Getting the right rate

Yarmouth, in Canada’s Nova Scotia province, commissioned consultants to work out what the new water rates should be.  The rates were approved by Council.  The Yarmouth Water Utility was all set to entre the new rates into their water billing software.  And then … it emerged that the consultants had used the wrong base figures altogether.  The increase was to be a large one: 60 per cent in the first year, 22 per cent in the second year and 2 per cent in the third year.  However there was a problem with the way the rates were calculated. It turns out that the consultants who prepared the report didn’t use Yarmouth’s water billing base rates in calculating the new rates but rather those of another municipality.  The actual increase would “only” be 24.9 per cent in the first year, 21.9 per cent in the second year and 1.7 per cent in the third year.

The mistake comes from using a lower-than-actual base rate to calculate the percentage increase. All increases must first be approved by the province’s Utility Review Board. A hearing on the matter is expected to take place sometime in January or February.  A member of town staff detected the error during a review of the consultants’ report.  Have they been paid?  Why?

Getting the bills right

In  North Carolina residents in one community want officials to figure out what's causing their water bills to spike, sometimes by hundreds of dollars.  Multiple media outlets reported Friday that customers of Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities packed a town hall meeting in Cornelius this week.  One woman said her water and sewer bill leapt from about $25 to more than nine times that amount.  Residents say the spikes are so high they can't be explained by annual rate increases. Some have called in experts, who found no leaks in their systems or meter problems.  Utility director Doug Bean says he's committed to figuring out what's causing the high bills. Workers say equipment is working correctly at all but one of the 32 homes they visited.

And in Texas the Duncan City Council’s recent meeting focussed on an amendment to the code of ordinances relating to interference with water meters, inaccurate meter readings, prescribing penalties and prescribing procedures for adjustment due to leaks.  Historically, the city has allowed for adjustments to utility bills if a customer provided evidence that they had a leak and it was repaired. Even though the city has been allowing the adjustments, there is nothing written in the city code that says the adjustments are allowed. The city wants to amend the ordinance to allow for these adjustments and set up guidelines for the possible adjustments.
The proposed ordinance would be closely modelled after a similar one in the city of Lawton that contains specific language related to the basis of calculating adjustments with those in excess of $500 having to be submitted to the City Council for final disposition. The method and procedure outlined in this ordinance would provide a consistent and fair basis for protecting both the customer and the Public Utilities department.  Workflow in the city’s utility billing software will be needed to manage the process.

In the UK electromagnetic flow meters from ABB are playing a key role in cutting water leakage for the Ministry of Defence (MoD), with reductions of 60% achieved at some sites.   Leakage has already dropped by about 528 million (US) gallons per year across more than 1,500 MoD sites where C2C Services manages water and waste utility assets.  C2C Services is a consortium of Severn Trent Services and Costain. C2C provides water services to MoD sites in the North, East and Southeast of England, known as ‘Package C’.  The 25-year £1 billion ($1.66 billion US) contract is part of Project Aquatrine, which transferred responsibility for MoD’s water services to three different contractors.

Stealing water

From opposite sides of the world come stories this week about stealing water.  There are multiple ways of doing this – getting water at a discounted price, by-passing the meter, or simply tapping the supply illegally are three of the most common.

In Mumbai commercial establishments have been found illegally tapping water meant for residential pockets in the city.  An audit on supply and distribution of water in the city has brought to light cases where commercial establishments are illegally consuming water meant for residential consumption.  The report, tabled before the standing committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recently, cites 407 cases. It was compiled by the office of the chief accountant (water supply and sewerage department) of the BMC. Instead of applying for a commercial connection, these establishments have been tapping water from domestic lines.

The BMC has differential charges for domestic and commercial connections. It charges between Rs25 and Rs38 per kilolitre of water for a commercial connection. In contrast, the rates for domestic users range from Rs2.25 to Rs3.50. The report says commercial establishments have been masking their identity to avail of domestic water connections.  Of the 407 cases, 221 are in the western suburbs, 95 in the island city, and 91 are in the eastern suburbs. The illegal connections have brought to nought the BMC's efforts to combat water shortage by restricting new commercial connections. The corporation is denying connection for projects where the daily water demand is over two lakh litres.  Interestingly, instead of taking action and discontinuing water supply to the violators, the BMC has regularised their connections after penalising them. Many of these connections receive 24 hours water supply while several residential colonies go without water. The audit report has also identified 100-odd cases where water bills were not being regularly sent.

In Monterey County, California, American Water says it is keeping a sharp lookout for thieves making off with one of the Peninsula's most precious commodities — water.   Cal Am announced Friday that it is making a concerted effort to deter the theft of water from its system — most typically by tapping fire hydrants without required permits and meters.  "We have asked all our employees to be on the lookout in the past couple of months," said Cal Am spokeswoman Catherine Bowie. The utility, which serves most of the Peninsula, is under standing state orders to reduce pumping from the Carmel River, conserve water and to reduce losses from its system.

Bowie said losses to the water supply have run as high as 13percent, but the utility has reduced that to about 10percent in recent months. The primary causes are leaks in the system, malfunctioning meters and theft, she said.  The utility can't estimate what share of the losses is attributable to thefts, but given the tight restrictions on Peninsula water use, Bowie said, "Even if it's 1percent — that's too much."  Most thefts are probably committed by builders who tap into fire hydrants to provide water on construction sites, Bowie said. The utility has found about 10 instances of theft in recent months, including a couple of places where someone hooked into Cal Am's system by "reverse plumbing."

New water bills in Nova Scotia

The Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board has approved Annapolis County council’s request to amalgamate three county water utilities and to introduce new water rates, a municipal spokeperson said in a media release. The combined utility has been renamed The Annapolis County Water Utility. In 2008, the municipality engaged consultants to study the water structures in the water utilities. The objectives of the study was to:

1. consider the feasibility of combining the three utilities – Margaretsville, Granville Ferry and Cornwallis Park - into a single entity, with common rules, regulations and rate structures
2. to develop the documentation necessary to apply to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board for new rate structure(s) designed to make water works operations sustainable.

“We were operating each utility as a separate accounting entity; much like separate corporations,” said Annapolis County Warden Peter Newton. “Under the Nova Scotia Utility Act, we are required to maintain separate sets of records for each Utility and to have separate financial audits of each utility carried out on an annual basis. We are also required to submit separate annual reports for each utility to the NS Utility and Review Board. Combining the utilities into a single entity reduces the administrative workload and the audit cost.”

Laurie Emms further explained the benefits of this amalgamation by saying the rate structure for each utility is supposed to reflect the cost of providing service and reflected in the consumers’ water bills. This is often difficult to predict the annual cost of operating a smaller utility, and can more accurately predict the annual cost of a larger unit. For example, if a smaller utility is required to address three water main breaks per year (average), the budget is established to repair three breaks a year. If the utility experiences five breaks in a fiscal year, operating compliance becomes a problem. If the Utility is large enough to warrant a 10 water main break per year budget, an additional two, unpredicted breaks has a lesser affect on the budget. The overall goal of the municipality is to have a self-sustainable and cost-effective utility.  The combined utility will look to consolidate their water billing software.

The bills won’t go up

An austere regulatory settlement could have forced Thames Water, the UK's largest water utility, to tap shareholders for up to £1bn.  The company might have had to raise the money by suspending its dividend for the full five years of the Ofwat's price review, industry sources said.  However Ofwat’s decision was not as bad as had been feared, so shareholders are safe.  Consumers have not benefitted so much.  Water bills will not be as “good” as they might have been under the draft decision.  Thames Water is owned by Australia's Macquarie Bank and a group of pension funds.

The cost of inadequate tax billing software

Nearly every Indiana county has failed to send property tax bills on time this year, forcing many local governments and schools to borrow millions and providing further proof that Indiana’s tax billing system is still a work in progress more than a decade after a court ordered a massive overhaul.  Only two of the state’s 92 counties sent tax bills on time, and 17 were more than six months late sending out the first of this year’s two tax bills, according to an Associated Press review of data from the Department of Local Government Finance, which regulates the property tax system.  Some counties still haven’t billed.

