Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee Meeting Transcript – 02/27/2019 Title: City of Austin Description: 24/7 Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 2/27/2019 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 2/27/2019 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [1:33:00 PM] >> Tovo: Good afternoon, I'm Kathie tovo. I chair this committee and we will get started as soon as we get a quorum of councilmembers. We're at four so we need two more to come down and join us. Thanks. [1:39:36 PM] >> Tovo: Okay. I am Kathie tovo. I chair the Austin energy committee. It is 1:37 and we are in the boards and commissions room and we now have a quorum, so thank you, we'll go ahead and get started. The first item on our agenda is to approve the minutes. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Councilmember pool moves approval. Is there a second? Councilmember alter seconds that motion. Any discussion? All those in favor? That is unanimous on the dais with councilmembers Casar, kitchen, mayor Adler and councilmembers Harper Madison and councilmember Flannigan off the dais. Okay. Citizens communicating. Sorry, my computer has shut down. If you have an opportunity to let me know who is up first, please. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Tovo: All right, thank you, welcome. >> Name is Alyssa lacy. I am with atlantic housing foundation. I was running the apartment computer here in south Austin, wurst springs apartments here for about the last four years. Atlantic housing foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 that provides affordable housing as our mission. Years ago when these properties were purchased, we purchased them under the mission of providing support services to the community, G.E.D. Classes, after school [1:41:37 PM] programs, college scholarships. We do counseling services, family counseling, summer school programs and so forth. Have been having some difficulties with obtaining the low income energy rebate with Austin energy because we're under safe harbor. We're not explicitly restricted through a Lura, through hud, and the program is just different. It's not recognized by the Austin tenant's council. It's not something that's recognized by haca. Neighborhood housing has agreed to add us to the list, but it's very far out on when that's going to go live. So we're just in this loophole November one wants to recognize what we're doing for the community to provide affordable housing because we adopt don't have a Lura from the hud. So I've carried information about the company itself. You can pull tax records. It is a hud mortgage. The rents are below the mfi which is what the tenant council requires. Haca also said that our rent prices are below what the fair market rents are for Travis county. And we've always operated our business that way. So Denise and I have been trying to work on something to see that the tax credit safe harbor looked at as an affordable housing provider, but we've just been going through a lot of loophole of okay, get on this list. Oh, no, that's just your individual units. That's not going to work. Now go to this place. Oh, I'm sorry, you don't have a Lara and you do not restrict your rents to where a 50% person pays X dollars, your 80% person pays this amount and now your market rent you can charge whatever. We charge everyone the same rent across the board. There is no market inflation for a market unit. Everyone has the same affordable rent across the [1:43:37 PM] board because that's our mission. So I'm just asking that some additional measures are taken to recognize this and change the way that the procedures are held because we are doing the right thing. And we should qualify for it. That's pretty much it. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. And I guess we probably need a little bit of informationma from our staff about why they're handling the applicants in that way. Where did you -- where is your development located? >> South Austin, right off I-35, slaughter, William cannon. >> Tovo: Mayor pro tem? >> Garza: We've been working with Mr. Art on this issue and it's kind of relevant to item 6. So I can wait then to ask some questions if that's appropriate. >> Tovo: That sounds great. >> Garza: Thanks for being here. >> Tovo: So I do note that we have seven people, possibly eight signed up for citizens communication. It's our practice just to take the first five. So I would ask any of you who are signed up for citizens communication, but are actually speaking on a topic that appears later in the agenda, if you would when I call your name hold your testimony to that piece of the agenda, that would be most appropriate. I'd like to call now senator Barrientos, who is signed up for citizens communications. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Tovo: Super. Thank you very much. Then our next speaker will be Moira mcdunna. Would you like to speak for this portion of the agenda -- >> I'd like to wait just out of consideration for your time. >> Tovo: Sure. So if you're speaking about an issue that's not on our agenda today, then this would be the appropriate time for you to talk. Are you talking about -- >> I don't think it's a good time to talk right now. >> Tovo: Fine. We'll leave that to you. [1:45:39 PM] >> >> Garza: Chair, may I ask a question? I know committees work differently. Can they sign up for agenda items as well, because someone said they couldn't. When they went to sign up it just said citizens communication. Do they have opportunity -- >> Tovo: They should have been able to sign up for individual items. And so we may need to revisit that for the next meeting. