Council members unanimously approved a $1.2 million contract for the meters, related computer software and services.  The supplier is H D Supply Waterworks of Sun Prairie, and the program for changing out the meters will be carried out over two-and-a-half years.  City workers will replace the old meters while a contracted management team calls residents and businesses to schedule days when workers visit them.

The existing water metering system requires city workers visit each meter and they represent an obsolete technology that is no longer in production.  When installed every house and business will have a radio box and that box communicates with a central tower; all that data will come straight to the City Services Building.  The data will then be imported to the water billing software.

But over in Louisiana’s City of Monroe, a contract with Vanguard Utility Service Inc. to install an automated meter reading system estimated to cost $7 million is still being debated, according to the News Star.  Both of these initiatives mark the way forward for water meter reads and water billing software, although it must be noted that both councils serve a small population; how such a solution will scale up remains to be seen.

Smart metering will help drive the smart vendor to provide new water billing software too.

“A lot of people feel smart [grid] technologies that apply to the electrical industry can also apply to the water industry, and we are in a position to provide them with a number of our SOA products and Fusion Middleware,” said Guerry Waters, vice president in charge of industry strategy with Oracle Utilities.  The full story is reported by Techtarget.

In mid-February Utility Partners of America (UPA), one of the nation’s largest utility services contractors, announced it has been awarded a contract by Glendale Water and Power (GWP) to replace electric and water meters with smart meters in the city of Glendale, CA. The installation will give 84,500 electric and 33,400 water customers access to advanced metering technologies that generate a two-way communication network.  UPA specializes in the installation of smart meters, load curtailment devices and other home-automation equipment. UPA will install OpenWay(R) smart grid technology from Itron, Water SaveSource(TM) advanced metering infrastructure equipment from Itron, as well as MLOG leak-detecting sensors, also from Itron, that will be used to continuously monitor GWP’s entire water system.

And at the end of February West Virginia American Water said it will be getting $3.85 million in federal stimulus funding to install high-tech meters in Fayette County. The new meters radio data to water company computers daily, making it easier to track use and to discover leaks. Initially, the project is expected to cover about 12,000 customers, but the company hopes to expand to other parts of the state.  West Virginia American Water says the equipment also will be able to detect leaks in main lines and is expected to save money, energy and pollution. Its share of the project will be about $848,000.  The grant was awarded by the state Department of Health and Human Resources.

Beginning March 2, Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) will begin a national disconnection campaign, targeting those who have not paid their bills.

The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Yuri Chandisingh appealed to customers to pay their bills. He said that the company is pursuing the disconnection programme as “a very last resort”. Those owing the company are urged to contact the company to decide on an appropriate payment plan.  “All we want out of this exercise is for people to pay their fair share,” said Ravin Paltoo, GWI’s director of finance. It was emphasized that those who have not received a bill are not exempt from disconnection.

"We must find a way to charge properties that have not paid utility impact fees," Sullivan wrote in a memo to City Council.  Sullivan would charge property owners who are not on central utilities an annual assessment of about $300 to $400 a year over five years.  Though Sullivan has not analyzed the numbers, he reasoned the extra fees would help dull the rate increases. Once the city installs water and sewer pipes to the property owners paying the fees, the money they paid would be deducted from the impact fees, which now total $6,750 for water, sewer and irrigation hookups. Impact fees, a form of permit billing, are used to pay for the growth and development.

About 60,000 properties – most of them vacant – would pay the fees under Sullivan’s plan.

"With Tyler’s solutions, these Arizona counties will realize better management of their tax appraisals and improved access to records and documents," stated Brett Cate, president of Tyler’s Eagle Solutions. "We are pleased to provide these counties with solutions that improve department efficiencies and enable their employees to better serve their constituents."

According to Yuma County Assessor Joe Wehrle, there are many new features in the Assessor, Appraiser, and Treasurer applications that provide significant improvements over their existing system. "We particularly expect the new products to greatly improve our workflow management capabilities," explained Wehrle. "Another motivating factor for us in selecting Tyler is that Eagle Recorder integrates with this system in a way that no competitor could match. We look forward to our continued relationship with Tyler."

Coconino County Assessor Christine Mazon said her county was interested in a single vendor solution that would handle the needs of the assessor and treasurer by integrating and streamlining their department processes. "Now, with Tyler’s Recorder system already in place, we have full integration among all three departments," she added.

Bonny Lynn, Coconino County’s treasurer, noted that replacing their assessor and treasurer systems with a more efficient one creates time and money savings for the County. "These time efficiencies will allow our staff to be more productive and add more properties to the tax roll. The ability to better track new construction will enable us to collect additional property taxes into the future," she said.