The delays in 2008 and this year have caused cash-flow problems for school districts and other local government agencies.  “It’s been an ulcer and it’s definitely not just for us,” said Sharon Qualkenbush, finance director for the Porter Township Schools, which borrowed $10.8 million last year and about $6 million this year because of the late tax bills.  Much of the money has come from the Indiana Bond Bank, a state agency that issues short-term and long-term loans to schools and local governments.  Executive director Dan Huge said the bond bank typically issues $250 million to $350 million in loans a year. But borrowing in 2008 spiked to more than $1 billion, and so far this year local units have borrowed almost $600 million. The increase in borrowing is due almost entirely to late property tax bills, he said.  Borrowers must repay the loans with interest. The Porter Township school system has paid some interest on this year’s loan but will owe an additional $34,644 by Dec. 31, Qualkenbush said

Rolling out eGovernment

In the Australian State of Queensland, councils are rolling out a new electronic development assessment system, to speed up the application process and reduce costs for councils and industry.  Following successful trials within Redland City Council, Bundaberg will become the second council in the State to bring the Smart eDA system online.  Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Stirling Hinchliffe, says the initiative has been developed by the State Government, in consultation with the Local Government Association of Queensland, councils and industry stakeholders.

He says the system will significantly speed up the existing development assessment process.  "Paper-based development applications are generally difficult to handle, disperse and monitor and place significant demands on councils in terms of staff and costs,'' he says.  "The electronic system provides Queensland with a more efficient, transparent and consistent development assessment process that will reduce the cost of development.”

According to the Minster, officers from the Department of Infrastructure and Planning delivered training to industry stakeholders in the lead up to the system's release.  "The Smart eDA website provides a single portal for industry and applicants to use across local government jurisdictions. Applicants can prepare and lodge their development applications online and also track their progress," Hinchliffe says. "It transforms the current paper-based Integrated Development Assessment System process into an intuitive and interactive, internet-based process.”.  The new system will also enable the integration of council and State Government systems, while helping to identify any applicable referral agencies.

Energy efficiency

A recent series of articles in Business Week about the smart grid has been collected together in the week of October 10 and published in one place - http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ceo_guide/newsletter/index.html. How this link will move as it becomes less current will be monitored, but in the meantimne this is a fascinating set of articles.

American Water expands

American Water's Pennsylvania subsidiary announced today that it had spent about $935,000 to acquire three water systems in north-central and western Pennsylvania. The systems, which serve a combined 600 people, are in Clearfield, Centre and Washington Counties, Pennsylvania American Water said. The parent company is based in Voorhees; Pennsylvania American Water is based in Hershey.

The purchases were: The Wallaceton Municipal Authority in Clearfield County, the Boggs Township Municipal Authority, Centre County, and the Amwell Township Water Authority in Washington County.

Delaying price rises in Manila

Metro Manila’s two water distributors have agreed to forego customer disconnections and shelve rate increases to help customers reeling from the effects of storm Ondoy. Water consumers will continue to enjoy uninterrupted service this October should they fail to settle their bills for the period, Diosdado Allado, administrator of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) said on Friday.

Manila Water Co. Inc. (MWCI) and Maynilad Water Services Inc. (MWSI) “have agreed to the initiative of the MWSS to implement a disconnection moratorium for [customers’] October water bill," Allado said in a text message. Manila Water has even given its customers “the option to pay for their October billing for a maximum term of 12 months," he added. The option “is to be applied to 79 barangays representing the areas hardest hit by storm Ondoy," he said.

In a separate announcement made during the same day, the Ayala-led utility said it has temporarily shelved a proposal to hike rates. The company distributes water to locations that remain flooded by the record amounts of rainfall brought by Ondoy. Instead of starting on October 2, the rate hike will be moved to November 1 this year

Water billing to promote conservation

Changes in the way water is billed are being mandated by a new state law to promote conservation. But what the rate changes will look like for Rochester (Minnesota) Public Utilities customers is up for discussion.  The utilities company hired a consultant to study possible conservation rate alternatives, which could be discussed possibly as early as the next meeting of the RPU board Sept. 29. The board would then seek public input and discussion on the proposed conservation rates.

"The idea is to be revenue neutral," said General Manager Larry Koshire, explaining that rate changes should not increase or decrease the water utility income. "If it works right, it would not sink the water utility."  And while the goal is also to have a zero rate increase overall for electric and water customers, that doesn't mean some customers won't pay more.   "Some rates will go up and some will go down," said Board President Jerry Williams.

A preliminary plan for the conservation rate targets irrigation, in hopes that higher rates would lead people to conserve water, Koshire said.  A draft of the electric and water operating budgets, along with any proposed rate adjustments, is expected to be presented at the Oct. 27 board meeting.

42% price hike!

Pittsville Wisconsin residential water bills will be 42 percent higher next year after the Wisconsin Public Service Commission authorized the utility's first rate increase since 1996.  Average residential customers paying $53.15 quarterly for 9,000 gallons of water will pay $75.24 when the new rates take effect in January. The new rates include public fire protection charges for fire hydrants and other firefighting-related infrastructure that was previously collected on property tax bills.  Excluding public fire protection charges from the calculation results in a 17 percent increase from $53.14 to $62.34 for average residential customers using 9,000 gallons per quarter, according to the PSC order issued Friday.

The Pittsville Municipal Water Utility needs more revenue to finance its search for water to supply the Gardner Cold Storage Co. facility, which can process 3 million pounds of cranberries a month.  "Their juice plant uses a lot of water, and they're putting on a freezer addition, adding to their capacity," said Pittsville Councilman Gerald Jensen.  To boost the water supply, Pittsville consolidated two wells and is looking for another well site on the north side of the city, Jensen said. The utility's other major capital investment was a water filtration plant to lower iron concentrations in groundwater.

Rates for commercial and industrial water customers will increase 23 to 25 percent, depending on the size of their connection, excluding the public fire protection charge. Adding the public fire protection charge will increase rates from 29 to 38 percent for the six commercial customer categories and 29 or 33 percent for the two industrial customer categories.  The utility sought a 5 percent rate of return on the value of its investment in the infrastructure last fall when it applied for the rate increase. PSC staff recommended a 1 or 2 percent increase, and the utility choose the 1 percent return, which will increase annual revenue by $25,083 to $239,681.

Ga., Ala. power companies have huge stake, influence in water wars

Georgia, Alabama and Florida have been quarreling for nearly 20 years over the Chattahoochee River. But there’s another player in the game, working mostly in the background, wielding enormous influence.  Georgia Power and Alabama Power, both owned by Southern Co. and both drawing huge quantities of water from the river, have huge stakes in the dispute. Perhaps predictably, their presence has simply given the states more to argue about.

The latest spat was prompted by Gov. Sonny Perdue’s recent decision to appoint the head of Georgia Power to lead a team of state business and political leaders that is advising the governor on how to proceed.  Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Sen. Richard Shelby have decried the appointment of Georgia Power President Michael Garrett. But Perdue, calling the Alabama complaints “hypocritical,” pointed out Wednesday that Alabama Power has always had an active role in fighting the water wars.

Who looks after the gamekeepers?

The validity of some of the 2,400 concealed weapons permits issued to Shasta County (California) residents is in question after it was discovered that a Sheriff's Office clerk may have pocketed applicants' fees. As first reported on Redding.com, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said Friday that the woman's co-workers uncovered the alleged thefts in early June. The woman, a 17-year veteran clerk with the sheriff's records department, was placed on administrative leave as soon as the allegations could be verified, Bosenko said. At least 100 permit holders, mostly renewals, have been identified so far as possible victims, Bosenko said.

The woman is no longer employed with the Sheriff's Office, and Redding police are investigating the matter for possible criminal charges, Bosenko said. Bosenko declined to name the woman because no charges have been filed and criminal and internal affairs investigations are still under way. He wouldn't say whether the woman was fired or resigned. Bosenko said it's believed that the clerk took concealed weapons applicants' cash and gave them copies of their permits. She then pocketed the money and didn't file the appropriate paperwork with the county or the state Department of Justice, Bosenko said.

Winnipeg's new utility

The Canadian city of Winnipeg's long-running saga about the creation of a new water utility seems over. After a marathon session, city council voted in favour of creating an arm's-length utility to manage Winnipeg's water and waste services. After a day that began with protests against water privatization outside city hall, a sometimes packed council chamber gallery heard barbed exchanges among councillors and accusations of grandstanding as the motion to create the new utility was passed by a 10-6 margin.

“(Today) I witnessed a display of hypocrisy and doublespeak that has become synonymous with the self-proclaimed official opposition to progress in our city,” Katz said during the meeting. “The sky isn't red, the world isn't flat, we're not privatizing water.”

City administrators have said the business-like, city-owned agency -- to be overseen by a board outside the city bureaucracy and possibly partnered with a private engineering firm -- might help the city better handle costs such as an estimated $600-million bill for planned upgrades to North End and South End water pollution control centres. Under the new arrangement, the city may work with private companies to complete sewage-plant upgrades and could partner with other municipalities to share infrastructure.

An estimated crowd of nearly 200 people converged this morning on the Main Street complex – the vast majority of them hoping to sway Mayor Sam Katz and councillors against a plan to launch a municipal utility. Numerous delegations also spoke to council at the meeting which stretched from 9:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m., when the motion on the new utility was passed.

