10-12-11 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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7/7 W2'e oawaaa 515 Little Canada Road, Little Canada, MN 55117-1600 (651) 766 -4029 / FAX: (651) 766 -4048 www.ci.liltle- canada.rnn.us MEMORANDUM TO: Mayor Blesener & Members of City Council FROM: Bill Direks, Public Works Superintendent DATE: October 5, 2011 RE: Water Meter Replacement Policies MAYOR 13111 ulesener COUNCIL Rick Montour John [(cis Michael McGraw Shelly Boss ADMINISTRATOR Joel R. Hanson The water meter replacement project will be underway soon. The vendor is still waiting for a license from the FCC and then they can order the meters and equipment. There is a four -to -six week turnaround time for the equipment so hopefully meter installations will begin in late - November or early December. The installer plans to use five -to -seven installers and complete the project quickly. City staff is hoping to complete as many of the changeouts as possible before the fourth quarter ends so that the 2012 sewer rates can be set based off of new meter readings. There are a few issues remaining to be cleared up before the changeout begins. Under - registering Remotes Last November, the City Council approved a policy for cases where the actual meter reading and remote reading had a large discrepancy. After some discussion it was decided that residents with discrepancies would be billed back one year of water usage based on the difference between the quarterly readings of the new meter and the old meter. In other words, if a resident's meter revealed a discrepancy of 100,000 gallons, the utility billing clerk would compare the new meter reading each quarter to the old meter readings for the same quarter and bill the resident the difference if the new reading was higher than the old reading. The City had four extreme cases last year that triggered the need for the policy. Staff now has more information on how much has been collected from each account. One of the accounts is complete and the City ended up collecting on an additional 43,000 gallons of water of the 560,000 - gallon discrepancy. The other three have been monitored for three quarters and they currently stand at 33,000 of 720,000, 49,000 of 271,000, and 1