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.

Cycles & Routes (4)

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.

Cycles & Routes (3)

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.

Cycles & Routes (2)

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.