Council debated the core issue, several amendments to the utility motion and a motion – which was defeated – to defer the vote until fall after more public consultation and research could be undertaken. Several amendments to the utility motion were also passed including one that would require a referendum on any move to sell or privatize the municipal water utility, another that lays out rules for agreements between the city and capital region municipalities and for dealing with strategic partners and a third that keeps the setting of water and sewer rates under the city's control for the time being.

Saving water

Americans can save some of the 225 billion gallons of water (852 billion liters) wasted each year through over-watering by installing smart systems which deliver just the right amount of moisture. Homeowners and companies over-water their grass and plants by between 30 and 300 percent, said Chris Spain, chief sustainability officer at water management company HydroPoint, citing a report by the American Water Works Association.

"The reason for the waste is because of dumb technology," Spain said. "There are 45 million irrigation systems in the U.S. (controlled) by simple timers. They do a great job of keeping time but a lousy job of irrigating to what the land requires." City landscaping, or "urban irrigation," makes up 58 percent of urban water use, Spain said, adding that the water wasted generates over 544,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually.

Smart irrigation systems are programed to optimize water use based on parameters including plant and soil types and amount of sunlight, and also feature weather sensors that monitor soil moisture levels following rainfall.

Getting the bills right

Thousands of property owners in Maricopa County may have paid an incorrect amount on their property taxes. The Maricopa County Assessor Keith Russell has launched a review of all of the county’s records. It is the first review of property tax records since 1994.

According to the Associated Press, the city of Chandler has already found 248 errors in their property tax rolls. Peoria has found around 1,000 mistakes. “We do pay a lot so if there is an error, I would want it to be known,” said Pheonix property owner Victor Harris. “That would concern me a lot,” added Ivan Huish, who owns property in Mesa.

Possible errors on the rolls might include being incorrectly listed as a resident of Phoenix or Tempe, which may have higher municipal tax rates than the city where the home actually exists. Property tax billing software can only do so much. A bill can still be calculated consistently if the valuation parameters provided are incorrect.

City Halls struggle to contain deficits

Peoria and other cities in Illinois are facing difficult decisions to fend off effects of the recession. In Champaign, not only is Chief Illiniwek gone but so are 19 city government positions, and residents are paying more for cable TV and to retrieve their impounded car. Joliet officials have projected a three-year $67 million deficit and, as a result, 90 fewer employees are working in city government today than last year. Springfield is requiring its employees to take eight unpaid furlough days next year. Sales tax also is going up in the Capital City.

Peoria is hardly alone in battling the crippling effect the recession is having on city halls throughout the U.S. and, especially, Illinois. Local and county governments throughout the state are scrambling to find ways to generate enough money to stay afloat during these tough times without sacrificing public safety, road construction and basic services that range from inspecting structurally unsound buildings to picking up stray dogs from neighborhood streets. "It's far worse than anything I've seen," said Larry Frang, executive director of the Illinois Municipal League. He's been with the league since 1974.

Locally, growth cities such as Washington are holding off on hiring new employees until the economy begins to show signs of recovery. East Peoria is contemplating scaling back its Festival of Lights events. Pekin recently introduced two new taxes on packaged liquor and food and beverages. In Peoria, the city's $10 million deficit has city officials pondering what can be done to restructure government. That means the public can expect immediate changes to the way yard waste is collected, library services and local arts awareness.

Indianapolis Water's credit costs swell

Indianapolis Water's investment meltdown is hitting customers again. Moody's Investors Service cut the credit rating Friday on $920 million in bonds the utility had sold to lenders. Taking the credit rating down to A3 from A1 will raise future borrowing costs an undetermined amount for a utility that just increased water prices for its 1 million customers.

Moody's said the lower credit rating results in part from the recent decision by state regulators to allow only a 12.27 percent increase in water rates instead of the full 17.6 percent increase sought by Indianapolis Water. The utility had sought the emergency rate increase to make sure it had enough money to pay debts, carry out improvements and meet loan terms it had with bondholders.

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission approved a rate increase June 30 but refused the full 17.6 percent level. The commission said the water utility had not explained why the full increase was necessary. IURC also contended the water utility was poorly managed and should try to recover the money without burdening customers. Indianapolis Water was hammered when the meltdown on Wall Street set off a credit crisis in global markets. This in turn raised the utility's debt payments to $57.3 million a year from $32.1 million, Moody's reported.

The water utility's payments soared because it had earlier refinanced its debts in a way that allowed the interest on the debt to fluctuate with the market. But once the credit crunch set in, interests rate shot up automatically, not only for Indianapolis Water but for municipal agencies throughout the country.

Raising water rates in Kansas

If Wichita KA City Council members don't raise water rates now, they will likely have to do it later, water officials said Tuesday. That's because the utility's bond rating is on the brink of a downgrade that, based on city estimates, could lead to $36 million in increased interest rates. The only alternative would be to delay or shut down the aquifer recharge project that local officials have said for years is key to the city's future.

Council members greeted this news with skepticism Tuesday, noting that interest rates could fluctuate anyway. But they showed little interest in four other options, including a property tax increase. Instead, they poised themselves to vote on a $2 base rate increase for all water customers and a 5 percent usage increase every year through 2013. The city is stuck in this bind because rainy weather has led to less water usage, which means the utility has less cash to pay off debt on major projects. Finance officials plan to study how decreased water use might affect the utility's budget. The council will examine that next week and likely vote on an increase in two weeks. If approved, the rate increases could start in August. The water billing software rate tables will be adjusted accordingly.

The Community Infrastructure Program

The Australian Government has announced an additional $220 million nation-building investment in community infrastructure, to be made available in 2009-10.

This funding injection builds on the $800 million currently being delivered through the Community Infrastructure Program (CIP), the largest federal investment in local community infrastructure.

The funding will assist councils to build and modernise community facilities, including town halls, libraries, community centres, sports grounds and environmental infrastructure. By renewing and upgrading local infrastructure, the government hopes to support local jobs during the global economic recession and provide long-term benefits to communities.

The $220 million injection into the CIP will be delivered as follows: $100 million is being allocated to all 565 of Australia's councils on a formula basis and $120 million for larger Strategic Projects will be available on a competitive basis.

Indebtedness

The borrowing spree of the last few years is catching up with the public sector just like everyone else. In Mississippi Gulfport administration estimates the city needs to increase water and sewer rates a minimum of 15 percent for the upcoming fiscal year to cover debt payments. Finance Director Mike Necaise said all localities in Harrison County, not just Gulfport, will soon have to grapple with how to meet the costs of utility payments coming due.

When Katrina hit, the Harrison County utility authority, composed of the county and its five cities, decided to defer debt payments for two years. Necaise said the authority had about $100 million in debt at the time. The debt, he said, was refinanced at 7.5 percent, compared to the previous rate of 5 percent.

The deferred payments plus the higher interest rate mean Gulfport can no longer meet its debt payments with current revenue. Taking the money out of the city’s general fund is not viewed as an option. Incoming Mayor George Schloegel said he supports the rate increase over a property tax increase. He believes utility customers should pay for the service rather than all Gulfport property owners. “It’s consumption driven,” said Schloegel, who on Monday takes office along with a new City Council. “It’s got to be user-based. That’s the only equitable way.”

Permit fraud!

The New York Times reports that the thriving black market in illegal New York City food vending permits took a blow on Tuesday morning when six people were arrested as a result of multiple sting operations by the city’s Department of Investigation. Sotirios Econopouly, 71; Fernando Quesnay, 52; Ifigenia Tsatsaronis, 40; Jacob Shimon, 46; Nikhil Dhameliya, 23; and Adamadia Arabatzis, 48, were charged with multiple counts of fraud.

The six were working various angles of the underground market, according to criminal complaints filed Tuesday. Mr. Econopouly, the owner of Steve’s Sheet Metal in Queens, is accused of renting inspection-worthy carts to vendors whose own carts would have failed, then transferring the inspection decals to their carts. Mr. Dhameliya, a notary public, is charged with having notarized blank and pre-signed documents submitted with renewals of permits, which are valid for two years, can be renewed indefinitely by mail with the details entered into the city's permit billing software.

The probe concluded that at least 500 food-vendor permits of the approximately 3,000 now in circulation in the city are probably held illegally. Some of the permits are in the names of dead people; others are held by people who were no longer working in the vending business. Those cases have been reported to the city’s Health Department, which issues the permits as part of public sector billing.