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Tovo: Thank you for that clarification. We'll try to get it sorted out for the next time. Councilmember? >> Pool: I think previously folks were able to so it may be a glitch for today, but staff needs to look at it to check it so we can take people up specific to the item that they wish to speak on and save the five spots at citizen communication for people who are talking on items that are not on the agenda. >> Garza: I think that's part of the problem is people -- yeah. I don't know if there's anyone on Austin energy that can go around and see if folks want to speak to specific items. >> Tovo: Here's what I'll do. I'll call out the people I have signed up for citizens communication and if any of you are interested in talking about items that are not on the agenda, if you would go ahead and speak now that would be the right time. Otherwise we'll call you up as we get to that point. The next person I have signed up is Roberto crone terrace. -- Contreras. [Indiscernible]. >> Rachel stone? And Mr. Pena. Would you like to talk about citizens communication during this period? >> Yes. You know, Kathie, I do that every time. >> Tovo: We're glad to have you. >> I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Good afternoon, my name is Gus Pena. I'm a proud United States Marine Corps veteran. I ran for council twice, justice of the peace, endorsed by the Austin police association. I ran for mayor. I wanted to let you know under the citizens communication portion, there are some employees from the [1:47:40 PM] Austin energy. I don't know how or where they get their information, but there's a lot of cuts, cut off in service. And at this time -- I appreciate one of your staff members about a month and a half ago there was a trailer truck parked over here on the east side that the owner had paid the electricity and they had cut off their service. Okay, then we'll get a little more personal. My nephew -- I'm staying at his place until my wife and I, we get our house through hud. The issue is that they disconnected his utilities also. So I'm seeing more and more flagrant disconnects, and it shouldn't occur. I don't know who is overseeing the billing or whatever, but I make sure that he pays his electricity. I pay it. So I'm seeing -- and there's children there. There's a three-year-old and a four-year-old. So that is a health hazard. So word to the wise -- I want to thank Debbie because she's been very helpful. Any time I need something, something happens like that, I go to her or somebody else, but I just think this is not a good situation. I was a bailiff with the city of Austin and I was with parks and recreation, and believe you me, I made sure that my employees were appropriate -- acted appropriately with the community and also helped them out instead of being detrimental or negative. So word to the wise, there's been too many illegal cutoffs of service. It is hampering and hurting the people, especially babies and children. So that's all I wanted to make sure. But other than that we have great employees, but I don't know who and how and where they received the cutoff notices and what their particular issue is about being erroneous. Y'all need to be very careful on that. Thank you very much. And I appreciate your time. >> Tovo: Thank you. Okay. I understand Mr. Johnson would also like to speak during this portion of the meeting. Welcome, Mr. Johnson. >> Good afternoon, [1:49:40 PM] councilmembers. -- Good afternoon, councilmembers, my name is Scott Johnson. For those of you who are newer or new to the council, on the utility bill there are three donation opportunities that citizens and businesses can take advantage as you've heard me say before. One of them is the customer assistance program, which is helping people in emergency situations they lose their job or lose their coverage or something like that. That has been on there in awhile. There's the utility newsletter that comes out now in your utility bill. Also there's the parks and library fund, which is something that I've worked on that raises money for it if children who can't go to summer camp otherwise. That's a third or part of that total goes to that. And one of the other parts of the total goes to library needs for electronic or online type services and adds to the budget for the library department. The other fund that's on the bill is one that's the energy assistance for public schools. That was put on my former councilmember that's not on the council anymore, and that one helps aid and the other school districts within Travis county pay for upgrades to energy efficiency. And that was brought forward by some pta folks. They have not stayed with the process so that fund is trending very, very low. It may be an opportunity for the council to talk about in future months and years to see if that one is one where there's enough support from the community to keep that on. There are other needs in the community so that's a tough conversation. One opportunity that does exist and I hope you will consider it knowing more about it is for you yourself to donate. If you do donate, then if you do it once per year upfront, there's less cost at Austin energy has to [1:51:41 PM] process those donations. So giving $24 a months helps, three dollars a month helps, but they have to process it. And also if you have a newsletter for your district, you can put it in your newsletter and tell your constituents that there's the fund, the capital metro customer assistance -- the cap customer assistance programs that helps assistance and funding on a one time basis, the park and library fund and also as I mentioned the energy efficiency fund. So please keep that in mind and I hope we can raise the level of these funds to a higher level to help community more. Thank you very much. >> Tovo: Thank you for raising attention to those issues and those opportunities to contribute. Next I don't believe we have anybody else who wants to talk during citizens communications. Am I right? Did I miss anybody? Okay. So we will now go to our directors, our general manager's report. Welcome, Ms. Sargent. >> Good afternoon, chair, committee members and welcome new councilmember to this utility oversight committee meeting. Today in addition to my general manager's report we'll have a briefing on our quarterly operations by our deputy general manager and chief operating officer. We'll have our quarterly financial report from our chief financial officer. And then from our vice-president of customer energy solutions, a briefing on weatherization and solar programs for our low income customers. Presentation. All right, thank you. Today my report will include a review of items that are going to be coming forward to you in the future for approval. I'll talk about a recent award that one of our educational programs has received as an innovation item. And then I want to recognize one of our groups of employees. [1:53:42 