City to account for utility use at facilities

The city facilities are currently not accounting for water, sanitation or sewage costs. “All those costs are part of the lost revenue out of the water utility. So, everyone else is paying those costs.”

All residential users have been faced with a yearly increase to the amount usage-based charges for water on their water utility bill between 2013-2016, starting with a more than 10 per cent increase for the average user this year alone.

The costs of utility use by the facilities has never been accounted for, Atkinson said.

But a report prepared for council during the budget cycle accounting for water use at city buildings gave a sense of consumption. “So, one of the ones that was quite surprising was the water usage at the police station, which was considerably higher than most other buildings.”

Furthermore, there is no public accounting for the other fees on the water utility bill outside of water use – such as meter charges, for example – Atkinson said.

And when the city is determining user fees based on the cost of the facilities, the cost of the utilities have to be included as well, Atkinson said.

During Monday’s council meeting, Coun. Ted Zurakowski said the “interesting next step” is to find out where the water is going, and almost 30 per cent of the water “going in the ground,” with some of that loss potentially being due to leaking pipes.

“Well, part of it’s lost through breaks in the system,” Atkinson said. “Part of it is the amount used in city facilities that’s not collected.”

If, however, there’s an instance where one facility is suddenly using a lot of water, a regular measuring of water use would help indicate that there could be a problem with the infrastructure.

“Plus, I think it helps us in the idea that monthly billing too, that if we actually were on top of things more diligently or in a more timely manner, we would be able to identify problems, not only for homeowners but in our own facilities, and say ‘OK, there’s a problem there, because the water meter reading is two times what it should be.”

Yet the accountability could perform another function for the city. Mayor Greg Dionne, during the council meeting, called it a “check” on the water use – in the sense of checks and balances.

“I’m shocked at the large shortfall we have in the water utility,” Dionne said when expressing his support for the motion.

“So, I’d like to know where that water’s going. And that’s an important element. And it’s like anything else that we give away. If we don’t charge for it, it’s freely used. And sometimes we can reduce that by saying ‘hey, you’re using this volume of water, no other building that we supply free water … uses that amount of water. What’s the issue that you have?’”

But for Dionne the biggest thing would be able to answer the question “where does all the water go?”

“Today we can’t answer that question.”

The question may already be answerable.

With the facilities already outfitted with water meters that city has been reading for some time, Atkinson was left asking Tuesday, “Then why haven’t we seen any numbers?”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames

by Thia James

City to account for utility use at facilities

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