Florida's water permits row

In Florida board members at the state's water-management districts grant permits for water consumption. One of the provisions of a new bill, signed into law by the State's governor, now strips appointed board members at the state's water-management districts of significant authority over permits for water consumption and wetland destruction.

The boards are composed of citizens appointment by the governor. Coupled with their ability to vote on water and wetlands permits are the public hearings they hold to consider controversial projects. The Bill is seen as a gift to developers and as a gag on environmentalists and citizens. The bill removes from public input the decisions of water management district boards on surface water and consumptive use permits. Environmentalists had urged Governor Crist to veto the Bill, arguing that by allowing those decisions to be made by the water management districts executive director, instead of the elected board, they will be shielded from public input and debate.

They also warned that the bill carves out special exemptions for certain large land holders to get 50-year permits to use Florida water with no public review.

Feel my anger

In Florida the city of Cape Coral recently sent out letters to about 60,000 property owners, letting people know what they would have to pay for city utility expansions. In nine years, Cape Coral City Councilman Tim Day said he has never seen so many angry e-mails in response.

“It’s going to be a challenge to stay the course,” said Day, the longest-serving member of the city council. “I’m expecting extreme turmoil on June 30 (the first public hearing on UEP).”

Cape Coral officials this fall plan to start work on a three-year project to deliver city utilities to half of the city. The cost of that project will get passed on to property owners as special assessments and fees. Property owners have more deferral and financing options than in the past, but many are still upset.

The city is planning to install water, sewer and irrigation lines to about 6,200 properties in the Southwest 6-7 assessment area and potable water lines to more than 50,000 properties in the north Cape. Property owners will be charged a special assessment to pay for the pipes and a capital expansion charge to help offset the cost of new water and sewer treatment facilities.

Some water billing software provides for financing options to be billed to utility customers.

Replacing property tax

Voters in British Columbia recently re-elected Premier Gordon Campbell, the driving force behind BC's carbon tax. By 2012, the tax will reach about $30 per ton of carbon dioxide, or about 30 cents per gallon of gasoline. Money from the tax is used to reduce other taxes in a "revenue-neutral tax shift," and voters showed their support by backing Campbell and his right-of-center party for a rare third consecutive term. Across the border, two writers opine in the Seattle Times that Washington State should head in the same direction, replacing or winding down the state's property-based taxes with a carbon tax.

Start by eliminating the state property tax, they write, an idea floated a few years ago by the Washington State Tax Structure Committee chaired by Bill Gates Sr. The tax is unpopular and repealing it would ensure that it goes away for good. Control over property taxes then would be entirely in the hands of local voters in cities and counties, and the total burden on the state's property owners would immediately fall by 25 percent.

What about the state's public schools, which currently receive every dollar raised by the state property tax? That's where the carbon tax comes in. A tax on fossil fuels of $30 per ton of carbon dioxide — the same rate as in British Columbia — would be more than enough to backfill the lost revenue.

California's property tax mess

A history lesson. According to some critics it all started in 1978 with Prop. 13, the landmark measure passed by voters that put a cap on property taxes - and reduced them by an average 57 percent. Due to the measure, "the state now relies heavily on income tax and, secondarily, on sales tax" for its revenue stream, and those are "highly cyclically sensitive," Noll said.

State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento, agrees. "Until we tackle that intended or unintended consequence of Prop. 13," he said, "we won't fix the system." But Jon Coupal, who heads the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association - the nation's largest taxpayer association, named after the author of Prop. 13 - said Steinberg and his fellow Democrats are "still in a state of denial." "Not only did Prop. 13 not slow down the tax burden" on California landowners, he argued. "We're not a low-tax property tax state. We're in the middle." He said efforts to rework the measure - a so-called "split roll" that could recalculate and possibly increase commercial rates - would be exactly the wrong message to business and job-creators in the current fiscal crisis.

And all that property tax billing software will have to be reconfigured.

Unpaid bills amnesty

In Arizona, delinquent utility users in Surprise's Original Town Site owed the city about $262,000 in unpaid sewer and trash bills - some a decade old - but the city forgave 81 percent of the debt, according to public records. The City Council in March established the amnesty program, allowing people in 101 households to set up a payment plan with the city to bring their accounts current.

As of last week, about 20 percent of the accounts have been paid in full, but 14 people who set up payment plans have defaulted on them, resulting in a planned water shutoff either late this month or in July. The remaining debt is $40,102. However, the city will not see about $9,576 of that amount because 21 accounts are closed. City officials said that the customer moved out of the property or the land is now vacant. In one case, the customer died. The utility billing software contains a facility to write bills off.

The costs of water

Water has not only to be collected, stored and distributed; it must also be pumped. Running pumps use electricity. Electricity is not a cost of water that comes immediately to mind; nevertheless as electricity costs rise, so do some of the inputs to water costs. The water billing software prices charged o customers should reflect all of the inputs.

Everybody wants to cut their electric bill including the Lewisburg Water and Wastewater Department (TN) and last week the utility's board decided to investigate a way to do it. The utility might save $1,000 a month, thereby lowering a $15,000 part of its monthly $20,000 bill by almost 7 percent at a cost of $36,000, but that means the system pays for itself in three years, officials said.

Concessions for seniors

Many local governments give their seniors - or some of them - discounts or exemptions from property tax. Their tax billing software needs to include algorithms to calculate the amount of the discount according to the various rules. In Will County, IL, beginning in 1994, a Senior Citizens Assessment Freeze Homestead Exemption was granted for those 65 years or older who own and occupy a residence and do not exceed established income requirements.

The current annual income limit is $55,000. The law sets a July 1 deadline for submitting an application, but allows counties to establish a different date by ordinance. On Thursday, the Will County Board approved the extension. The exemption allows senior citizens to have their home's equalized assessed valuation frozen at a base year value and prevent or limit any increase due to inflation.

What happens when you don't pay that property tax

n a move that has historically proved controversial in Williamstown (Vermont), board members this week authorized Town Manager Garrett Earls to take the town's most delinquent property owners to tax sale. Based on the board's vote the tax sales will be scheduled 10 at a time in 90-day intervals starting on Sept. 1. The board's goal is to whittle away at a delinquent tax figure that Earls said was hovering around $315,000 at the end of last month. According to Earls, the town has agreements with some property owners to pay more than $80,000 of that figure, but the balance remains uncollected and – to date – uncollectible.

The mere threat of tax sales – something that hasn't happened in Williamstown in several years – could change that by prompting tardy taxpayers to enter agreements to pay delinquencies, which in some cases are years old.

The alternative involves picking up legal fees involved with the tax sale in addition to the 8 percent penalties and accumulating interest of 1 percent per month associated with having missed the tax deadline in the first place. That money would be owed to the town in one non-negotiable lump-sum payment within one year of the time the property is brought to tax sale. That could prove far more challenging for some than entering into a repayment agreement under a newly adopted policy that essentially allows for any past-due taxes, penalties and interest to be paid off incrementally over a span of 18 months while requiring property owners to pay future tax bills on a timely basis.

This week Earls presented the board with seven delinquent accounts totaling nearly $57,000 that could be considered for tax sale. After reviewing that list board members instructed Earls to bring back a batch of 10 – focusing on the oldest delinquencies without regard to the amount owed. They suggested that process be repeated every 90 days until the delinquent amount is brought down to a more manageable level.

Their tax billing software will have a debt management module that will enable such properties to be identified and flagged automatically.

California's water supplies

Mandatory water restrictions could be the beginning of a new way of life in California. Three key factors are reducing California's water supply:

- A third year of drought.

- Judicial restrictions on pumping from the state water project to save endangered fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

- And the Colorado River Basin has been in a drought for eight of the past 10 years.

Add to the mix a growing population in the Southwestern United States and you have a water future that's uncertain at best. And that will reduce the amount of water that can be sold. Fortunately well-designed water billing software can add a premium to the price when ater restrictions are flagged.

Outdated dance permits

The Des Moines parks board wants to throw out an ordinance that requires permits for organized dances and mandates that they end by 2 a.m. The Des Moines Social Club complained about the 67-year-old ordinance. The parks board "can find no public purpose for singling out dancing from other types of gatherings for regulation," a proposed resolution reads. "This ordinance reflects poorly on the city and harms our efforts to project the city as forward-thinking, tolerant and supportive of an attractive cultural environment," it adds.

Parks board member Loyd Ogle, who is also president of the Des Moines Music Coalition, said the ordinance "has a dampening effect ... because people are hesitant." An online petition has gathered 529 signatures from people who organizers say "feel that they have the right to dance all night long if they decide to do so. Dancing is not illegal and, in Des Moines, it is treated as so."

Doubtless the permit billing software has other permit uses.

