By Ryan Whisner
The Fort Atkinson City Council approved a $22,500 contract with a municipal utility advisement firm to assist in developing rate structures, forecast operations, and capital improvement budgets for the stormwater, wastewater, and water utilities.
Trilogy Consulting LLC previously worked with the City of Fort Atkinson in 2020 for an examination of wastewater rates to accommodate the $13 million upgrades at the wastewater treatment facility that are currently being completed.
In addition, Fort Atkinson City Engineer/Director of Public Works Andy Selle said, the company aided the city in a successful water rate increase request to provide dedicated funds for water main replacement. Fort Atkinson is one of only three communities in the state to successfully get such a rate increase approved.
“They did a phenomenal job,” Selle said, noting that was the city’s introduction to Trilogy Consulting. “Their forte is in forecasting financial management for utilities for municipalities.”
The intent is to develop more of a long-term relationship with Trilogy as a consultant in this area.
“They gain knowledge of our system and can kind of answer our questions along the way and understand the background where those questions come from,” he said. “Trilogy having helped us out with a rate case, really drilled into a lot of our financial closet, so to speak, within our water utility and has a good understanding of that.”
An unusual aspect of Selle’s requested approval was the scope of the contract was being left open over time.
“The council is used to approving contracts where they set scope with a very specific end to it,” the city engineer said. “This one, I’m asking for your approval to move forward with an ongoing contract. We have a check and balance in there where the city manager and I will be engaged and approving any additions to the contract.”
As approved, each utility will bear the cost of its respective portion for $7,500. Per the contract, tasks may be added to the base contract in writing by Selle with approval from the city manager.
Selle expects the initial contract to get through nearly the end of the year while referencing the potential of adding $5,000 to $10,000 to get to the end of the year.
“Right now, we’ve got a few questions that I’d really like to engage them in some planning for the 2024 budget cycle,” Selle said.
He said the council will be provided updates on ongoing expenses related to the contract.
“We will certainly have a fairly significant interaction with them through the budgeting process,” Selle said. “I would expect once we’re through budgeting, and getting into the later parts of 2023, we’re going to start turning our attention towards longer-term items and longer timelines.”
It is through those additional items that he indicated the $7,500 per utility may run out.
In context, Selle said Trilogy did the water rate case for $25,000 which lasted just over a year.
Council members asked him to expound upon what he was looking for from Trilogy.
“That’s a little nebulous,” he said.
The city engineer noted that recently there was a discussion of sewer rates.
“We had a plan in place three years ago for the sewer rates to go up and this was our last year of three years of increasing rates to help pay for a portion of that $13 million improvement that we’re finishing up right now,” he said. “They need to go back and sort of look at those things because every year the amount of money we bring into our wastewater utility changes.”
For example, Selle said Jones Dairy Farm may cut back significantly on the amount of waste that they send to us, and therefore their bill goes way down.
“We have to kind of adjust those numbers and that’s across all utilities stormwater, water, and sanitary,” he said.
The other component is longterm capital expenses.
In that area, he specifically highlighted the stormwater utility. Selle said he anticipates some deadlines coming from the state Department of Natural Resources on the city’s total maximum daily load plan.
“Right now, we don’t have a schedule because they said to get a plan and make progress towards it, but we don’t have a deadline,” he said. “I think that may change. With that, I’d like to be able to have Trilogy sit down with me and say, ‘alright, if we’re going to do projects, one, two, and three, and each of those cost $1 million, so we’ve got to borrow or capture some of (that) through the rates,’ then what does that analysis look like for the next 10 years?”
Selle said those are the obvious questions for the consultant, but he has more that will drill down further. He said Trilogy can help ensure the city is placing water main replacement costs in the right account in terms of its impact on the longterm rate structure.
“I know what questions I want to ask, and they usually lead to more questions, so that’s why it’s a bit of an open-ended contract,” Selle said.
Fort Atkinson Municipal Building, file photo/Kim McDarison.
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