City staff outlines options and costs to replace aging water-meter software

City staff told the Minnetrista City Council that the city’s current proprietary water-meter reading software will no longer be supported and presented options to either update only the software or move to an AMI (continuous cellular/cloud) system that would require hardware upgrades on some meters.

A staff member said the implementation package included an initial implementation line item and recurring fees: “The implementation basically costs a total of $37,510,” the presenter said, adding that the first-year implementation amount of roughly $13,000 includes a cellular data fee and training. The staff member also cited an Itron annual startup fee of $5,250 and an AMI smart-start data package listed at $9,260 for year one, with a year-two baseline of about $9,073 if the city deploys the AMI devices staff described.

Council members raised questions about installation scope and customer impacts. Staff described a possible mass-install external-vendor option (the transcript referenced an approximate vendor-install total near $400,000 and per-install estimates in the mid-$40s), and said the AMI option includes a customer portal and a per-device cellular data charge that staff noted as $6.96 per device per year. On cybersecurity, a council member asked who controls and secures the cloud-based data; staff replied that local access would be limited to a single staff account and that the city can seek the vendor’s cybersecurity protocols before contracting.

The council discussed staged or targeted replacements: staff said the city could update only the software (an option staff estimated would require roughly $19,000 for training and implementation) without buying AMI end devices immediately, or pilot AMI on problem meters and maintain drive-by reads for most meters for many years. Staff told the council it would bring a proposed agreement and clearer cost options in September or October for council consideration.