PM] So some upcoming items for council action, this will be for the March 28th council meeting. You will be asked to approve a power purchase agreement with pattern energy group. Through this agreement we will buy 170 megawatts of energy output from a wind generation facility and the reliability council of Texas south zone. This agreement had been previously scheduled for your March 7th agenda, but we are continuing to negotiate the details and we plan to have the best contractor agreement for council's approval later in month and so we'll bring it at that time. The estimated cost is approximately $12 million per year and will have a term not to exceed 20 years. This action will get us closetory achieving the renewable energy goals and the council approved resource generation and climate protection plan. And based on the market projections, the agreement will have a beneficial impact on our power supply adjustment. Also at this meeting we will seek authorization for funding of the extension options for our contract with gca services group to provide continued janitorial services. In 2017 city council authorized this contract for an initial two-year term with three one-year extension options with the requirement that Austin energy return for approval of funding for the extension options. So we are seeking this approval in an amount of $818,000 per year to ensure that we do not have any lapse in services. The next item is a five-year contract with clear result consulting to provide commercial and an industrial demand response services. Claire result will provide technical services required to operate and expand Austin energy's commercial and industrial demand response program for a total contract amount not to exceed $1.7 million. In 2018 over 500 customers participated in the demand response program which contributed approximately 32 megawatts to where Austin energy's council-approved [1:55:43 PM] demand response or demand site management goal of 50 megawatts. The contractor will work to grow the program through marketing, education, participant enrollment, customer system design and post- system reporting. The final two items that I have for you are not large items in terms of cost, but I'm mentioning them today due to the fact that they are ratifications of purchases that have already been made to address urgent needs in the area of reliability in a timely manner. The first is a contract amendment with Johnson controls for chiller maintenance in the amount of $32,500. This amendment will increase the contract authorization and allow Austin energy to pay the outstanding invoice for work previously performed on chillers at our district cooling plants. The second is a contract amendment with abb to replace obsolete equipment at the fiesta substation for an increase of about $26,000. The ratification amendment is necessary to complete an upgrade of the gas insulated switch gear control system at this substation. For this month's innovation update, I would like to highlight that Austin energy all stars program. This program educates sixth grade students, their parents and teachers on ways to be more energy conscious and to save money in their homes. The program is open to all Austin area middle schools. All stars program staff provided energy conservation curriculum to more than 6500 students in its first two years. Each student also received an all stars kit which included an led light bulb, a digital thermometer and a smart power strip. Earlier this month Austin energy received the consumer education award for the all stars program at the smart energy consumer collaboratives 2019 consumer symposium in New Orleans much the program was cited as an excellent example of how utilities can build more energy conscious communities. I would like to personally thank the council for supportinguch programs as [1:57:43 PM] these. They really do have an effect and they do make our community better, so thank you. And finally, I would like to provide a quick recap of another successful Austin energy science festival. Founded in 1956, the science festival celebrated its 63rd anniversary this year. The science festival is Austin energy's largest sponsored annual community event, helping to promote science, technology, engineering, and math education. A total of 2,662 students entered 2,283 science projects in the Austin energy regional science festival. These students came from 244 schools, representing 22 central Texas school districts, as well as several private, charter, and home schools. First through third grade -- first through third place category winners will advance to the Texas science and engineering fair that will be held in college Station in late March. And six best of fair projects will advance to the science and engineering fair to be held mid mid-may in Phoenix, Arizona. You can visit the website for a list of all our sponsors. We greatly acknowledge support from underwriters, 3M, Intel foundation, synopsis, and thermofisher scientific. We thank Ms. Tovo for speaking at the awards ceremony, more than 675 judges and 251 volunteers who made this event possible. I'd like to ask any Austin energy staff who assisted with the science fest to please stand and be recognized. [Applause] And that concludes my report, so I'm open to any questions you may have, or I will ask Mr. Dickerson [1:59:45 PM] to come up. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. And thank you to all of Austin energy's staff who participated in the science fair, regional science fair really is impressive when you walk around and look at the projects, it really is so exciting to see students who are learning science by -- with a project-based approach. I mean, it's really the way to engage students in science, math, and sneering subjects. So I would really encourage -- I notice not all of our schools are participating in the regional science fair, encouraging their students to do it, and I think it's a really worthwhile program, so thank you. >> It's also humbling. >> Tovo: It is. There are pretty intelligent projects. I had a quick question for you, Ms. Sargent, I don't know if my colleagues do as well, but would you remind us of the date the janitorial contract is coming forward? >> March 28th. >> Tovo: March 28th? And you said that's one year with -- what is the propose -- >> In 2017, it was approved for -- the contract amount was approved or the appropriations, and we were asked to come back for each of the one-year extensions. So we're at that point now where we're coming back and asking for those one-year extensions. >> Tovo: Okay. Very good. And I think we had a discussion about this relatively recently, about the fact that we have that work group who has convened and is working on making some policy recommendations to the rest of council, and so we will -- I think we were aware that this one was coming up, and I just want to let my colleagues know that we did meet as a work group on -- in February, early February, our staff met at the end of January to start reviewing some of the material, and they also met again last week, and we are scheduled to meet again as kind of a council staff work group on March 25th. So we're still hopeful at getting some of those recommendations back to council in a timely way. Any other questions for our general manager? [2:01:46 PM] Okay. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Tovo: And so just to clarify, we're going to move on to the reports from staff, and then we'll hit the items where I think we have community members who would like to engage us on those topics. Since we're posted for citizens communications but we're delaying, the way I regard this is that we're delaying some of those individuals who signed up for citizens communications and sort of spreading them throughout the agenda, since that's the way we're posted today. We're just taking citizens communication slightly later in the agenda, at the point where it's relevant to the topic. >> There you go. Good afternoon, madam chair, members of council. I'm Charles Dickerson, chief operating officer for Austin energy. I'm going to be providing the operational update. I'll wait for it to come up on the screen. You can go to -- I guess I control it; right? I'm going to talk to you will about basically three principal areas. One is safety. The other one is performance, and the other one is future state. But under the performance, we're going to talk about our carbon footprint a little bit and give you some updates on the on-site energy resources. So as always, safety starts with me. If any one particular item -- and I should be held accountable to many, but the one that I hold myself most accountable for is the safety and our performance related to same. I think we all know that the provision of electricity is a very dangerous business, but extremely manageable if we follow the right steps. So my number one mantra is to operate safely. Our general tag line, safety starts with me because each person is accountable for their own safety. Having said that, I'm not particularly happy with the [2:03:46 PM] chart that I have in front of you. Quarter over quarter the first three items has gone up, the total hours worked is good, but the number of near misses have almost increased. Near misses increasing is good because what we use near misses for is a way of employees self-reporting when an accident almost happened that didn't happen. And historically in the utility industry, people tend to not want to report those because they think they're going to get in trouble, even though an accident didn't happen. Under the general manager Sargent's leadership, we've fostered a culture where people feel safe about reporting the near misses. The value is people can learn from the near misses, and if a similar situation happens, they can avoid an accident. I was out at one of our power plants a couple months ago when the team reported a near miss. Not only did they report it, they took the steps themselves to fix it so that nothing else would happen, so that's a good story. Unfortunately, total injuries are up. This same period last year, we had 16. Now we have 24. And total vehicle accidents are up this same period. Last year, we had 14. Now we have 24. We are seeing a reduction in terms of the rate of accidents in our more hazardous areas. While the total number is up for this quarter, the numbers in the more risky areas are not rising as fast as they have historically, so we're continuing to work to bring those down. Any questions before I move off of this slide? Okay. >> Tovo: Oh, I had one. >> Yes. >> Tovo: It seems like that's a pretty big increase in total vehicle accidents. Do you have any explanation for why that might be? >> None that I'm proud of. Some of these -- of us hitting fixed objects, backing into objects, and we're looking at instituting policies that will require people to back into spaces [2:05:46 PM] so they can pull out, pull through spaces when they can, be more attentive to what they're doing. One thing we definitely require is that there's two people in a crew or a truck. And you need to back up, one needs to get out and back the other one in. As we start doing more of that, we'll see these go down. >> Tovo: Great. Thanks. Councilmember Casar. >> Casar: Oh, and thank you for highlighting this issue and for this continuing to be highlighted in our regular reports. I trust and expect that if there are things that council can do, and from a leadership perspective here, we can do to address the injuries, if they continue to go up or stay high, just let us know as soon as you can because I think it is a priority of everybody on the dais, just like it's been a priority for you. >> I appreciate that very much, councilmember. >> Tovo: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the nature of the injuries, so there's been an increase, but there's also been this increase in vehicle accidents. Is it -- is it safety issues having to do with vehicles that's causing the total injury to go up, or is it sort of on the job, interacting with the equipment, where we're seeing more is? -- More injuries?