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.