Since Templeton decided to put light & water together, rather than the smart move to put water & sewer together, sewer has been in a tough spot. If you have town sewer and water, you pay your water bill but ignore sewer bill, your water cannot be shut off because you paid the bill, so sewer is forced to take legal action or write it off, either one adds to operating costs. The smart move for the town would be to undo light & water and move to water & sewer, which would make sense so perhaps hard to do in Templeton. From fy20 water financial on their webpage; "some of the employees of the Templeton municipal light plant work for both water and light. Since 2001, the light plant has charged the water plant a portion of these individual salaries since they are paid entirely from the light plant". (so when I pay my light bill, I am actually paying for some costs of town water even as I do not have access to town water??) "Between 2001 and 2011, the water plant made intermittent payments to the light plant leaving an unpaid balance of $131,354.00. Between 2011 and 2017, water plant did not reimburse light plant. Starting in 2018, water dept. began making monthly reimbursement payments to light plant. In fiscal year 2019, the two entities mutually agreed to write off the unpaid balance for amounts prior to 2018 which is reported as a special item for $316,919.00. Note here, the light commissioners and the water commissioners are the same 3 people, and the general manager of light is general manager of water. They all claimed the water mains near the roundabout on route 2A was emergency, unforeseen, etc., which is the reason given for a 300-thousand-dollar bailout from arpa.
I noticed how light and water needed more money for Maple St to if memory serves.
ReplyDeleteThe rationale not having water and sewer together and separate from light escapes me.
It just causes problems with sewers ability to collect payments without going to court, two different entities are engaged in one issue, why light general manager have anything to do with water mains and sewer lines?
It causes excess costs in equipment, training, etc
I'd really like the selectboard to fix this issue to benefit the town
The bigger issue I have here really is why am I now forst hearing about. I didn't realize the light and water commissioners decided I as a TLWD monthly bill payer should subsidize town water users bills. I thought that was suppose to be seperate? By law? Am I missing something?
ReplyDeleteBecause of lack of follow up and dept. setup, if you call ambulance, you are supporting part of the fire dept. Back to the law and one law suit, fees for a service are to cover the costs of that service, not the general fund and not other services or items. That is the same as telling me it is 20 bucks for a dog license to cover cost of animal control officer, not proper. Emerson College v. Boston, 391 Mass. 415 (1984):
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