Aztec staff urge roughly $2M meter modernization to stop lost water revenue

City staff told commissioners at a March 24 workshop that Aztec’s water‑meter fleet is aging and that data‑collection and billing issues mean the city may be losing revenue and field efficiency.

A utilities staff presenter said many of the city’s mechanical (Badger) meters are about 20 years old, and that mechanical meters can slow and under‑register flow. Staff showed vendor quotes for a full system replacement using ultrasonic meters and remote transmitters and reported a core meter quote of about $1,000,500 plus additional services and larger commercial meter costs that together drove a total city‑wide estimate “a little over 2,000,000.”

“Most of the meters are getting there,” the presenter said, noting the current piecemeal replacement program of about $60,000 a year would take multiple decades to replace all meters at current funding levels. Staff said an automatic reading/transmitter architecture would cut manual drive‑by reads, provide near‑real‑time leak detection and reduce the frequency of field visits to investigate anomalous reads.

Staff also reported software and data‑upload problems: when drive‑by reads are uploaded into the billing system some numbers truncate incorrectly, requiring staff to review hundreds of consumption journals monthly and to send crew members to verify individual meters. Staff said the present drive‑by collection vendor will end support for the field collection system in 2028, which would require replacing transmitters or migrating to a supported cellular/readout system.

A staff technical presenter recommended replacing older mechanical registers and transmitters (Camstrup-style meters and compatible transmitters were discussed in staff materials) and advised the commission to weigh full replacement, phased replacement, or adapting current meters with new transmitters. Commissioners suggested state revolving loan funds and other low‑interest financing programs as a funding path.

Staff did not record a formal commitment to start a full replacement project at the workshop; they recommended commissioning a detailed inventory and condition survey, exploring grant and loan financing paths, and preparing a procurement plan and contingency allowance to include in a future capital program.

(Attribution note: quotations and figures come from on‑record staff presenters and commissioners at the March 24 Aztec workshop. All direct quotations are attributed to speakers listed in the meeting transcript.)