19 22:8
1973 46:22
1st 29:12
2
2 18:17 28:4
31:24 60:17
64:11
20 12:15 61:5,22
63:13
20-year 60:8,10
200 45:14 66:3
200,000 45:23
2000 3:18
2001 35:11
2002 34:15
2003 63:11,12
2008 63:12
2012 29:7,10
33:15 34:14,18
2013 63:12
2016 64:18
2017 20:8 26:1
63:13
2018 54:10
58:24 59:1,1,2
2019 1:15 4:13
4:15,22 5:1,12
8:3 15:12,12
16:10 18:10,24
22:6,9,13
58:15
2020 20:8
22:16,17 23:3
34:2 58:20
59:18
2021 8:13 18:11
23:4 58:21
2022 18:15
19:12
2023 18:19
19:14
2024 8:14 18:20
19:15
2039 35:6
208 30:19 31:1
21 46:19
21st 28:16 39:21
224.2 29:11,13
23 31:11 32:10
35:5
2300 1:8
24 44:11
24th 69:17
25 12:18
27 1:15 21:12
27th 23:23
28 32:10
28-dollar 64:5
2nd 4:15
3
3,400 67:2
3.8 18:15,19,20
34:10,11
3.97 54:12 58:5
30 12:19 61:5,6
63:23
30-year 63:22
300 10:18 57:14
314)644-2191
2:11
32 51:10,13
32.65 33:21,23
35 33:18
36 51:13
4
4 4:13 5:12,12
61:8
4,500 52:19,20
4.40 58:5
40 27:3,6 38:13
44:1,2
43 20:9
45-day 4:21
4th 22:6
5
5 45:2 61:8
5.3 28:8 36:21
50 12:14 28:15
35:22 36:14
56:17,21
500 10:25
59:22
520 10:2
55 44:13 51:11
56 52:2
56.63 18:12,22
19:11
6
6 8:3 23:23
31:12 69:15
6:01 3:3
60 11:14 27:2
63.36 18:22
63043 1:9
63101 2:10
64,000 11:18
7
7 20:22
7,500 52:9,10
7:19 69:21
70 21:6,6 60:4
60:8,16
711 2:10
7th 3:18
8
80 27:15 38:9
38:10
88 10:6
89 52:25
9
90 10:4
90s 45:11