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Presenter: paying for water projects with cash would leave fund nearly empty without major rate hikes
Summary
Zions Bank model shows cash-only funding of planned water projects would exhaust reserves and require a roughly 37% one‑time rate increase to meet a 180‑day cash target; councilors asked staff to verify the starting balances used in the model.
At the center of the July 15 work session was a stark cash‑only scenario for the water fund.
"You'd actually have negative 96 days cash on hand," Jonathan Wirtz of Zions Bank told the council while walking through a cash‑spend model tied to the city's five‑year capital list. Wirtz said the model used an $86,000 residual starting balance after 2025 expenditures and showed completing the proposed 2026 projects without other revenue or transfers would push the fund into a substantially negative cash position.
Wirtz estimated the city would need an immediate, one‑time rate increase on the order of 37% to generate roughly $1 million of additional revenue and restore the recommended 180‑day reserve; he and councilors discussed alternatives such as deferring projects, using fewer projects in the near term, or pursuing debt instead. Council members flagged a discrepancy between figures in the packet and earlier notes (one prior figure cited approximately $828,000), and they asked staff to reconcile audited balances and timing of capital expenditures before acting on any rate or funding decisions.
Councilors did not vote on rate changes; instead they requested staff return with corrected data and scenario runs that do not assume embedded revenue growth.