New Jersey finds $400 million

It seems that because of an unprecedented state-wide response to proposals Governor Corzine implemented in December 2008, New Jersey has $400 million in new-found revenue. Today, Governor Corzine urged the Legislature to put that wind-fall toward property tax relief for middle-class homeowners. "I want to convey in the strongest possible terms, my commitment to using these recovered resources to provide middle class homeowners with much needed property tax relief," said Governor Corzine. "Let me be clear. When revenues fell, the last item we cut was property tax relief. Now that we've recovered some lost revenues the first thing we will restore is property tax relief." The Governor also highlighted his commitment to preventing special interest groups from diverting this new-found revenue away from New Jersey's taxpayers.

Georgia tries to cool property tax increases

The Georgia Department of Revenue is moving to eliminate one excuse that local officials give when they're raising property taxes: The state made us do it. The department, at the direction of Gov. Sonny Perdue, is trying to make sure county officials know they don't have to revalue property every three years. The department is proposing a new regulation that, among other things, spells that out.

The state requires that counties keep property assessed at 40 percent of fair market value and that property be assessed uniformly. State officials say counties have interpreted the law to say property had to be revalued every few years. "We're essentially taking away that excuse so counties can run their own businesses and make sure they revalue properly," Perdue said. "But they won't be able to use the excuse that the state made us do it.

County officials say they don't know if the regulation, which could become final by the end of the summer, will have any impact. And they dispute the notion state officials often nurture that local government spending is out of control.

Utilities consolidation

Government utilities working together will ensure Saudi Arabia's power and water demands are met, Middle East Business Intelligence reports. Responsibility for the power and water sectors in Saudi Arabia is shared between four separate government owned utilities - the Water & Electricity Company, Saudi Electricity Company, the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) and the Power & Water Utility for Jubail & Yanbu (Marafiq).

Despite the companies all being tasked with ensuring the kingdom's growing demand for power and water is met, they have so far pursued this objective completely independently of each other. Now, spurred by the global economic slowdown, they have seen the error of their ways and recognised the need for a co-ordinated response to the demand picture. As a result, Marafiq and SWCC are now planning to merge what were to be two separate projects located at Yanbu.

SWCC and Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) also intend to combine their power and water schemes at Ras al-Zour. In both cases, the government has abandoned plans to develop the projects as private schemes and is opting instead for the more conventional engineering, procurement and construction approach. Greater co-operation between the various stakeholders in the power and water industries will ensure that the right amount of new capacity is built where it is needed and in the most efficient way possible. Marafiq, SWCC and Maaden have been forced into this position by the economic downturn.

Subsidising solar

In Nevada, solar energy generation is being subsidized (encouraged?) through extended property tax abatements for renewable energy production plants, which were to expire in this year, and expanded them from 50 percent for 10 years to 55 percent for 20 years. The Las Vegas Sun newspaper reports that solar energy developers had been worried about a fierce stance by Assemblywoman Kirkpatrick, who began the year saying she would not support the industry’s request for a 75 percent property tax abatement and would impose a new tax on renewable energy. The revenue would go to offset higher energy costs for ratepayers.

Kirkpatrick was concerned that solar plants would not bring many permanent jobs to Nevada, and that solar plant construction jobs have gone to out-of-state workers in the past. But the possibility of a new tax “brought development to a halt,” said renewable energy lobbyist Tom Clark. “It sent a red flag to every developer.”

More water prices rises

Wichita, Kansas is set to follow the world-wide trend to higher water bills. The monthly water bill would increase by $2 under a proposal that the Wichita City Council is scheduled to vote on 16 June. The proposed increase comes one year after Wichita's most recent monthly water bill increase of $1 and is meant to make up for an $8.8 million shortfall in projected revenue that the water utility experienced in 2008. If passed, the rate increase would be effective with customers' August bill. There are more rate increases to come. In August, the council is expected to consider a 5 percent rate increase for next year. By 2013, a family that uses a lot of water will be paying about 30 percent more for water and sewer services.

Selfless?

Politicians and many commentators are keen to beat the lower taxes drum. But for many, taxes are the price we pay for living in a community in which we have pride. This is borne out by news from Massachusetts that despite hardships, programs have been preserved. In a baffling trend playing out against an abysmal economy, voters have approved property tax increases in at least 11 communities around Boston in recent weeks, reaching into their own pockets to preserve libraries, schools, and public safety services.

Among them was the town of Rockland, which has passed only one other property tax override since voters enacted Proposition 2 1/2 more than 25 years ago. Late last month, as people around the state watched every penny, not to mention every tax dollar, Rockland voted to raise its property taxes to save an elementary school and a library. At least five communities have also rejected property tax increases in recent weeks, but the passage by 11 other communities underscores the impact of budget cuts on cities and towns.

Selling waste

A Washington County sewer utility found a way to get rid of some of its most troublesome pollutants: sell them to gardeners. Clean Water Services installed a system at its Durham treatment plant that pulls phosphorus and ammonia from sewage waste and processes them into fertilizer pellets that are then sold to nurseries. The system, which began operating last month, is the first of its kind in the United States, and it’s drawing some big-name attention.

The project cost $2.5 million, including approximately $1 million for construction. Boring-based fabricator Marks Brothers built the stainless steel tanks and Stettler remodeled the existing facility to accommodate the new system. Ostara will market the fertilizer and split the profits with Clean Water Services, which expects to recoup the project cost in five years.

China's water crisis

If you don't have it you can sell it - or bill for it. And if it's not clean, consumers may not want it anyway. Business Week reports that over the past year getting clean water has been a struggle for many in China. In February one of the most severe droughts to hit China in a half-century affected some 5 million people and 2.5 million livestock in the provinces of Hebei and Henan, near Beijing. Farther south in Yancheng, Jiangsu, 300 kilometers from Shanghai, more than 200,000 people were cut off from clean water for three days when a chemical factory dumped carbolic acid into a river. Just before the Olympics last June, the coastal city of Qingdao, site of the sailing events, saw an explosion of algae in nearby waters that may have been caused by pollution.

These are hardly unusual in China. The country that has a long history of devastating floods and droughts arguably faces an even bigger water crisis today. After almost 30 years of double-digit economic growth and the migration of hundreds of millions of villagers to the cities, China has been barely able to meet the spike in demand for water. Its resources were scarce to begin with and pollution has made clean water even scarcer. Another unknown: the effect of climate change. "Based on our country's basic water situation, [we] must implement the strictest water resource management," said Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu at a national water conference in Beijing in January.

Paying for recycling

It is reported that Oshkosh residents will pay for carts that will be used as part of the city’s switch to automated recycling this fall. Going against a vote from last fall, the Oshkosh Common Council voted 7-0 Tuesday to go ahead with assessing a one-time special fee on property taxes to pay for recycling carts, charging homeowners $46.51 for a 95-gallon cart and $40.18 for a 64-gallon cart. Initially, the council voted 6-1 in November to finance the carts over 10 years. During a discussion on the matter in March, the majority of the councilors expressed desire to switch to the special fee so the city decided to take another vote on the matter.

In discussion of how to pay for the carts, councilors said charging property owners encourages them to take responsibility for their carts. "There’s an ownership associated with it," said councilor Harold Buchholz. Now the city plans to go ahead with its education process over the summer, teaching residents how the switch will affect them. City Manager Mark Rohloff said information will be mailed out to Oshkosh residents regarding the switch and a Web site on single-stream recycling created.

In information mailed out, Public Works Director David Patek said the city would give residents the option of obtaining a 95-gallon or 64-gallon cart. If the residents do not specifically request a 64-gallon cart, they will be provided with the larger cart. As part of the switch to single-stream, residents will put all recyclables – paper, plastic, cardboard, glass – in the one bin for pick up every two weeks.

"I think people will be surprised once they get cardboard and other recyclables in there that they will be able to use that (95-gallon) bin pretty readily," Rohloff said.

The effects of scarcity

The higher value ascribed to water has less to do with depletion and scarcity than cost. While there's as much water on the planet as there has ever been, cheap water is in short supply. "All the easily tapped sources have already been tapped," by damming up rivers and other methods, says Neil Berlant, lead manager of the PFW Water Fund (PFWAX), the only open-end mutual fund focused exclusively on water-related stocks. What remains are more expensive sources of water—from oceans, groundwater, or reclaimed used water—which require either desalination, chemical disinfectants, or other processes to be made suitable for drinking.

There's plenty of technology available to clean up water to meet increasingly strict public safety standards, but consumers will have to get use to paying higher rates to local water systems to pay for the necessary treatment. People in the developing world have long had little access to clean drinking water because of how much it costs.

