SALAMANCA — The Salamanca Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approved a tentative spending plan Tuesday for the 2018-19 fiscal year.
The BPU approved the budget one day after the city began its budgetary meetings for the upcoming year.
Last year’s budget was the first since the BPU voted to adjust the water rates in the city to apply to a full fiscal year, resulting in about a $43,000 increase in metered sales. The same increase is expected for the 2018-19 budget as well.
However, there is no interfund transfer from the city expected for next year for the water department.
“It’s not in the budget, but it depends on if we have the cash at that moment to pay the bill,” said BPU Manager Dawn Fish. “If we don’t have the cash, then I’d have to get it from the city.”
For equipment in the water department, the BPU is considering purchasing a leak detector, a flow meter for the water plant, a supervisor pickup and water meters, totalling about $81,000.
New meters for residential and commercial buildings are budgeted for $40,000. Fish said BPU workers plan to continue installing new meters as needed rather than replace a whole street at once in blocks.
“If they feel they’re stopped, they go and make appointments to get in there and change them out, or if they have to go somewhere for something else then they change them out at that point,” she explained.
In the electric department, an increase in contractual expenses of about $15,000 is for a possible study done to update the Rochester Street substation.
“We only did half of it one year and they want to finish that,” Fish said. “Last time we did it it was about $15,000, but that was 10 years ago.”
Although no figures have been determined, possible electric department equipment purchases considered included a bucket truck, a Digger Derrick truck and a supervisor pickup. Board Chair Timothy Flanigan, R-Ward 2, said if they decided to purchase anything, they would bond for the equipment and not have to pay anything until the 2019-20 year.
In the sewer department, $122,000 in “interfund transfer revenue” is money the BPU is expecting to give to the city at year’s end from excess sewer revenue.
“What we give them bases what we budgeted for,” Fish explained. “They have always got more, but depending on our expenses, we can’t really calculate an exact figure until everything is done at the end of that year.”
For equipment, a new sewer jet truck is a priority purchase for next year. Fish said the current truck is a 2002 model and has issues that need maintenance.
Flanigan said the Department of Public Works is also considering looking at a sewer jet truck and suggested seeing if the two departments could share one new truck.
“We’d save $150,000 by not buying a second one,” he said.
The sewer revenues are up about $60,000 because of the water meter increases from 2017.
The city’s BPU, a separate entity from the city, is divided into the electric, water and sewer departments. The board approved budgets of $6.25 million for the electric department, $1.01 million for the water department and $1.76 million for the sewer department.
Like the city’s budget, the spending plan for the BPU is for the department’s upcoming fiscal year of April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019.
(Contact reporter Kellen Quigley at kquigleysp@gmail.com)
