PUD commission discusses water, related concerns

The Wahkiakum PUD board of commissioners met Tuesday to work on a variety of issues.

Commissioner Gene Healy presented a rough draft of a PUD Strategic Plan for 2013-2016, and then the commissioners began discussing revision of the Policy Manual. They touched on smoking in vehicles, use of the meeting room, approving travel, as well as changing verbiage to reflect current procedure.

“We should be following our own policy,” said Tim Hanigan, PUD attorney, “So if you want to approve all travel, then let’s amend the travel policy so you’re doing that.”

Commissioners discussed latest developments in efforts to extend the Western Wahkiakum Water System toward Salme Hill.

“We went to the county commissioners meeting,” said Dennis Reid. “Pam Anderson was there, talking to the commissioners, trying to get some help from them. She wanted the county commissioners to set up an account to hold funds they would raise for the water system. Blair Brady, the county commissioner, asked me if the PUD would set that up.”

Auditor Erin Wilson spoke to Teresa Johnson, the PUD’s contract CPA.

“It’s her opinion if we were to do that, the resources to receive it, reconcile it, track it, could be seen as gifting of public funds," Wilson said. "She thinks it puts us at unnecessary risk for us to hang on to these funds and monitor them. It could paint us in a bad light if people think that things aren’t handled correctly. It’s her opinion that we should not.”

“

can go to the bank and set up an account to do that herself,” said Dennis Reid.

There are a lot of pitfalls when you are holding money for an extended period of time with no end date,” said Hanigan.

“We may, at least in a left handed way, be making a statement prematurely regarding a project,” said Eugene Healy.

The discussion then moved to Accounts Receivable.

“Percentage of credit card payments is increasing annually. I think our customers are moving toward that on a more regular basis. I think staff have embraced it and I think it is working well for us,” said Dave Tramblie, general manager.

“We take a discount on that, don’t we?” asked Jungers.

“We do,” said Wilson. Customers are moving toward AutoPay, or calling to pay by phone.

“I know you guys don’t see it but I see it and Erin sees it every day,” said Tramblie. “How hard we work, our efforts we put in to making sure we collect the receivables. It’s a big job. There is a lot of time and effort into it. The gals really go the extra mile. We don’t have a lot of delinquency…We talk about different options on how to reduce our time and effort in that but we are still wrestling through the process.”

“Is this digital policy reducing the workload at all?” asked Junger

“I think we still have as many notices going out and we make just as many phone calls. But there is a certain percentage of them that now that will…pay by phone,” said Wilson. “We can take that payment over the phone so that helps people out tremendously.”

Tramblie began his report. “The Town of Cathlamet has given us a copy of their proposed changes to the water contract. We are working on our response. I sent a letter to the Town of Cathlamet notifying them of our intent to install underground electrical conductor on Second Street. I have not received a response. I would assume no response would mean that they have no issues or concerns…I sent that in the middle of last month, I believe. We need to excavate alongside the street and across Una Street which will cause us to have to resurface that section of road.”

Tramblie went on to talk about future projects.

“Our engineering firm has commented that we probably should replace the high side fuses on the Cathlamet substation transformer with a 115kV circuit switcher. We probably need to be looking at a new 115kV tap and bay for Grays River substation to give us the redundancy at that end of the county that we have at this end now.”

The hope is to provide more reliability for customers on the west end of the county. Tramblie is also taking time to get educated about AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure). This system would allow the PUD to gather data from your meter without leaving the office.

Reid suggested holding a grand opening for the new substation.

“It’s a big event for the PUD and the county. Send pictures to NWBPA and WAPUDA and let people know we are doing things here.”

“Teresa Johnson is coming at the end of next month to do compliance on all our various reporting,” said Wilson. “Our REAP (Residential Energy Assistance Program) balance is currently about 107 dollars. Small donations come in every day. They add up.”

The board approved the purchase of a replacement 37’ aerial boom and chassis through the State Purchasing Agreement.

Travel was approved for Tramblie to attend a PPC (Public Power Council) meeting in Portland on April 3 and for Tramblie and Shane Pfenniger to attend a NWPPA (NW Public Power Association) meeting in Portland on April 9.