Scarcity

If you don't have it, you can't bill for it. If there weren't enough for businesses to worry about these days, here is another threat: water scarcity. Companies in industries from technology to agriculture to apparel are vulnerable to the risks posed by a falling supply of available water, according to a report released Feb. 26 by the Boston-based investor coalition Ceres and the Oakland (Calif.)-based Pacific Institute.

Decreasing water availability, declining water quality, and increasing water demand are creating major new challenges for businesses and investors who have historically taken clean cheap water for granted, says the report. It warns of water shortages in many areas of the world in the coming decades and urges companies and investors to examine business's exposure to water scarcity risks to prevent them from eating into revenues and harming corporate reputations.

"This report makes clear that companies and investors can no longer take water for granted," says Anne Stausboll, chief executive of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest U.S. public pension fund, with approximately $170 billion in assets. CalPERS is a member of Ceres. "For many years, CalPERS has advocated for corporate disclosure of environmental risks, and it's clear that this disclosure must include water-related risks and opportunities."

Saving money

America's love affair with locking people up is butting its head against the recession. State of Michigan officials said Friday that the state is closing three prisons and five prison camps in hopes of narrowing a $1.4 billion budget gap for fiscal 2010. The state, which has been hammered by the auto industry meltdown, estimates that it will save $120 million by shuttering the eight facilities. None of the 4,149 prisoners in the facilities will be released early, but up to 1,000 workers may lose their jobs. The State is targeting the correctional system because it takes up 22% of the state's general fund budget, the largest component. (Education is funded separately.) The state must close the $1.4 billion gap before its fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

Michigan is not alone in turning to its prison system for savings. Some 25 states cut spending on corrections in fiscal 2009 and another 25 are proposing to do so in fiscal 2010, as they struggle to address massive budget shortfalls. "It's a trend we'll be seeing more and more of in coming months given the dire revenue situation states are in," said Sujit CanagaRetna, senior fiscal analyst at the Council of State Governments, a research group.

Recycling. What recycling?

Cities that manage their own trash collections and get their citizens to pay via their property taxes or utility bills apparently may not be doing so well these days, according to CNN. When Lynn Heinisch and her neighbors in Atlanta's Lake Claire neighborhood take their recycling to the curb for pickup each Thursday, they cross their fingers and hope for the best. Accusing city collectors of unreliable pickups, Heinisch and the others have resorted to stockpiling recyclable materials in their garages.

"It's frustrating," Heinisch said. "People are trying to recycle, and it's not easy. I wish it was easy to do what we all feel strongly about." When she has to, Heinisch drives her recycling 4 miles to a dropoff center in the town of Decatur.

The recession has trashed the nation's booming recycling industry in just a few months, and cities are straining to keep their programs alive. Demand for commodities such as cardboard, paper and glass has taken a nose dive, and prices for those materials have gone south since last fall. In August, a recycler in Georgia could expect to receive about $160 a ton for curbside recyclables. Now the average is about $37 a ton.

User Pays

In the Australian state of South Australia, government-set water charges will rise substantially to cover the cost of a new de-salination plant. The state capital city, Adelaide, is almost wholly dependant on water from the River Murray, a resource they share with irrigation-based farmers further up the river. A record $2.1 billion will be provided over four years for a range of initiatives to secure South Australia's water supplies. Adelaide's desalination plant, stormwater harvesting, treated wastewater recycling and infrastructure upgrades all received money from the Budget. Work to protect and improve the health of the River Murray will also receive almost $260 million.

State Premier Mike Rann said the "heart of this Budget is water ... and the heart of that is the desalination plant". State Treasurer Kevin Foley said the investment would give certainty that the state would not run out of water during severe droughts. "There is a huge amount of construction on water infrastructure projects occurring all over Adelaide – not in years to come, it is happening right now," he said. Mr Foley expects about 2000 jobs in the construction industry will be supported by the investment in water security.

In a nutshell

Property tax billing software must convert a property assessment into a billing statement. The Tax Bill is then issued to the taxpayer or to the Mortgage company often via some form of integration. Well-designed tax billing software enjoys dynamic calculation flexibility, which allows it to operate in the US and internationally.

State intervention

Two Australian states have recently announced a restructure of their water industry. Queensland's restructure was announced in 2008 and is now underway. Tasmania's is more recent. The Tasmanian Government has now withdrawn its offer to guarantee revenue to councils during the transition to a new water and sewerage system.

The Treasurer announced the decision last night, pending further discussions with councils about the rebate scheme for pensioners. Michael Aird offered the revenue guarantee last week after councils expressed doubts about adequate financial returns under the water and sewerage changes.

But councils are also worried about having to foot the bill for the rebate scheme for pensioners, instead of the State Government. Hobart's Lord Mayor Rob Valentine says it is sensible to withdraw the revenue guarantee while the issue's resolved. "The government's to be applauded for pulling it to be quite honest," he said. Mr Aird now wants to discuss the issue with the Local Government Association. "It gives some time for further discussions to be had without this letter being on the table."

The water and sewerage changes are due to take effect from July 1.

The dead have their uses

Four people are accused of using tax breaks for their dead relatives to avoid paying property taxes on their homes says the Miami Herald. For 18 years, Julian Grande received a special tax break for disabled homeowners from the Miami-Dade property appraiser. But Grande was more than disabled. He's been dead since 1990.

Grande's daughter, Maria, is one of four people now facing criminal charges for allegedly exploiting property-tax breaks meant for relatives long dead. According to investigators with Miami-Dade's inspector general and the state attorney's office, the four people continued to file property-tax records indicating their disabled relatives were alive -- forging signatures, in some cases. Along with Maria Grande, those arrested were: Dane Taylor, 60, of Palmetto Bay; Philip Espinosa, 50, of Miami; and Telenia Piedra, 59, of Miami.

Investigators say the four wrongly benefited from a special tax exemption for quadriplegics and others with profound disabilities and low incomes. Beneficiaries of the tax break must submit medical records to qualify, and in some cases they must file financial information annually to prove eligibility. In 2007, 729 homes in Miami-Dade were untaxed under this exemption.

The California tax election

As a result of California’s election, the state now faces a $21.3 billion gap between revenues and spending, reports The Economist. Life, which has been no picnic for many in this state since the recession began, is about to get a lot worse. There have already been two rounds of budget cuts since last autumn. A third, savage, round must now follow.

Mr Schwarzenegger has already hinted at the cuts he will propose to the legislature. The easy part is to release prisoners. California’s 33 prisons, with about 168,000 inmates, many of them locked up because of inflexible sentencing laws passed by voters, are scandalously overcrowded. Mr Schwarzenegger is thinking about freeing 38,000 people. Half of them are undocumented immigrants whom he would transfer to federal custody.

But “the real money is where the pain is”, says Jean Ross of the California Budget Project, a research firm in Sacramento. In health care, for instance. Just as Mr Obama is trying to give more people access to medical care, California will be taking it away: by cutting funding for Medi-Cal, the state’s programme for the poor, and changing eligibility rules for another programme so that 225,000 children are likely to lose coverage. And this at a time when many of their parents are losing their jobs and their employer-sponsored insurance.

Other programmes, from help with birth-control and HIV-prevention to counselling against drug abuse and domestic violence, will be made smaller or eliminated altogether. Child-welfare programmes will be cut by 10%. This means fewer investigations into allegations of child abuse and less supervision of foster care, even as more children are likely to be abused in difficult economic times, says Linda Canan at the Napa County Health and Human Services Agency.

Cuts in the education budget will probably shorten the school year by a week, require teachers to be laid off and cause classes to get bigger. The University of California, a network of ten campuses, will face cuts equivalent to 50,000 fewer students and perhaps 5,000 fewer staff.

Malaysia door-to-door

Local governments these days try to rely on data that is easily gathered (and modeled) so as to derive the valuations on which to levy property taxes. Not so in Malaysia, where The Star newspaper reports the Johor Baru City Council (MBJB) will be conducting a property reevaluation, from premise to premise beginning May 2.

City mayor Datuk Naim Nasir said that the reevaluation was not to increase property tax but for the council to prepare for a new value list. He said the last valuation was done in 1995 which was more than 10 years ago. He explained that a reevaluation based on the new market value was important because bankers would refer to it when they value the price of a property. Naim said that 20 officers from the council would be going from premise to premise to conduct the evaluation. “They will visit each unit and this will take us about six to seven months to complete the entire area,” he said.

Special treatment for elected officials?

Detroit City councilwoman JoAnn Watson held a press conference Sunday afternoon outside her Tudor-style home to clear the air over news reports of her greatly under-assessed brick house on the city's west side which city records indicate has not existed for several years.