It is the second time in less than three months that the city had to deal with the popularity of a program that subsidizes the purchase of items that help homes use fewer resources. In September, the city suspended its solar rebate program because Austin Energy received more applications in a month for rebates than the city had budgeted for the year. In response, Austin Energy scaled back the rebate amount and is restructuring the program. A market shift partly explains the programs’ popularity: Solar panels have dropped sharply in price, and more people are becoming aware that low-flow toilets reduce monthly bills.

The toilet rebate program is funded in part by money collected from monthly water bills generated from their water billing software. For years, the city had offered free and discounted low-flow toilets to homeowners to help conserve the region’s limited water supplies. High-efficiency toilets use 63 percent less water than older models, according to the utility.  Last year, the utility decided to begin targeting apartment complexes and offices. Their toilets could be replaced en masse and help Austin reach its conservation goals faster, according to the utility.  But water utility officials say they didn’t anticipate the high demand for the toilets, part of it fuelled by contractors who saw a business opportunity and began aggressively courting potential customers.

The statements compare projected payments due in 2010 with those paid this year, but reported taxes paid in 2009 as much less than they were. That gave property owners the impression that their taxes had increased by amounts many magnitudes more than they had.  One statement reviewed by the Northfield News erroneously listed city taxes increasing from $407 to $3,289, and total taxes due increasing by 130 percent.  The error was due to the county’s transition to a new tax billing system this year, Windschitl said.  “That implementation has been somewhat challenging,” he said. “It’s completely different from the system we were using before.” 

Windschitl said new statements would not be sent out to correct those that were mailed in late November. Other parts of the county reported minor, less prevalent errors, he said.  He could not say how much mailing new statements would have cost the county, or whether taxpayers in other parts of Northfield might see similar errors.  Northfield Finance Director Kathleen McBride said city taxes would increase about 8 percent for a property that has not changed in value since last year.  “I hope that people get the word rather than showing up Monday night and complaining about a 700 percent increase in city taxes when that’s not the truth,” McBride said.

Joe Malcom questioned if we could get a lower price from Boyce Systems to be more price comparable with Data Image. Paul D. Smith recommended moving forward with Boyce Systems for water billing software and for Jenkins to try to negotiate lower pricing. The new system will be used for the January billing.

By 2015 bills will fall by 3 pounds to 340 pounds on average, Ofwat said on Thursday. In its draft ruling in July, the regulator shocked water companies by calling for an average cut in bills of 14 pounds.  Analysts said that a harsh ruling could have forced the companies to cut dividend payouts and turn to shareholders to raise funds to maintain their balance sheets.  The final price ruling is still about 10 percent lower than the amount that companies in the sector had originally wanted to charge.

The Consumer Council for Water said it was concerned that the watchdog had eased off on efficiency targets, which it said could lead to higher bills for some customers.  "Even though prices are generally flat, there is still an issue of affordability for many water customers," the consumer body said in a statement.  It added that Thursday’s ruling suggested Ofwat had been unrealistic in its draft decisions.

Ofwat said its decision championed consumer interests, clamping down on water firms, many of which have earned good profits on the back of increasing bills for customers.  The regulator also said it has allowed companies to make the biggest ever investment in the water infrastructure in England and Wales, totalling 22 billion pounds over the five-year period.  “People can shop around for the best deal on many things, but not water. Our job is to do this for them," Ofwat Chief Executive Regina Finn said in a statement.

Ofwat has kept the return that water companies are allowed to make on their capital — critical for maintaining dividends — at 4.5 percent on a post-tax basis, which was at the low end of analyst expectations when it was first announced in the draft in July.  Both Northumbrian and United Utilities said they would consider the recommendations carefully before responding. Companies have two months in which to appeal against the decision.

Councilor Paul McHugh was skeptical of the proposal."We don’t have overflows and we’re not building a storm water treatment plant."So I don’t see what we are giving to the public besides the opportunity to pay a fee," he said.  Capital Projects manager Frank Needham said the city has 500 catch basins and 1,500 storm water detention areas and there are no funds to repair or replace them.  Aging pipes also cause storm water overflows, he said.  A storm water utility would provide funding for system maintenance and also build up funds for a storm water treatment plant, Needham said.

Needham said it is important to begin dealing with controlling storm water because the council wouldn’t want the state Department of Ecology dictating to them.  The proposed ordinance would create a "surface and storm water utility fund" for the money from the new storm water utility charge. The money could be used only for operations and maintenance, capital improvements and public information and education.