Albany Utility Authority set to resume suspended utility cut-offs

ALBANY — There’s a post-storm storm brewing with Albany’s Utility Board that may pale all of the utility’s several other recent issues by comparison.

As one of several customer service-friendly gestures in the wake of Jan. 2 and Jan. 22 storms that hit the region, city officials suspended utility cut-offs for customers who did not pay their bills on time.

That ends Wednesday.

“We’ve had several customers who have not paid their bills (since the storms hit the city),” City Manager Sharon Subadan, who also serves as general manager of the utility, said during a meeting of the board Thursday. “In March, we’re going to start sending out (past-due and cut-off) notices. We have to get back to business as usual.”

Subadan’s comments came at the end of a meeting during which city Finance Director Derrick Brown gave a mostly upbeat quarterly — and pre-storm — financial report. Noting that the seven utility departments had collectively held expenses down to 43 percent of budget over the first half of the fiscal year, Brown said the utilities authority is “positioned well” going into the third quarter.

“These are, I’ll remind you, pre-storm financials,” Brown said. “At the end of (2016), we were slated to roughly break even or even be at a slight loss, but we actually had about $3.6 million above our budgeted net assets. So we were ahead of target for the first six months of the fiscal year.

“But what we’re seeing now and what we expect to continue to see in the third and fourth quarters is that the weather has had — and will continue to have — a huge impact on our bottom line.”

Brown noted, for example, that the mild weather during the second quarter had benefited the utilities authority’s water department but had taken a bite out of the gas department.

“The water department is so far having a surprisingly good year, much better than anticipated,” he said. “Because of the mild weather, we’ve collected revenue at a 55.5 percent rate while holding expenses to 45 percent.

“But, because of the mild weather, especially in November and December, gas has been just the opposite. Customers have not used as much gas as anticipated (to heat their homes), and the price has gone up considerably. We’ve paid about a million dollars more for gas than we had at this point last year. And because the weather continues to be mild, I don’t expect the third quarter to turn things around.”

Brown said the utility’s solid waste and light departments had especially solid balance sheets.

Also at the meeting, the Utility Board voted to recommend to the Albany City Commission that that board approve a $133,099 contract with Environmental Testing Laboratories of Thomasville, which Central Services buyer Dale Henry told the board, had been providing “successful” lab services to the city for the past 10 years, and a $50,825 bid for 25 pump automation controllers from Power Connections Inc. of Dothan, Ala.

Utilities Operations Director Jimmy Norman said the pump controllers, which have a unit price of $2,033, will allow staff to monitor water levels from the utility’s control center. Norman said the Schweitzer brand controllers “come with a lifetime warranty, and if they fail they’re replaced at no cost.”

Subadan told the board the builder had assured her of a July moving date into the Utility Board’s new facilities at 401 Pine Ave. She said, “I’m excited about what this facility is going to be for our customers.”

Assistant City Manager Stephen Collier reminded the board that the failure of the authority’s “about 30-year-old phone system” had made installation of a new system necessary. Collier encouraged the board — and customers — to listen closely to prompts to avoid errors when calling the authority.