I. RECOMMENDATION:
City Council Adoption of Resolution No. 4104 Approving the Application for Grant Funds for the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSmart Grants.
II. BACKGROUND:
Staff has been working with Badger meter to conduct an AMI pilot program. An AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) meter is “smart” and allows users to be able to view their usage remotely through an app. Additionally, it allows the reading of meters simply by exporting the data remotely at any time.
Last year, we applied for this grant, but unfortunately, we were not awarded any funding. After a debriefing with the grantors, we altered our strategy to encompass a larger pool of meters to make the grant application more appealing.
This grant would allow us to implement AMI water meters city wide in the time frame of 3 years.
III. DISCUSSION:
Staff has been working with Blais & Associates to apply for a grant that will allow the city wide implementation of AMI water metering. Resolution No. 4104 approves and allows us to move forward with the application.
The grant amount for phase one is approximately $1,952,860 and requires a 50% match of $976,430. This particular grant allows for in-kind matching. It is the intent of staff to perform the meter installations themselves to cover approximately $485,383 of the match and will be required to supplement the difference over three years. This amounts to an annual cost of approximately $137,344 each year for three years.
If the grant is awarded to the city in May of 2023, we would need to increase our annual meter budget from $80,000 to $140,000 to cover this cost.
IV. ALTERNATIVES:
Do not approve Resolution No. 4104.
V. FISCAL IMPACT:
The grant application will not have direct costs outside of the normally budgeted amounts to Blaise & Associates. Assuming the grant is awarded there will be a 60,000 increased cost to our water meter budget for three years. However, much of this cost will be recovered by more accurate billing of water. |