From the Pacifica Tribune Letters to the Editor page, March 10, 2010
Editor:
The problem with the North Coast County Water District is they have too many employees with high salaries so there is no way the rate payers can get a fair shake. They have a manager who earns $170,000 per year. Two assistant managers get $130,000 each and a supervisor gets $100,000 so here we have paid out $530,000 and do not have a shovel in the ground. Our best option would be to make a deal with Cal Water who supplies South San Francisco and other cities all the way to San Carlos.
I have all the figures and here is the comparison. If you apply for new service with Cal Water they dig it and install and furnish the meter for free. North Coast charges a $300 application fee, $2,100 for the meter fee and $5,441 for a transmission charge. Now let's go to the water rates.
Cal Water charges $2.50 per unit for the first five units, then $3 per unit after that. North Coast charges $6.60 per unit for the first five units before the raise. Now with the new rate it's $7.50 per unit for the first five units. A unit is 780 gallons. The difference between Cal Water, a private company, is that they are not buried in salaries. They are here to make money and are doing water supply for about a third of what we pay North Coast.
I hope we can get on the ballot again. Heaven forbid the city of Pacifica run the water company. Well, they can't do worse. This increase was totally uncalled for. We need to make a deal with Cal Water and not forget to vote out of office the three who voted for the increase.
9 comments:
Piccolotti was suggesting deferring maintenance, and Cosgrove suggested that something be done about pension costs, based on the Trib article. (The article also quoted the manager, "Two of the managers are working the shovel every day.")
Last year's budget is here. Are there any documents online about the current reserves, the proposed rate increase, what it's needed for, or how much revenue it's supposed to generate? Looking through the budget, it would be helpful to know just how much they're looking for.
Some of the projects listed here sound important, but it's hard to tell from what's there just how important it is that they be done this year.
Wow, the rate disparety between NCCWD & Cal Water is shocking. It can't all be inflated pensions & salaries, can it? System must be in bad shape, needs major maintenance and/or upgrading. Guess I'll take a peek at NCCWD's site to see what's offered. Hope I stay awake.
Vote the rascals out..The whole lot of them!!!
I am lucky enough to be a member of the North Coast County Water District (NCCWD) Board of Directors. I want to respond to Pete Pereria's letter.
Pete has a wonderful sense of community which should be applauded. He sometimes gets his facts wrong however. Most of the following was presented at a public meeting that he attended.
First an overview of why a 13% rate increase was needed.
The primary driving force was a 16% rate increase from the San Francisco Public Utility Commission. (PUC) The NCCWD gets 100% of its water from the PUC. They are in the process of rebuilding their delivery system after years of neglect. A total cost$5.6 billion seems to be the accepted figure for the work. As projects are completed the PUC is able to pass the costs on to its retail customers. NCCWD's prorated share of that work is about $130 million.
The Water District has cut $1.3 million from its capital improvement budget this year. That is about 14% of the total District budget. This is, to my mind, dangerous in that many earthquake retrofit projects were deferred. For a number of years NCCWD has patiently been rebuilding or at least making redundant its infrastructure. This is in preparation for the earthquake that WILL occur. With the cuts this year, that effort has almost come to a stop. There could be nothing worse than turning on the tap or the fire hydrant and having nothing come out. Water District facilities cannot fail -- they MUST be able to deliver water.
Because of State budget problems, property taxes of about $180,000 that NCCWD receives were cut.
All of these reasons and more required NCCWD to raise rates.
As far as salaries are concerned,the figure given for the General Manager is accurate; the salaries for the assistant GMs are too high. The Water District does not set wage levels without doing a salary survey of other water agencies and cities. The General Manager's salary is about average. The GM won a Manager of the Year Award from the state- wide association of water agencies that the District belongs to.
Though it is impossible to determine what the GM of Cal Water SSF makes because it is a private company and does not need to be transparent, Director Tom Piccolotti was told that he made $220,000 per year.
As far as rates go, according to the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Association (BAWSCA) the average residential water bill each month is as follows:
Cal Water SSF $32.00
Cal Water Mid-peninsula $44.00
Cal Water Bear Gulch $91.00
NCCWD $41.00
Average of all agencies $52.00
As can be seen, the local water rates are reasonable and in line with the rest of the Bay Area.
Cal Water at one time owned the Montara/Moss Beach water district. It did such a poor job at such a high price that the citizens legally condemned its ownership and took over the system. If you remember the water trucks driving over Devils Slide with NCCWD water headed South, that was Cal Water.
As far as Cal Water taking over the local water district goes, well...they would have to buy it. Anything else would be a gift of public funds. A conservative value for the Water District including infrastructure, buildings, supplies, vehicles and land (NCCWD owns most of Pedro Valley Park for instance) is about $80 million. The cost of the sale (legal fees, research, real estate fees etc) is perhaps $6 million. The current District debt is about $4 million. Add all this together and the new company would start business with $90 million of debt. I would bet that the interest payments on this each year would be more than the current NCCWD budget of $9.5 million. My guess is that they would raise water rates to cover this.
The local water agency is exceptionally well run. To say other wise is to deny the facts.
Dear Mr. Vetter,
Thank you so much for your response. seeing the regional average compared to our rates is very helpful in understanding the real cost of water delivery.
A 5% pay cut would have shown people the managers where also sharing in the cost cutting.
Bear Gulch district serves a higher income, more remote broad-reach community (including Atherton, Portola Valley, Woodside, parts of Menlo Park, adjacent unincorporated portions of San Mateo county, etc) which may account for higher delivery and operations cost.
BEAR GULCH DISTRICT
and NEWS RELEASE
Thanks Bob for the background pipe, earthquake protection improvement cost increase information, which should also affect other Bay Area/San Mateo councty water districts as well.
Excluding the very high water delivery rates for Bear Gulch, the average monthly residential bill for the other 3 San Mateo county water districts is $39.
Here the 2009/2010 North Coast County Water District Operating Budget for those interested, salaries are not specific to individuals, without overtime and benefits it looks like 2 employees combined earn $170,000/2 = $85,000 each.
NCCWD BUDGET 2009-10
It has come to my attention that due to a slowly failing memory that I got information in my first post incorrect. The water district that ran the Montara/Moss Beach system into the ground was not Cal Water but a for-profit company called Citizens Utility based in Sacramento. I sincerely regret the error.
Bob,
Thanks for your explanation. Nice to see a board member actually responding to the public's concerns, instead of remaining silent.
I have to say though that NCCWD, like all other public agencies, has an affordability problem with the promises made to employees, namely, pensions and health benefits. The rate increase of two years ago was largely because of that problem, not SFPUC raising the cost of water sold to NCCWD.
Now the cost of water is rising, and options are becoming more limited. People are taking pay cuts, losing their jobs, and even losing their homes. When are public agencies going to wake up to this reality and try harder to keep rates stable?
And having the city of Pacifica "take over" NCCWD? What a terrible idea that is, they can't even get their (our!) house in order.
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