>> On the job can be misleading. With electric service delivery crews out on the street, restoring infrastructure, on the job for them is the moment they arrive to work, get in the trucks and start moving around. Some of these happened on the road. One was non-preventable where somebody ran into our trucks but we still record it anyway. Depending on the severity of the accident, it also can show up as osha reportable. >> Alter: I'm just trying to understand if the total injury increase and the total vehicle accident numbers are correlated or if it's -- you know, the injuries are -- >> No, they're not. >> Alter: -- On the job, like from where they started, but where they're [2:07:47 PM] actually interfacing with the electrical -- >> No, they're not reported. One of the things we're having teams look at are time of day issues, so we're finding we have more injuries right after lunch. Some of these injuries maybe soft tissue injuries where a lot of the men and women are moving heavy equipment. If they're sitting still for a while and didn't warm up, they can get a soft tissue injury so we're looking at what to do to prevent this. >> Alter: Okay. Is there a threshold to be recorded as an injury or is there -- >> The moment someone has to receive medical attention, it has to be recorded. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. >> Ellis: I had a brief question. I notice that the employee count is relatively the same but the number of hours is considerably higher. Do you know what the break down of part-time, full- time, or overtime, or whether those might play into these safety issues? >> I do not have that break down, but generally the increase in hours has to do with working storm restoration, outage restoration and things of that nature. >> Ellis: Thank you. >> So let's talk about something that's frightening to your question or comment, councilmember Casar. I want you all to stare at this picture just for a moment. What this picture is, this is a picture of some contractors installing some Google fiber. They were not working for Austin energy and they were trying to install FBI cable from one landing point to another. And if you can see the bottom of this picture, you'll see that this is in the middle of a field, but it's actually touching some open wires carrying power. That's also a steel ladder. The gentleman thought it was wise to do that. He climbed on it, felt a tingle, jumped off the ladder, went home. The amount of current that precipitated from this contact was such that it destroyed some of our [2:09:47 PM] equipment. We had some equipment damage. When our safety people arrived on the scene, this gentleman's supervisor let him leave without medical attention. We subsequently found out he wasn't severely harmed, but just think about, someone thought it was wise to put a steel wire on currently conducting cable in the middle of a field, and even if the cables had no current in it, you wouldn't lean the ladder up against the wire because he could have fallen and broke something. So our challenges is with the public, to keep people informed and making them the dangers of electricity if they're not managing it properly. Yes, councilmember pool. >> Pool: I just want to ask a question. You say he was there to install FBI? >> Yes. >> Pool: So was he a contractor -- >> He wasn't a contractor working on behalf of Austin energy, I think he was working on behalf of Google. >> Pool: Right. That's what I was wanting to know, what company he was -- did anybody talk with Google? >> Our safety people are talking with them as well to make certain they're talking to their contractors about safety practices. >> Pool: Okay. I have a hard time believing if they knew about this, they would think that was okay. >> Yes. >> Pool: And I'm not a professional in this area, but I know you're not supposed to do that. >> At least two people, because not only the guy doing it, but his supervisor who was there, allowed it to happen, so it's pretty scary. I guess the broader, probably, safety measures is for people working in their homes near cables and want to put a ladder up to fix something on their roof, we're constantly challenged, trying to make the public aware of the dangers of electricity if this is not properly handled. So let's talk about performance. It's a little bit of an odd chart, but this first chart is availability of generating units. You'll see some lower numbers this quarter as opposed to the same period last quarter, that's principally because of some planned outages, and our [2:11:50 PM] south Texas project, stp unit as well, but we fully expect those units will be up and running and ready for summertime operation. The reason it's important those units are available because we know we sell that energy from those units into the ercot market. That energy does not go to our citizens and customers, we sell it into the market and use the proceeds from those sales to offset the costs that our customers incur for using electricity. So having those units up and available is important, and we historically have had very good success. All units go through planned outages, so at some point it's going to be down, but we're fine with these stats right now. Next slide is net generation and load analysis, and I won't go through every single piece of the slide. I would turn your attention to the upper right-hand corner. You'll see that we consume slightly more energy, our customers slightly more energy than we generated. Of the amount of energy that we consumed, we have contracts or own assets of renewables in the neighborhood of around about 37%. Obviously, that number is going to go up significantly when we start closing down some of our traditional cold base units. Our system reliability continues to be amongst the best in the country. It's in the top 10%, top decile, significantly good numbers there. This is individual average customers, and average duration, we're well below the target. Sadie is system number, which doesn't mean much to people outside the industry, safety stands for frequency. Not only are the duration of outages going down but the time it takes us to respond to outages and respond to service continues to go down, which is a good thing. Next slide is renewal [2:13:51 PM] generation, it's a percentage of load, and you'll see that it's picking up. There was a dip there in 20 -- September of '18, end of the year, and it'll continue to pick up. Even if we do nothing but shut down our carbon plants, this number will go up. We continue to look for opportunities to sign more and more renewable contracts so we can increase the percentage of renewables we have in our fleet. The only thing different on this next slide is that we continue to make progress on our district cooling plant number 3. We have the foundation piers completed, slab