Watson, an outspoken critic of tax deadbeats and the city's lack of getting its fair share in outstanding taxes from property owners and businesses, learned last week from newspaper reporters she had been receiving quite a tax break from the city. In 2008, according to city tax records, Watson was assessed only $67.97 in property taxes for her brick home located in the Russell Woods subdivision on the city's west side. Homeowners owning comparable addresses in the neighborhood pay more than $5,600 a year.

"I've been a target of a smear campaign," Watson told reporters gathered outsider her home on Sturtevant off Dexter Sunday. "... I pay my bills and whatever I was billed, I paid."

Watson, elected to the City Council in 2003, blamed her low tax bill on miscalculations made by the city assessment office -- possibly due to storm-related damage by a tornado sometime in the last 14 years. She bought the home on a land contract in 1990 for $40,000 but -- for still unknown reasons -- it has been listed for years in the city records as a vacant, unoccupied lot and is currently valued at only $1,658.

Business Tax Protests

Thousands of businesses are fighting Bernalillo County because the owners said their new property values are outrageous. Some business owners worry about what they're calling devastating effects. "I'm very angry," said John Gustafson, the owner of Broken Arrow Electric in southeast Albuquerque. He couldn't believe his most recent property value assessment. It's 30 percent higher than last year. "I panicked because I know what it means," he said.

It means he could have to pay thousands of extra dollars on taxes, which is money he can't spare in the sluggish economy. "Hopefully that means we won't have to lay off more workers," he said. Gustafson filed an appeal and according to the assessor's office, 9,000 businesses in Bernalillo County have done the same thing. Officials admit it’s far more than what they're used to seeing. "Nobody thinks its right because it isn't right," Gustafson said.

Property tax rebates: ending soon?

Most New Jersey homeowners, already paying the highest property taxes in the nation, will not see a property tax rebate check next year under Gov. Jon Corzine's revised 2010 budget proposal. The updated budget, released Tuesday by Treasurer David Rousseau, keeps rebates for 700,000 seniors and the disabled but eliminates them for everyone else.

Corzine's original proposal, released in March, got rid of rebates for those earning more than $75,000. But with updated revenue projections coming up $2 billion short for the 2010 budget year, Rousseau said rebates were not sustainable this year.

"We simply cannot spend money that we don't have," Rousseau told the Assembly Budget Committee members Tuesday. The move would save the state nearly a billion dollars and cost homeowners $950 on average; renters would miss out on an average $75 rebate, according to the Treasury Department.

At least 1 million homeowners would no longer get rebates; the number of renters affected is unclear, according to Treasury Department spokesman Tom Vincz.

Market dominance

Electricity and to a lesser extent gas billing for consumers large and small has been deregulated in many economies. However the retail energy providers still have to buy their energy from the electricity generating companies. Where fewer of those exist - in say a small country like New Zealand - they can use their market dominance to distort prices. A recent New Zealand Commerce Commission report says that power generators overcharged customers $4.3 billion over six years by using market dominance.

The study has found find that the country's main electricity generators, state-owned Meridian Energy, Genesis and Mighty River Power and privately owned Contact Energy, effectively used their market power to maximise profits, including withholding power at peak times. But the power companies have been cleared of the most serious allegations levelled against them - that they breached the Commerce Act by abusing market dominance and that they colluded to make extra profits.

Government heal thyself

While the public sector may be responsible for billing for utility consumption, it's also a large user of energy. The folks who gave the world the Hummer, the poster child of fuel inefficiency, want to spawn a new generation of eco-friendly military equipment with cross-over potential in the “civilian sector,” say a group of retired American military officers who released a sharply worded report on Monday calling on the Department of Defense to reduce its “carbon bootprint.”

“The American military gave you the Humvee, and now we’re taking it back,” said retired Adm. John Nathman, the former vice chief of naval operations and an adviser to President Obama, in a conference call on Monday. “You’re going to see some fairly dramatic movement by the Department of Defense in terms of public visibility.”

The report, “Powering America’s Defense,” was published by CNA Analysis and Solutions, a research group based in Alexandria, Va., that issued a previous study on defense and energy security in 2007.

Under control

One of the measures of the success of a government is its ability to control its infrastructure. The Thai government, for example, failed miserably to keep the country's major international airport in Bangkok open last December, raising doubts about whether that country is sliding towards "failed state" status. More recently, regional leaders had to be air-lifted from their conference venue as the Thai Army could not guarantee their safety after political protesters broke into the hotel.

In Afghanistan the government has difficulty guaranteeing electricity supplies. Residents of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, haven’t had reliable, nearly round-the-clock power in more than a generation. So there was reason for excitement as officials gathered at the Chimtallah substation just outside Kabul on Monday to inaugurate a new, 261-mile transmission line delivering electricity to the city from Uzbekistan — the backbone of a power system stretching across the northeast of the country.

But while the new line will take time to ramp up to capacity, it is already inadequate to serve Kabul, which now has 4.4 million people. Construction is scheduled to begin soon on a second transmission line, which will deliver power from Tajikistan. And the Afghanistan Reconstruction and Trust Fund recently awarded $150 million to Siemens, a global builder of transmission and distribution systems, and Power Grid of India, a large transmission utility, to further expand and rehabilitate the network.

But hard questions remain, including whether the newly-formed Afghan electricity utility will prove able to manage the system — and protect it from attack by local warlords.

Getting it right in New York

It's no good trying to calculate a water or sewer bill if the underlying data is incorrect. A recently published audit of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection shows that the DEP still fails to ensure that it properly identifies properties that should pay water and sewer bills, and in some cases the failure goes back 15 years.

In 2005, The New York Times reported that about 231,000 water customers in New York City were late paying their bills — some by just a few months, others by decades. In all, these water delinquents owe the city more than $625 million in overdue bills and penalties.

Houses and apartments accounted for 90 percent of those unpaid bills, but the city absorbed the huge losses and passed on the costs to those who paid, rather than risking the political consequences of being seen as hardhearted.

The DEP is now starting to resume shut-offs for unpaid water bills.

European emissions trading

The Financial Times reports that the prices paid for permits to produce carbon under the European Union’s emissions trading scheme suffered precipitous falls last December and in the early part of this year, tumbling from about €30 (£27) last summer to €15 in December before a fresh plunge to only about €8 in mid-February. In recent weeks, the prices have recovered to about €13.30, the analyst group Point Carbon estimates.

The recovery encourages carbon traders. They are affected by the prices, as they amass portfolios of carbon credits to be sold to participants in the EU scheme. The credits are issued by the United Nations to developing world projects that cut emissions, such as wind farms or solar panels.

Direct Debit

Direct Debit is a popular form of bill payment. It means that by the due date the customer's bank account is automatically debited with the amount of the bill. Some customers would like their credit card charged, rather than their bank account - arguably so they can get more frequent flier points! The problem is the merchant fee the credit card companies charge the utilities. Visa has attempted to address this issue by charging a flat rate fee rather than the merchant fee.

B-Pay View

e-billing in Australia is aupported by the banks, and a facility known as BPay View. BPay is a standardised electronic bill paying facility. With B- Pay View customers can manage & view all their bills online 24/7 from wherever they are. The benefits are:

Get organised: Customers can have a summary of all their bills and their due dates in one place.

Choose how to pay: Customers can still use BPAY if they receive bills online via BPAY View and pay from a bank account, credit card or use any other method each biller allows*.

Pay on time: Make instant payments with BPAY or schedule payments for a later date.

Be kind to the environment: Cut down on paper usage by choosing to receive bills online.

e-Billing

E-billing provides a faster, more efficient and convenient way to receive and check customer bills. It is increasingly used for property tax and utility bills (ie. public sector billing). Here are some of the advantages:
* It is interactive, giving the customer online access to more information on things like discounts and reliefs
* Customers can see their bill as soon as it is available
* Customers usually still have the choice to download and print their bill in PDF (Adobe) format if needed
* Each person named on the bill should be able to receive their own copy at the email address given for each person
* It helps to reduce printing and postage costs
* It helps to protect the environment by saving paper

Cycles & Routes (5)

The emerging technology is for some form of wireless or wi-fi data collection, which can be done daily or even more frequently. This allows for early identification of anomalies, such as water leaks, or potential tampering. However it usually breaks the traditional link between the CIS and the meter reading management software. Readings are held externally, since they constitute a huge volume of data, and the CIS periodically interrogates the meter readings data warehouse so as to get the data it needs to bill the customer.

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One change the new technology brought about was the reduction in the importance of the route sequence. This is the order in which the meters are read, and was optimised so as to reduce the time the meter reader spent crossing roads and so on. With drive-by reads, both sides of a street, together in some cases with side lanes, can all be read in one pass. Trash trucks also do not need sequences within routes, usually picking up from both sides of the street at a single pass.

