Hernando County utilities propose operating cuts, add meter technicians and locators

Gordon (identified in the workshop as the county's utilities director) told commissioners Hernando County's water and sewer operation is financially strong and that Fitch reaffirmed the system's rating. "The AAA water and sewer revenue bond rating reflects the system's exceptionally strong financial profile," Gordon said while reviewing the department's fiscal 2026 proposal on June 20.

Gordon presented the department's operating-plus-personnel summary, saying the line items that staff consider discretionary are roughly $39,780,000 in the current year and that the proposed budget shows "we're proposing actually 2.3% decrease." He said the proposed staffing count for utilities would rise from a historical baseline of 142 full-time equivalents to 153.65 in the FY2026 proposal; the director said four of the requested additional positions are meter technicians.

Gordon said the county is replacing a large number of aging meters and that the meter-replacement workload has roughly doubled since fiscal 2022. He described the proposed meter technicians as mobile technicians who would both diagnose and replace meters in a single visit to reduce duplicate truck rolls and avoid long customer back-billing cycles. Gordon said staff expect to replace roughly 5,700 meters in the coming cycle out of an approximate 70,000 meters countywide.

Commissioners questioned whether meters or communications could flag failing batteries remotely. Commissioner Champion pressed that the lack of a battery-life signal increases the risk that a household will accumulate months of unbilled consumption and then face a large correction, saying, "If you can't get a signal that tells you it's dead, you're running the risk of somebody getting a massive bill."

Other personnel requests included two wastewater-collection-system workers to handle a growing number of pump stations being turned over to the county and a proposal to create a utility-locate crew to streamline locating underground utilities while large fiber and development projects proceed. Gordon also proposed reclassifying an administrative position into an asset-management supervisor to improve GIS and asset tracking and speed billing updates when meters are swapped.

Gordon said consolidation of treatment capacity (reducing the number of neighborhood plants) and earlier debt restructuring have helped utility finances; he described a $1.5 million annual savings from prior debt refinancing the utility realized after the 2020 refinancing.

The requested personnel and reclassification changes will be included in the recommended budget staff will present on July 10. Commissioners asked for more detail on the proposed reclasses and the projected timing for meter swaps and utility-locate work.