[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: RE: Questions re: Water Damage

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Appelbaum, Matt

I’d like to add some rather different questions to Jan’s list below (I’ve included her email simply to keep all the questions in one place):

Essentially, I’m still not quite convinced that only single-family homeowners should pay into this fund on the grounds that they will benefit most from it.  That’s not how we fund other city activities, such as flood control or even police and fire protection.  So I’d like to get a sense of the different effective rate increases if we charge other categories of water users, including (separately and together) multi-family residential and business.  In addition, I’d like some quick analysis, if it’s easy to do, of charging not just a fixed, identical, monthly amount for each customer, but an incremental percentage charge based on the fixed (non-usage) part of the water bill, since that theoretically represents the potential usage (and thus the strain on the system’s pipes) for each customer.

Thanks --Matt

From: Burton, Jan
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 3:38 PM
To: HOTLINE <HOTLINE at bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: Questions re: Water Damage

Regarding Ordinance No 8116 adding a new subsection to impose fee on water users in single family homes and amending Chapter 11-1 “Water Utility” by adding a new Subsection to Section 11-1-44 “Water User Fees” authorizing the city manager to pay claims for damage from water main breaks.

First, of all, I applaud Jane for coming up with a suggested solution very quickly! I definitely agree that we need to help our residents with these issues, even though it’s legally not the city’s fault.  I appreciate any sense of urgency we have, because our residents are suffering through the re-building process.

I have the following questions:

  1.  Why are we considering helping residents who have had water flooding but not sewer backups?
  2.  How did we come up with $10K as the maximum payout? In the case of Norwood, at least one resident has significantly more damage. What would be the process to evaluate her situation?
  3.  Is $30M the current amount of money in water utility reserves? How is that currently designated for use, and what is our estimate of potential payout of those funds? (I understand the need to have a reserve, but will this last for 30 years while we increase the billing to our citizens?)
  4.  How do we rationalize $273,600 funding per year (with the suggested $1/month fee) with the projection of paying out substantially less?

Thanks so much!

Jan