work has gun, and we're doing electric ducts to pour cable so we can power the plant. Other than that, district plant 3, our thermal plants are all on track to be completed by the dates shown at the bottom. This may be music to some's ears, many's ears, we're continuing in our path with the decker retirement. Re- -- we've meton numerous occasions to let them know what our intentions are. We're putting together comprehensive plans with our internal hr groups and members of the plant to locate what we can do to get people there trained to help people understand where the skill sets are now, help them do career assessments on what they may want to do once the plant closes, and we've put together a full process to structurally and methodically close the plant and have as few people as possible affected by closing the plant. Future focus as I said when I first reported you a few months ago, I generally like to use this as my report card when I report to you. [2:15:52 PM] I'm very open to you holding me accountable for anything that's not green. So upgrades continue to be green from a schedule perspective. We're giving ourselves still an amber with employment, I think it could be green but until it's done, we have the broadest citywide effort, we've made a lot of progress helping other city departments and Austin energy jointly look at ways to streamline the process so people can do their small cell deployment. We used to require people to power the devices from the near substation, we're allowing them to power closer to where they want to install the technology. We continue our customer reliability assessments. As you saw in in a few slides prior, that continues to be good. Our community, we continue in downtown work, substation work and conversions from lower transmission level equipment to higher transmission level equipment. What that does is allows us to send energy over longer distances, more efficiently, so that's going real well. Environmentally, I'm going to continue to leave that red until we get our first plant closure, so even though we're making progress, I don't want to move it off the red so we can keep our foot on the pedal, and as I said earlier, we continue to look for ways to expand our renewable portfolio, green there. We're doing real well on most aspects of grid modernization with the shines project. This I'm holding at amber, other places there's opportunities we had that we haven't availed ourselves of fully, and my engineering teams are working to get those done, like automatic switching, so if we have a fault in one neighborhood, instead of 500 people out, the equipment will isolate, maybe only have a hundred people out and we can send [2:17:53 PM] trucks to get them back in. That concludes my report. Now what's your questions? >> Tovo: Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Thanks for this, Mr. Dickerson. I was just curious, do you have any focus yet on actual dates for decker lake? >> You mean the power plant itself? >> Pool: Yes. Retirement dates for those units. >> Yes. 2020 and 2021. >> Pool: Okay. So sometime next year and the year after. >> At the end of both those years. >> Pool: Like December 2020 and 2021? >> Yes will. ? -- >> Pool: Thank you. >> Casar: For small cell employment, you're referring to deployment of small cells for the FBI -- in the last legislative session, against a bill that reduced the amount of fees we've been able to take in to cover the cost of deployment and, frankly, really depress the price of city real estate to put these on, but what I'm curious about, you know, on the money side, we were against it, it's horrible and a travesty, but they won. But the question I have for you is another part of the bill that we were worried about was these very arbitrary, rapid timelines for permitting where, by right, those small cells had to get put up within a certain amount of time, regardless of whether the city agreed to it or not. And I'm just curious, I've asked terra staff how it was going, but I'm not as aware of how it's going with Austin energy. If you don't have a report back on this, that's okay, but I was curious now or a later date to understand whether this is straining Austin energy to have to meet these really happened deadlines for getting the telecommunications companies equipment you be on our real estate. >> Straining is a unique word. We've been working with [2:19:54 PM] telecommunications companies to let them know what's more realistic. I think some of the hurdles, from just a certification standpoint, have been some of the requirements that Austin energy had had on where these things needed to be powered. The general manager and I challenged the staff to see is this natural -- is this necessary? The engineers went back and said, no, they can do it differently. So it varies, what's necessary to get these up and running. I tent not to look at small cell as Austin energy versus the rest of the city because the people trying to put it up look at the city as a whole, so it's a collaborative effort with multiple departments, trying to work through a lot of those issues. >> Casar: And we have a certain amount of staff I imagine, dedicated to the deployment process. >> Well, Austin energy doesn't have staff other than one lone senior member to small cell. Small cell is just a subset of any other type of attachment, so we have engineers and planners and schedulers looking at it in whole, but as it rates specifically to small cell, we have engineers looking at that, are there things that we can do, and we've had some progress. >> Casar: Got it. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Tovo: I had a few questions for you. Back on page 7, I just wanted to be sure I understood. So there were several forms of power that seemed to be operating at lower than their target percentage. One was decker, the steam unit 2, fayette, unit 2, south Texas unit 1. Did I hear you say those were planned outages? >> Planned outages. >> Tovo: Those were all three planned outages? Okay. Thank you. Then on page 13 -- >> Although, in full disclosure, the stp started as a plan. We did run into an issue there that extended it by a few days, but it began as a planned outage. >> Tovo: Okay. But part of that was unplanned -- >> A few days because we identified something along the way, yes. