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Council discusses utility rate study after OJRSA planning grant
Summary
City officials discussed a required rate study tied to an OJRSA regional planning grant and asked staff to solicit bids for a sewer-only option and a combined water/electric/sewer analysis, with costs estimated by staff in the meeting.
Westminster’s City Council spent a substantial portion of its Nov. 12 meeting discussing a required rate-analysis tied to an OJRSA regional planning grant and what scope the city should commission.
City Administrator Bronson said the OJRSA committee expects each member city to complete a certified rate study for sewer collection and that Westminster can either provide a sewer-only study or commission a combined analysis covering water, electric and sewer. “We can do an analysis on just the sewer … or we could also do a rate analysis on electric, water, and sewer and inform all three,” Bronson said.
Bronson gave a price estimate for the work in the meeting transcript as “this is gonna be somewhere between 75100 and maybe $40,000 to complete,” and he recommended soliciting proposals that allow the city to choose either scope depending on bids received. Several council members said a combined study would give the most complete picture for internal budgeting because the utilities operate from a combined utility fund, while others worried that presenting all three together could “skew” the sewer-specific results the OJRSA is requesting.
Council directed staff to prepare a solicitation that includes both options (a sewer-only study and a combined three-utility analysis) and to return with bids and recommendations; staff said if a combined price is too high it will default to the sewer-only option.
The discussion was advisory only; no procurement contract was awarded at the meeting.
