Utility Board approves project purchases

ALBANY — The Albany Utility Board meeting turned into something of a “shopping spree” Thursday morning as board members approved purchases of several items needed for ongoing projects.

The board OK’d lowest-responsible bids for:

— Removal of lead-based paint and application of new paint for the East Broad Avenue Underpass, $99,975;

— Purchase of 37,800 feet of 1/0 power cable, $62,105.40;

— Purchase of 97 35-foot aluminum light poles to complete a SPLOST-funded lighting project on Westover Boulevard from Gillionville Road to Oakridge Drive, $95,060;

The board also approved the purchase of a Ford pickup truck ($34,000) and a splitter trailer ($11,000) from the South Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority, with which the Utility Board is partnering to supply telecommunications opportunities in eight regional rural counties.

“(The pickup truck and trailer purchases) are in our capital budget,” Assistant City Manager for Utilities Stephen Collier told the board.

All of the purchases will be used for budgeted or SPLOST-funded projects.

New interim city Finance Director Derrick Brown gave his first financial report before the board and, as fate would have it, it was the utility’s most positive report in recent months.

“It’s probably coincidental that the best numbers we’ve seen in some time are coming in my first time of giving the report,” Brown joked.

But he noted that staff’s cost-cutting measures had kept expenses well below budget utilitywide. Solid waste, Brown noted, was “in the black” by $676,000 when the department had been budgeted to absorb a loss of around $700,000 seven months into the fiscal year.

“The path we’re on in the department is a good one,” he said. “When you look at where we are and where we were projected to be, that’s a more than million-dollar swing.”

Brown said the gas department had not “cash-flowed” as well as projected, primarily because the Marine Corps Logistics Base and MillerCoors had been projected as commercial customers but had been instead only “transfer customers.” But Collier noted that MCLB-Albany was set to come on as a commercial customer, and interim City Manager Tom Berry said MillerCoors was, too.

Mayor Dorothy Hubbard, the de facto chair of the Utility Board, asked for an update on the city/utility’s compressed natural gas project. Berry said the “transit piece” of the two-tiered project is moving along as expected and is some six to seven months from being operational.