Chestermere Utilities Inc. (CUI) brought its 2017 rate request as a presentation of information to the regular meeting of city council Dec. 5.
CUI is asking council to approve at the Dec. 19 meeting a 15 per cent increase to rates in Chestermere to start in January 2017.
“We’ve advanced a proposal that attempts to balance all four of the [new mandate’s] sustainability measures,” said CUI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Leigh-Anne Palter.
After the presentation to council, Palter received extensive questioning by members of City Council about CUI’s requested rate, the process taken to get it and what it would mean if council did not approve the full rate at the next council meeting on Dec. 19.
Mayor Patricia Matthews asked what had been done to ensure the requested rate was kept as low as possible.
“We’ve scrapped projects, we’ve been renegotiating with suppliers, terminated some agreements, we reorganized the teams,” said Palter, “we’ve done what we think we can to ensure that we put forward a proposal that reflects the requirements as set out in the mandate.”
Palter acknowledged that the request was likely to be unpopular in the community but defended it as necessary.
“While people may not like the end result…I hope they will feel like we’ve been very transparent, we’ve been very diligent in the analysis that we’ve done,” she said.
Despite the potentially unpopular nature of the request, she feels that the submission has undergone a more robust process then last year.
“I’m very sensitive to the needs of the community,” she said, “I understand the economic outlook in the province isn’t really any better than it was last year.”
With the acknowledgment of this, Palter said that the CUI is still required by the new mandate approved by council in November to maintain full cost recovery.
“We have competing priorities with respect to goals of financial sustainability,” she said.
“If you’re using service today, you’re paying for that service today,” said Palter.
She said that CUI is in a different place then they thought they would be this year. She continued to say that this rate request does not address past operating shortfalls.
The request states that the increase is needed to address two main factors.
First, CUI has discovered operational deficiencies in the sanitary and storm water management systems that must be addressed in 2017.
Second, is the new CUI mandate and rate process as approved by council last month, which includes provision to ensure the financial sustainability of CUI.
“It’s really just building on the…discussion that we started last year,” she said.
“A few things have changed but the fundamental principle that in the past the rates weren’t being set in a manner that was consistent with industry best practices, meaning full cost accounting, that didn’t change,” said Palter.
News of the request travelled quickly through social media channels after it was posted to both the city and CUI websites Dec. 1.
Posts on the Facebook pages I Love Chestermere and I Love Chestermere Too were largely negative with community members sharing their anger at the proposed increases.
Informal organization and calls to attended the council meeting written in Facebook posts appeared to be unsuccessful.
There were about 20 people in the gallery composed of a mixture of City staff, CUI representatives, representatives of other presentations to council and residents in attendance at the meeting.
To review the rate request documents, Palter’s presentation notes or to ask a question go to http://www.cuinc.ca.
