The Board of Public Works held its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday evening at Trenton City Hall and accepted two bids and approved other expenditures.
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The board approved the low bid from North Missouri Construction of Chillicothe for relocation of utilities near Trenton Municipal Airport. It was the lowest of two received.
The city has been working with the Missouri Department of Transportation on improvements at the airport, one of which includes lowering the entrance road to the airport and the south end of the runway. Involved in that project will be the relocation of several feet of utility lines. The low bid from North Missouri for the base work was $79,464.85, which was under the engineer’s estimate of $86,120.
TMU Director Chad Davis said while a contractor was working in the area, the utility also wanted to address some issues, including the size of a water line and the problem of some lines underneath Muddy Creek continually being washed out. The total cost of the additional work was $118,606.05, with the reimbursable costs from MoDOT bringing TMU’s share of the cost to $39,141.20.
Also approved was the bid of Barnes Baker Automotive of Trenton for replacement of Truck No. 10 in the water distribution department. Barnes Baker’s low bid was $34,404. Two other bids were received.
The board also approved two other expenditures. Up to $5,000 was approved to be spent for a company to do a job classification study for all TMU employees. The City of Trenton will also be paying one-half the cost, which has been estimated to be less than $10,000, according to City Administrator Kerry Sampson. While the job classification study will be done for both city and TMU employees, the Green Hills Regional Planning Commission will be doing a wage, salary and benefit survey at no cost. Sampson said the benefit of the study and survey will provide classifications for all employees and a salary range from starting to top-end for each classification. It will help the utility and city determine if their wages and benefits are comparable to other entities the same size.
Also approved was the expenditure of $19,308 for a Itron Mobile Collector Lite System to allow the utility to read electric and water meters remotely with a hand-held device. Comptroller Rosetta Marsh said radio-read meters significantly reduce the amount of time needed to read meters. She said what would normally take eight to nine days for two meter readers to do manually could be completed by one meter reader in two days if all the meters were radio-read. The water department currently has 60 percent of its meters installed as radio-read, while the electric department is at 46 percent of radio-read meters. The utility currently budgets $75,000 per year for installing radio-read meters in the water department and $40,000 for the electric department.
In other business, Davis updated the board on issues with some older diesel-powered electric generation units at the power plant. Two of the units, which are 1950’s models, have repair issues and Davis said TMU staff has compared the cost of renovation versus the capacity credits the utility receives from the Missouri Public Energy Pool for having the generation capacity available. According to Davis, with new emission rules for electrical generation units coming from the Environmental Protection Agency in May of 2013, he feels it would not be cost-effective to put additional money into the units. Even without the two units in question, Davis said the utility still has enough generating capacity to provide electricity for the community in case of an emergency.
Davis told the board that work continues with the city and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to find the source of an odor in the area near Normal Street and Oklahoma Avenue. A stormwater drainage ditch runs through that area.
Also included in information to the board was a comparison of electric rates for a typical residential customer, which had been discussed at last month’s meeting. TMU’s rate of $144.22 per month compares favorably to five other electric providers which ranged from $148.61 to $163.08. The providers included other communities as well as cooperatives and investor-owned utility companies.
All votes taken at the meeting were 3-0 with Dr. David Ryan absent.
The board held an executive session for personnel following the meeting and announced this morning that Terry Larson, an employee in the electric production department, will receive a $1 per hour raise following the completion of required training classes. The next meeting of the board is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 23.