Sacramento Area Sewer District approves union MOU, benefits changes, ordinance amendments and tax-roll levy for delinquent charges

The Sacramento Area Sewer District board on July 9 approved a package of personnel and regulatory items that the board and staff said align compensation with market rates, clarify impact-fee naming and authorize placing delinquent sewer charges on the Sacramento County property tax roll.

The actions included approving a tentative agreement with the Professional Engineers Association, adopting revised employee benefits for several employee groups, adopting amendments to the district’s Collection System and Treatment and Resource Recovery ordinances (with staff saying the changes are exempt from CEQA), and adopting a resolution to place delinquent sewer service charges on the county tax roll to be collected via property taxes.

The board’s actions affect district compensation and benefits, how the district classifies developer impact fees, and the mechanism for recovering overdue customer charges. Staff said the levy to the tax roll would be filed with the Sacramento County Auditor-Controller by Aug. 5, 2025, if the process proceeds as recommended.

Staff presentations and key facts

A district staff presenter reviewed the tentative agreement with the engineers’ union and said the agreement implements the district’s compensation policy, which targets the median of comparable agencies. The presenter cautioned that the draft MOU contained “an incorrect reference in the MOU to the labor index that we use, each year,” and said staff and the union concurred with changing the index reference to a December-to-December cost-of-labor adjustment from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Mike Hewitt, the district’s director of policy and planning, summarized the ordinance amendments to the Collection System and Treatment and Resource Recovery ordinances. “The amendments ... were determined to be exempt from CEQA,” Hewitt said, and he said the amendments clarify how the district records the district engineer’s compensation and adopt a consistent naming convention for impact fees so staff and developers can more easily distinguish “infill” versus “expansion” charges for both collection and treatment.

Glennie Lamura, the district’s senior accounting manager, outlined the tax-roll process for delinquent accounts. “As of June 7, there was approximately 16,946 accounts with totaling about 13,400,000.0 that would be potentially transferred to the tax roll,” Lamura said. She told the board the number typically declines slightly between June and the transfer date as payments come in. She asked the board to adopt the resolution directing the clerk to file the levy report with the Sacramento County Auditor-Controller on or before Aug. 5, 2025.

Votes and motions

- Consent matters (items 1–10): motion passed unanimously with the members present; no public comment was reported.

- Item 13 — Memorandum of Understanding with the Professional Engineers Association: the board approved the tentative agreement with an amendment to correct the labor-index reference to a December-to-December cost-of-labor adjustment; mover: Director Rodriguez; second: Director Kaplan; the item passed unanimously with the members present.

- Item 14 — Revised employee benefits (employee groups 4, 6 and 9): the board approved matching the benefit side of the previously approved MOU for represented employees; mover: Director Soon; second: Director Rodriguez; the item passed unanimously with the members present.

- Item 15 — Amendments to the Collection System Ordinance and the Treatment and Resource Recovery Ordinance: the board opened and closed the public hearing (no public comments received) and adopted the ordinance amendments, noting staff’s finding that the changes are exempt from CEQA; the ordinances were presented to take effect after the required waiting period and were noted by staff to be effective Aug. 8, 2025; motion and second recorded on the record; the item passed unanimously with the members present.

- Item 16 — Collection of delinquent sewer service charges on the property tax roll: after a public hearing with no public comments, the board adopted the resolution directing staff to place qualifying delinquent charges on the Sacramento County property tax roll and to file the levy report with the county auditor-controller on or before Aug. 5, 2025; mover: (on the record) move staff recommendation; the item passed unanimously with the members present.

Discussion points and clarifications

Board members asked procedural and clarifying questions during the ordinance item about why compensation and personnel references appear in collection/treatment ordinances rather than as separate administrative policy documents; staff acknowledged personnel and compensation policies exist as separate documents but are referenced by the ordinances and said staff would check and, where appropriate, maintain them as separate administrative materials.

On impact fees, Hewitt explained the district consolidated multiple legacy terms into two consistent labels—"infill" and "expansion"—for both collection and treatment fees to reduce confusion for staff and developers and because tiers and rates differ by whether a project is infill or expansion.

On the tax-roll item, Lamura and board members noted that delinquency counts can fluctuate and that the district’s annual process typically reduces the number of accounts before transfer as payments come in. Staff said the district’s May 14 resolution of intention started the public-notice process for today’s hearing.

What the board did not do

No substantive changes to the approved items were reported during the meeting beyond the technical correction to the labor-index reference in the MOU; no public comments were received on items 13, 15 or 16, and no closed-session reportable actions were disclosed at the meeting’s return from closed session.

Ending

Board members confirmed the district’s next regular meeting date of Aug. 13, and the meeting was adjourned.