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. Did we get a memo about [2:21:54 PM] that? We often do about south Texas. >> I'll talk to my vice president of production and find out. I don't know if we sent a memo or not. I'll find out. >> Tovo: Okay. Thanks. On page 13 -- with you remind me, where is the 3,000ton chiller capacity going? >> Oh. I don't know, downtown, off the top of my head, I can't remember exactly, but that's in our downtown section. I'll get that answer for you. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. There had been a poem to put it on the convention center and I wasn't sure if this was one and the same, if the proposal is still integrated into the convention center or whether this is something else. So if you could just get back on that, that had be great. >> We'll follow up. >> Tovo: With regard to 14, thank you for the information about the transition plans that you're collaborating with the staff, the current staff on. Can you give us a sense of how many employees are at decker? >> I knew I had that number written down. >> Tovo: Sorry. How about just follow up on that too. I was interested in knowing, how many employees are currently there, how many do you anticipate being -- do you plan on working with all of them to be employed elsewhere in the system, and if so, where. >> So there's two groups of staff that's going to be impacted. One who works at the plant proper, which are operators, then there's a group of staff that we call the engineering group, which they provide service to decker and some other areas within the production group. We fully expect that 37 of the people in the engineering group may be impacted. And I believe -- and I'll get you the exact number, somewhere around 25 may be impacted. There are more people there but some are eligible for retirement, some have expressed they want to leave, so we try to minimize the people impacted as much as possible. Eyelet you numbers. >> Tovo: When you say they're impacted, if they're not in the group eligible for retirement and they have not indicated to you that they intend to leave, if you could give us some sense of [2:23:55 PM] what the universe of individuals who might not be employed elsewhere within Austin energy is going to -- >> That's what I mean by impacted. By impacted, we mean once we close that particular unit down or close those two units down, and there's no longer the same need for the complement of individuals, if they haven't found jobs someplace else, that's the number of people that could be impacted. >> Tovo: So by impacted, we mean -- >> Would be displaced. >> Tovo: Not employed by the city of Austin. Okay. Thank you for following up on that information. >> Okay. >> Tovo: Then on page 16, I would just note -- and maybe this is something we could be -- we can include within a briefing in the future. With regard to the automated metering, one thing that I think would be interesting to know is how -- how closely you're coordinating with Austin water, with the Austin water utility on their automated metering pieces. So, again, we don't need to talk about it now -- >> I can answer it for you now if you like. We're not coordinating specifically with them. I think they are starting to have a dialogue around looking at their meters being replaced. These meters are just electric meters replacements. >> Tovo: As both of our utilities sort of move in that direction, that seems like a natural area where we want to see a little bit more coordination between those two. And I think, generally, you know, as I think about the work that we have before us with regard to Austin water and Austin energy, I think we need to continue to try to find opportunities to talk about the two together. You know, we talked about this a little bit within our water forward plan, that, you know, we really need to talk about water use when it comes to power generation and energy use when it comes to water, our water utility, so I hope -- this seems to me, again, another opportunity to talk about that coordination. >> Okay. >> Tovo: So thank you. Any other questions? Okay. So we'll move on to our financial report. [2:26:07 PM] >> Good afternoon, I'm mark, chief financial officer for Austin energy and I'll be presenting the first quarter financial results, which the first quarter ended in December 31 of 2018. Just as a reminder, if information I'm presenting you, much of it is unaudited. When it does become audited, we post it on the city website under the comprehensive financial review. We are hoping that the fy '18 numbers are available starting in March, next month. So as previously done, I follow a standard format for the briefing here, and you'll see the agenda for this afternoon's briefing. So Austin energy, we're generally compliant with all of our financial policies and financial metrics. Offering revenues are slightly higher than budget, while our expenses are out of -- outpacing a forecast. Our first quarter operating results are back-stopped against a liquid and capitalized balance sheet. In addition to the quarterly financial update presented to you, the benefits charge, which ties into the presentation that the vice president will be giving, I'll let you know how that works and what it pays for. So we have 22 financial policies that could be separated into debt, reserve, and operating. And those policies are adopted to each budget, and we meet those financial policies with the exception of the fully funded capital reserve. We're about 15 to 20 million short. That reserve is expected to be fully funded by 2020. In 2018, we were not in compliance with the power supply reserve, but we've been able to meet compliance with that this year. And despite the short fall,nergy is liquid and has 219 days' catch on hand, which is above the 150-day minimum that we target. [2:28:11 PM] Austin energy reports on four financial metrics and we meet or exceed all except for the operating margins. This is not unexpected since most of our costs are relatively flat, the majority of our revenue occurs later in the year during summer months. The operating margins should have been improved but will most likely not meet the 10% minimum until the third or fourth quarter of the year. >> Tovo: Councilmember alter, then I think we'll let him go through his whole presentation. >> Alter: