BWD Finance Committee

Tuesday - June 8: The Buckeye Water District's Finance Committee met Tuesday morning to prepare the Treasurers Report. Present at the meeting was Committee Members Gene McGaffick & Bob Wines, along with Fiscal Officer Sara Crouch, District Manager Al DeAngelis and BWD Trustee Jack Call. The meeting took place at the Water Treatment Plant.

Fiscal Officer Crouch reported to the Committee that the year-to-date profits of $393,457 have been nearly wiped out with new loan payments coming due. Chief among them was a $11,000 payment to the Ohio Water Development Authority that is due every six months on a loan assumed from the county. That was a new payment on top of all the others the Water District is paying on the $20 million plus debt accumulated since it started up.

For the month of May receipts totalled $290,314 and expenses were $253,791. A payment of $81,000 was made May 1 for the USDA Phase 1. Currently cash on hand to pay bills is $288,735. The District billed for nearly 28 million total gallons of water in the month. Wellsville customers used a little under 6.3 million gallons. That total amount includes 1.9 million gallons for Salineville customers. Year-to-date water usage has been declining through the month of May compared to 2009.

On the expense side the cost for salaries for May was up mainly due to over-time hours accumulated for repairs to water line breaks. For the month over 74 hours of over-time was paid in just one week. The water main break on Wellsville's Commerce Street last month accounted for a large portion of those hours. With the loans and salaries the cost of producing 1,000 gallons of water is up for the year.

Also noted at the meeting was that the Hibbetts Mill water main line into Wellsville has been removed from the list of projects for this year. It appears that funding to finance the project will not be available this year. That project consists of replacing the water main into the Village from the Hibbetts Mill area. Plans for extending water service to the Frederick Heights area are being moved ahead. Financing for that will come mostly from customer tap-in fees. The Frederick Heights project is currently going through the engineering phase to get State & EPA approvals. It is anticipated that over 100 new customers will be added once that project is completed.

Later Tuesday afternoon there was a Budget Committee meeting to go over the proposed 2011 budget for the Water District. Committee Chairman Chuck Bibbee conducted the meeting. Crouch advised the proposed budget must be approved and submitted to the County Auditor by July 1. The 2011 budget will be submitted to the Board of Trustees at their next regular meeting. BWD's Fiscal Year runs from January through December.

The Board of Trustees are scheduled to meet on Thursday, June 17 at 9 A.M. at Wellsville's Village Hall.

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