The policy is a guideline for the commission to allocate sewer system capacity to developers from now until July 31, 2009. As of that date, the consent decree stipulates that if anybody is going to hook onto WMU's system, an engineer must certify that WMU has the capacity to transmit and treat wastewater without causing an overflow in the system.
"Because we are under this consent decree, we have to be stewards of our available capacity," Rompf said.
Dexter Noble, WMU commission chairman, requested that the commisison have more time to consider the policy.
"We've got a lot of work to do on this," Noble said.
Noble proposed holding work sessions with the WMU commission, Winchester Mayor Ed Burtner, city managers and WMU staff to develop the policy.
"We need to look at this hard," he said.
Burtner asked Azevedo if other entities that are critical to the development process, such as the Winchester-Clark County Planning Commission and the city commission, would be involved in the review process for the policy.
"It's not a part of the policy," Azevedo said. "We have made a commitment to participate in a technical review committee with the planning commission."
The WMU commission also approved the 2007-2008 operations and maintenance budget and capital budget. The budget was presented at the commission's last meeting on June 7.
WMU's new budget will start July 1. The total budget is $9.6 million, and its existing debt is just over $2 million.
The budget shows that WMU will meet its bond coverage for the 2007-08 budget year, but it will use interest income to do so. Bond coverage is a ratio that shows WMU's ability to make debt payments. WMU has to make 1.4 times more revenue than it has expenses.
The utility will just meet that number, but only because it is using non-operating income, or bank interest from loans, as part of its budget.
The non-operating revenue budget is $784,070, which will offset an operating loss of $644,000 to bring about a positive net income of $139,000.
In the general manager's report, Azevedo clarified where Clark County stands with the current drought conditions.
"There's no question that we are in a moderate drought," but the county is currently not in danger of being under water restrictions, Azevedo said.
WMU's policy is to implement voluntary conservation when it has a sustained demand of 5.2 MGD on the water system. So far, its peak day has been at 5.1.
Azevedo also reported that WMU is about three months behind schedule on construction of the wastewater treatment plant. WMU will address the schedule with CDP Engineers.
In other business, the commission:
- approved a contract for comprehensive business insurance with Public Entity Insurance, Inc. in Lexington. The underwriter for the policy is the Kentucky Association of Counties. The contract gives a three-year price guarantee at annual costs of $299,681 for the comprehensive policy and $139,611 for workers compensation coverage. The combined cost is an increase of 4.67 percent over last year.
- approved professional audit services to be provided by Ludwig, Blair & Blush, PLLC in Winchester at a cost of $13,780 from July 1 of this year to June 30, 2008. This is to perform an audit of the fiscal year 2006-07 budget and provide other accounting assistance.
- approved an industrial pretreatment program with Tetra Tech Inc. from July 1 of this year through June 30, 2008. The cost for WMU is $74,100.
- approved a work order for the wastewater treatment plant operations and maintenance manual to be prepared by CDP Engineers, Inc. of Lexington at a cost of $25,000.
The next meeting will be in the WMU Main Office on Main Street at 6 p.m. on July 5.