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The next development was non-contact readings. In the place of the hand-held device into which the reader entered the data, an electronic “wand” would read the meter, often via an external contact at the premises but remote from the meter. This required the meter itself to be fitted with an electronic register to transmit the data.

That transmission mode then drove the technology. First came the wand, where the reading had to be made close by the meter. The next development came with “drive-by” readings, where the meter reader would simply drive down the street and the meter reader device in the vehicle would record the readings. This removed the risk to the reader of irate householders, dogs, snakes or other risks to entering the premises where the meter was located. However it removed the opportunity for the reader to inspect the meter physically and observe any deterioration in its condition or evidence of tampering. Missed or questionable reads in the automated reader still have to be investigated.

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The first change influenced by technology came with the ability for the reader to enter the data into a hand-held device. As one company came to dominate, these are sometimes simply referred to as Itron readings, after the manufacturer. Interfaces had to be developed to download data about what was to be read – address, meter number – to the handheld device, and periodically to upload the results. Very often the manufacturer bundled some software such as route optimisation and other management tools as a separate application, and the line became blurred as to what the meter reading management software would achieve and what the CIS needed to do. This confusion still persists.

Cycles & Routes (1)

Meter reading technology is one area where mobile communications are having an impact, and the modern CIS must take account of these changes. The old technology required a meter reader to “walk the route”, physically inspecting every meter and noting down its data. This was sometines known as a “book”, as the reader entered the readings into the book he carried with him. This approach persists and every CIS must provide for its management, via routes (typically a route or book was the number of meters a single meter reader could visit in a single day) and cycles, or collections of routes, which may be the work aggregated into a week, month or other period's readings for an entire billing cycle. There is, however, no need to equate the reading cycle to the billing cycle, although many utilities do, and a well-designed billing system should provide for different values to co-exist for each.

Storm water billing

Storm water billing is not based on a water meter. It attempts to compensate for the amount of rain water that is not absorbed by the soil because there is some surface erected over the soil on privately-owned property – building, footpath, garage – that causes a water run-off into the public drainage system. This is usually known as the “impervious area”. Since these areas vary in size, billing systems usually apply stepped rates – if the area is up to A then the rate is Y, if it is between A and B, the rate is X and so on.

Winter Averaging

Water billing software and those who select it expect the effluent aspects of billing to be included in the package. The waste must be taken away and treated, and customers charged accordingly. A well-designed water billing application should include the ability to bill for effluent. This takes two forms - residential and commercial.

Clearly a proportion of what comes into the household as water is sent back out again as sewer or wastewater. But what is the appropriate proportion? For apartment dwellers, this proportion should be constant. For those who live in houses, however, there are all sorts of seasonal variants. These include filling the swimming pool (once or twice a year) and watering the garden (more in summer, less in winter).

Generally water billing handles the gardening side via what is known as "winter averaging", as the garden is usually not wintered during winter, when rainfall should be plentiful. That is, an average is taken of water consumption during the winter months, and this average is then calculated as the monthly charge for sewer for the entire year, winter or summer.

In Australia they do it somewhat differently. There each month is given a weighting according to its dryness, and the water consumption discounted by the weighting in order to derive the wastewater charge.

Either way, differential or seasonal billing for sewer discharge is an essential component of a water billing system.

Metered billing

For capacity, both electricity and gas billing can vary over time. A meter for either of those sources usually has a “demand” dial, that measures the highest demand for the period, and resets to zero once the meter is read. Demand is then billed at the highest level as registered over a rolling N-month period. For water however the size of the pipe does not vary, and is not measured by a meter, so the capacity charge is fixed. Nevertheless in commercial and particularly industrial water billing a two-register meter (sometimes known as a “combo” meter) is included, with capacity and usage measured separately depending on whether a high or low flow of water is passing through.

Water and energy billing similarities

There are a lot of similarities between water billing and energy billing. They have the same three inputs - availability (poles and wires, or pipes), capacity (pipe size for water) and usage (measured by a meter). However electricity is generated and either used or lost, whereas water is stored for use on demand. Gas is also stored, but its quality can vary, and a billing application for gas billing must hold the daily variation (known as the calorific factor) in order to discount the gas consumption accordingly.

Customer records

The customer record should be independent of any Account record, as the customer may have multiple accounts. Older-style billing systems focused on the parcel or address (for property taxes) or the meter (for utility billing). Modern billing systems focus on the customer and the management of customer information. Among other things it means that when a customer moves to a new address all of the data already exists and does not have to be re-keyed. Because some data is non-standard, either between customers or between different cities or utilities, a number of user-defined fields should be available in the billing system to support this need.

From Customer Management Fact Sheet which can be found at Public Sector Billing.

CIS Billing

Billing systems are as often as not these days called “CIS Billing” - meaning Customer Information System. A CIS sytem will have customer records that keep a history of contact with a customer (calls, correspondence, e-mail), their credit data such as credit rating or deposits, and theft and tampering history (for utilities). Other data could be as extensive as preferred language, banking data for direct debit, even preferred bill format and preferred bill delivery method, such as via e-mail rather than standard mail. Corporate customers may have extensive data relating to headquarters and branch locations, linked accounts or premises, and company representatives.

A Customer is not necessarily a person or business who receives regular bills. They may be someone who is an irregular contact. Nevertheless the CIS Billing system should retain their data for use when required.

From Customer Management Fact Sheet which can be found at Public Sector Billing.

Account Enquiries

A well-designed summary enquiry screen makes the job of the call center operator easier and increases throughput. The summary screen should provide at-a-glance information that will answer 80% of standard call center enquiries such as the due date for the current bill, whether a payment has been received, the next date a bill will be sent (based on a meter reading or an installment), or (via a graph) the consumption pattern on a utility bill. It should also provide via drill-down access to supporting detail. Where values have changed over time (property value or metered consumption) an enquiry at the line level of the bill should show how the charge was calculated.

From the summary page a list of hot links should give the user access to their most common actions. That is, a list of common actions should be able to be tailored by each operator. As well their should be access to the knowledge base of answers to frequently asked questions.

From Account Enquiries Fact Sheet which can be found at Public Sector Billing.

Account Contacts

A Billing system should support Contacts who have multiple Accounts, both at the same time (ownership of multiple properties) and over time (as a person buys and sells properties as their place of residence). Each Contact may have multiple addresses – work, home, mailing – each with their own attributes. The contact's primary information (date of birth, driver's licence) does not change and so forms part of the central record, but address information is more variable over time and should be part of a series of effective-dated sub-records, linked to the central or main record.

It is important that a record is kept on each Account for Contacts other than the person(s) legally responsible for paying the Account. There may be a person practically responsible for paying the Account, such as a parent, child or legal guardian, who would also receive a copy of the Bill at their own address. Generally this is known as “third-party billing”. As circumstances vary between cities or utilities, the ideal Billing system should not be prescriptive as to classifying such people; it should support user-definable categories.

From Account Contacts Fact Sheet which can be found at Public Sector Billing.

Account Relationships

"Some of the stand alone objects that are drawn into a relationship with the Account are the customer, the address or parcel (for property-based bills such as tax or utility bills), the services or valuations being billed on the address or parcel, the permits associated with the address (if property-based) or the customer, and the licences that customer holds or that have been granted for the business. Utility billing applications will also have information about the meter and its reading route and sequence."

From Account Relationships Fact Sheet which can be found at Public Sector Billing.

Account Attributes

"A carefully thought-out Account structure is the key to effective revenue management information. While the Account is itself a business object, with its own numbering rules and attributes, it also draws on other stand alone business objects such as the address or parcel of land and customer names, also known as Contacts.

Three attributes belong to the Account alone – the Account number, the Account type and the industry code.

One mistake some utilties make is to have the meter reading route number embedded in the Account number. This does not make for flexible solutions and modern utility billing applications should be able to show an Account's route details without embedding the data in the number.

Account type is not always used. The most common of these is the “owner” Account and the “Tenant” Account.

Finally the Industry Code should be an Account attribute. These are generally known as Standard Industry Codes (SIC) and each country publishes their own standard list."

From Account Attributes Fact Sheet, which can be downloaded from Public Sector Billing

Move In functionality

"One of the most labor-intensive actions is Moving a customer in or out, or sometimes between two properties within the area served by the one city or utility. The process should be highly configurable and should also allow for common events such as a change in date or a cancellation. With a cancellation the Move In or Out may have already been carried out in the billing system and have to be “undone”; a good billing system should support these actions as automatically as possible. Where a customer is transferring between properties, all of their banking and security deposit data should follow them to the new address." From Move In & Move Out Functionality Fact Sheet, which can be downloaded from Public Sector Billing