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City considers radio read meters

By
Alexis Barker

Alexis Barker
NLJ Reporter
 
Upgrades to the water system in Newcastle have been coming for some time, according to City Engineer Mike Moore, and the City Council must determine whether or not they will move forward with a loan from the state to implement the radio read meter system. 
“The council really needs to sit down and look at the big picture,” Moore said. “I need to provide them with the whole picture, what we are looking at and what this means for the users.” 
Moore told the council on Jan. 22 that the previously reported potential loan forgiveness on the $500,000 loan request was incorrect. 
“I submitted the pre-application for the State Revolving Fund Clean Water Loan for the radio read meter system. Whether we actually pursue or not is something that still needs to be discussed more internally,” Moore told the council. 
“Unfortunately, the thing I found out from the State Land and Investment Board is that Newcastle’s median income level has risen,” Moore said. 
He explained that in previous years the median income submitted with the loan applications was $49,920. The newly comprised report, based on 2017 information, has the annual median household income, or AMHI, for Newcastle at $53,171. 
This data, according to Wenlin Liu, chief economist for the State of Wyoming Economic Analysis Division, is from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013-17 American Community Survey’s five-year estimate. 
According to Moore, the increase in AMHI means the city is no longer eligible for a 50 percent loan forgiveness on the $500,000 loan that Moore has applied for to implement the new radio read meter system in the city. 
“It was enough to tip the scale, and it affects our loan forgiveness amount,” Moore said. “It has been that we can get a 50 percent loan forgiveness, but that has now dropped to 25 percent with the change in AMHI. That is a significant change.” 
According to Moore, the change means that just $125,000 of the loan would be forgiven, instead of $250,000 initially thought. 
But what does this mean for city water users? 
“This upgrade is specifically for the water system, and we have to increase the water users’ rates to repay that loan,” Moore said. “My estimate originally was that the loan would affect user rates by approximately 70 cents per month with the 50 percent loan forgiveness.” 
But with the reduced forgiveness rate of 25 percent, the end cost to water customers would increase by 30 percent. 
“With a 25 percent loan forgiveness, that increase would be raised to $1 a month,” Moore said. “At that point, the user rates would cover the cost of the 30-year loan.” 
Moore anticipates that the city will discuss the issue and hopefully have a decision by the end of March. 
“We need to decide what we are going to do by April, whether or not we are going to take the loan or not,” Moore said. “The SLIB board meets in April to consider all loan applications.” 
The radio read meter system is something Moore said has been a long time coming and is a necessary upgrade to the city’s water system. 
“Some customers may not want to see a rate increase but this is an improvement that has been sought for some time, dating all the way back to the late 1990s,” Moore said. “These updates are needed to run the water system and have been a long time coming.” 
The updates, according to Moore, would allow for water meters to be read electronically, eliminating human error and saving time. 
“Right now we go out and physically read the meters,” Moore said. “We have sheets of paper and someone goes out and physically writes down the meter readings.” 
After the meters are read, the numbers are returned to the city clerk’s office and those figures are entered into the billing software. 
“This upgrade will streamline that process and make it a lot easier. It will also reduce errors,” Moore said, noting that at times errors arise and meters must be reread to fix the errors. 
“We will be less dependent on that one individual who knows how to gather the
data and circumvent problems we have had in the past,” Moore said. 
He explained that the new system, if approved by the council, will upgrade meters throughout the city to a touch read system and purchase the required radio transmitters and technology. 
“The $500,000 would be for the entire implementation of the upgrade in Newcastle. A lot of that money will go to retrofitting existing meters with radio transmitters and upgrades to the meters themselves,” Moore said. “That is a lot of the cost with other costs coming from the data collector and software.” 
Moore noted that these changes are occurring across the country and are necessary in upgrading the local water system for better operation. He maintained that the city is only considering the most basic of systems because with the size of Newcastle that is believed to be sufficient for the need.

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