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Public works seeks 8 water-and-irrigation positions, cites high line‑break rate and deferred pipe work
Summary
Water Resources Director Jeff Barnes proposed eight full‑time hires for FY26 to reduce overtime, respond to emergencies, bring construction work in house and accelerate pipe and hydrant replacements; presentation included infrastructure metrics, AMI rollout and plans to fund hires through growth, cost savings and reallocation of AMI capital.
Jeff Barnes, Director of Water Resources, told the Nampa City Council that the water and irrigation division will ask for eight full‑time employees in FY26 to reduce emergency overtime, expand an in‑house construction crew, and support operations and startup of irrigation stations.
Barnes described the division’s scale and vulnerabilities: 33 staff in the water and irrigation unit, about 73,000 domestic and irrigation connections, roughly 1,200 miles of water pipe, 6,300 fire hydrants, and a recent tally of 167 line breaks this year. He said crews spend about two‑thirds of their time responding to emergency breaks and that high turnover and deferred pipe replacement are key vulnerabilities.
Barnes proposed a five‑person utility construction team (a second construction crew) plus three additional operations staff and a retention package to reduce turnover. He said the department is proposing to fund personnel increases from growth, cost savings and by reallocating a portion of prior capital spent on the automated meter infrastructure (AMI) rollout: $2.1 million invested in AMI over prior years provides $434,000 proposed for personnel in FY26.
Barnes said the city completed installation of about 38,000 automated meters, which improves leak detection and billing analytics, and that the division seeks to move to monthly billing in coordination with Utility Billing staff. He said the division currently averages a 3.8‑hour response time for unplanned disruptions—faster than a 100‑utility benchmark average cited in the presentation—and that the department handles more miles of infrastructure per employee than nearby utilities because Nampa manages both domestic water and irrigation.
Council members asked about overtime and whether enterprise funds could be used for personnel. Barnes said overtime spikes during irrigation season startup and that some employees had logged more than 100 hours in a two‑week period during that work. Barnes and other staff said the enterprise fund covers water and irrigation staffing; outsourcing some work currently paid to contractors would be reduced by building in‑house capacity.
Barnes said the proposed construction team would reduce outsourcing and deliver a projected ROI by retaining work in house and accelerating hydrant and valve replacement. He estimated $1.5 million in one‑time equipment purchases would be needed to start an in‑house CIPP (cured‑in‑place pipe) lining program in FY26 and that the staffing increase could allow the division to shift from emergency response toward preventative asset management over a multi‑year program.
