CITY: WATER SYSTEM CONVERSION ON TARGET

City officials are on track to meet the city's May 1 goal to completely convert operation of the city's water system from Union Electric to the city.

"That could stretch into the first of June, but right now things are moving along well, and it looks like we should be able to hit that target," Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink said Thursday.

He said officials from the city, Union Electric and Mid-Missouri Engineering Inc. (MMEI), an engineering firm contracted to operated the water system for the city, have met several times to "iron out" various matters tied to the transaction.

Cape Girardeau voters Nov. 5 approved the city's purchase of the water system, a transaction Stoverink said will be a key link to orderly growth, development and master planning in the city.

Stoverink said the city and Union Electric are ready to submit a joint proposal for the transaction to the Public Service Commission for its review and approval.

"We're not expecting any problems, and that process will probably take 30 to 60 days," he said.

One of the aspects of the water system conversion city officials have toiled with is assuring that needed billing changes will be as smooth as possible for residents.

"We have been working with Mid-Missouri Engineering in ironing out details for the billing operation," he said.

Stoverink said that once the transaction is complete this spring, residents' water bills will be included with their city sewer and trash bills.

The assistant city manager said the city plans to convert the process into a "cycle billing," which will enable the city to bill a fourth of the residences for water, sewer and trash each week, rather than all the homes once a month.

In addition to cycle billing, the city also will no longer bill sewer and trash in advance of service. Because residents will be charged for the amount of water they used the previous month, so also will the sewer and trash fees be "rear-billed," Stoverink said.

"There will be probably some confusion with the transition and the billing that we will try to help everyone understand," he said. "We'll have our people on board to handle customer requests and information needs.

"But I expect that it should go fairly smoothly. That's certainly what we're trying to do right now with all our planning."

Stoverink said MMEI will use the former Heartland Masonry building on Broadview adjacent to the Public Works Center for its service facility. Also, City Hall will undergo renovations to facilitate customer service.

He said the city's data processing and non-customer related finance personnel will be moved to the ground level of City Hall to "free up space where the cashier's office is on the first floor for our customer-service personnel."

Stoverink said the renovations will place all customer-service operations water, sewer and trash billing; city licenses; and taxi coupons on the first floor of City Hall.

He said MMEI will hire operations and maintenance personnel for the water system, while the city plans to hire two or three customer service employees.

"They'll start that recruitment process in February," he said. "We'll also be starting our process of recruiting customer service personnel in February."

The water system operation now includes about 30 Union Electric employee. Stoverink said that MMEI plans to hire for 18 to 20 positions.

Current Union Electric employees who work for the water operation will have to apply for the MMEI positions, but Stoverink said some of them already have moved to other positions at Union Electric.

The assistant city manager said the city staff will present to the city council in February or early March a water system ordinance that will formally adopt water rates and extension policies.

"As part of that process, there will be opportunities for public input," he added. "We'll probably be meeting with some of the local developers relative to extension policies and how we'll handle things may be different than UE."

Stoverink said that the transition will mean a slight increase in water rates. "We will be including the 3 percent increase that we had indicated in the information campaign before the election."

Stoverink said that the transition to date has gone as expected. He said the water system purchase has been a top priority since voters approved the deal last fall.

"Of course all the things we're doing right now are planning efforts. When the transaction itself occurs, that's when we'll find out how well we've planned."