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City utilities requests one additional water meter service position as workload grows
Summary
City utilities staff asked the council to approve adding a water meter service-person position to keep up with customer growth and service demands; staff said meter-service calls and new meter installations have increased with city growth.
City utility and water-distribution staff told the mayor and council on April 15 they will request authorization to add one water-meter service-person position, citing increased customer counts and a high volume of meter and service calls.
Water-distribution staff reported that the city has about 32,000 metered accounts, roughly 550 large meters (4 inches or larger), and a growth in customers of about 200 per year over the last five years. The work profile presented to council included nearly 38,000 service calls over a five-year period: final reads for property transfers, meter exchanges (about 5,000), high usage responses and new meter installations (roughly 1,900 new meters set in the cited period).
Staff said the department currently has two meter-service positions, one of which is vacant; adding a position would increase staffing to a planned complement and help the department keep up with installations, meter exchanges and collection-related calls. "Our request tonight is just for one position for water meter service person," staff said, noting they had dropped paperwork to HR to advertise the vacancy and the budget action would be brought as a vote at the next regular meeting.
Why it matters
The proposed position responds to workload growth tied to customer expansion and to operational demands such as meter exchanges, readings, reconnections and customer service calls. Staff argued that adequate field staffing reduces backlogs, improves billing accuracy and supports timely response to customer issues.
Next steps
Staff signaled they will bring the personnel request as a motion for the council to vote at the next meeting; no final hiring or budget action was recorded at the April 15 work session.
