City utility reports show revenues near budget and capital projects rising after switchyard ordinance

Jacob, a utility staff member, presented the board with May financials for Power & Lights, water and sanitary sewer and said the utility is nearing its fiscal year end (June 30).

“Amended budget is a 157,000,000. We've utilized in revenues a 147,000,000 of that. Percent of actual is 91.67%,” Jacob said, reporting that operating expenses for Power & Lights were running below budget while the capital projects line increased after a recently passed ordinance adding roughly $14,000,000 for a switchyard tied to a new data center. He said about $11,000,000 of the larger capital budget has been used year-to-date.

On water, Jacob said the amended budget was $32,000,000 with about $29,000,000 of actual revenue and roughly $5,000,000 of capital spending to date, leaving about $27,000,000 available in the capital plan. For sanitary sewer, he reported a $35,000,000 operating budget with about $33,000,000 in revenues (about 93.45% realized) and operating expenses at about 81% of budget; the sewer capital budget was $21,000,000 with roughly $3.74 million used.

The board asked for clarifications about encumbrances and Jacob said unspent capital will likely be encumbered and carried into the new fiscal year. The chair thanked staff and closed the finance section.

In board comments later in the meeting, staff reported the recent billing system cutover to the new customer portal was successful overall but experienced a short multi-hour outage that temporarily prevented credit card payments; staff said the conversion otherwise proceeded smoothly.