Okay. I just wanted to dive in a little bit more on the operating -- are you going through that? Thank you. >> Austin energy has an affordability goal that has two metrics. The first seeks to maintain average rates at or below 2% annual pound growth. That began in October 12th, we met that metric. Second one as I presented to you was maintain our average system rate and honor all of Texas, serving residential and industrial customers. We've updated the data and we're 105% so slightly higher than the average, so we are not in full compliance with that. So comparing ourselves to budget here, our first quarter operating revenues were 321 million, which is about two and a half million above our budget or .8%. The majority of the increase was associated with power supply revenue, which was 11 million higher than we had forecasted and has to do with higher power supply costs in the market. Bill-based revenues came in 3% below and that's about 5 million lower, due mainly to milder weather during the first quarter. Our operating expenses for the first quarter were 293 million, or about 8% over budget. [2:30:12 PM] About half of that was due to those higher power supply expenses. The remaining variance in power production and customer care. And those related more to timing, so we signed those contracts, we recognized those as suspended funds earlier in the years, and through the course of the year, timing will take care of that and we shouldn't be too concerned about those overages this time of year. This is our budget-based fund summary. I've already spoken about increase in operating expenses due to the magnitude of those expenses on the budget and operating income is degraded, this is carried to the bottom line where revenues are deficient by about 20 million compared to budget. We also show you where we were last year. Actual revenue is greater than the prior year due to the power supply costs and increase in operating crosses of 12 million in power supply. Given those adjustments for power supply, we're about where we were last year in terms of revenue. Our actual budget analysis, our first quarter energy sales, we sold about 3,000 giga watt hours, that's below our budget, about 1.4 percent, that's due to milder weather. So when people use less energy, we collect revenue in base rates since it's based upon their consumption. Measured expect or non-power supply revenues mirror that, and so through the first quarter we're about 6 million below budget or about 3% for the year. This graph compares our actual power supply costs to the budgeted power supply costs and how the psa revenues recover that. So for the first three months, you can see the [2:32:12 PM] power supply costs exceeded budget by about $11 million, as shown in the contrast between the yellow and gray bars, the first and second bars there. The blue line represents the power supply adjustment revenue, which is what our customers pay, which recovers those power supply costs in the yellow bars. And at the beginning of the year, we were over-recovered by about $35 million, so we purposely set that power supply adjustment at a rate to recover less than the cost. And as you can see, we've been successful, since that blue line is less than the yellow bar. Through the first quarter, Austin energy has bassed back 13 million of the recovery, and that pass-back was accelerated due to those higher power supply costs in the market that we sell. So for capital improvement plan for fiscal year '19 is 500 -- excuse me -- $252 million, and to date we've spent about 40 million or about 16% of the budget, which is -- on exact percentage, we should be about 25%. But we don't always spend, literally through the course of the year, usually during the summertimes we'll spend much more during the construction season. Our distribution, joint projects and substations are on pace. We don't usually spend that entire cip plan, especially earlier in the year, so we'll continue to monitor this. The pie chart on the left illustrates how we pay for that capital plan. We use cash, debt in the form of commercial paper, and contributions in construction, which are direct payment from customers to the utility to the work. And when we use cash or contributions, that depreciation from those projects returns to Austin energy as cash and we use that to reinvest into our capital plan. [2:34:18 PM] This chart displace all the components of the power supply adjustment cost except for the over- and undercollected amount. As I stated earlier, there's about $5 million of overcollection early in the year. So the cost to meet our retail consumers' needs was about $474 million, so that's what the consumers would have spent if we had just bought the power on the market. But we operate our own generation fleet and hedging activities. So the revenues from our own assets generated $168 million while the costs associated with our contracted societies was about $112 million. And we have green choice and value of solar, which are retail products that produce another $22 million, and those are offset by bilateral and hedging agreements by 9 million. The result is, at the end of the day, our customers paid $386 million for that 12-month period, versus the 474, or benefit of about $88 million. This chart does not include the fixed costs associated with power generation, over here in general administrative costs. Those costs are recovered in base rates. Up to this point, we presented our numbers to you in budgetary accounting. We also prepare financial reports using generally accepted accounting principles, or gap. The next two slides are the numbers in gap. This one is a snapshot of balance sheet to the left and cash reserves on the right. We continue to strengthen our balance sheet. Our cash balances increased to $417 million, while long-term assets increased by 228 million. Mostly due to deferred, post-retirement benefits, depreciation and capital reserve. Our long-term liabilities increased also due to what we call opeb, while they [2:36:19 PM] increased in deferred inflows, $28 million, our pension liability increased by $15 million. Result, equity increased by $35 million. Note against that cash, we do have claims of about $103 million. 43 million of that is over collections, so that over collection, we had power supply, plus overcollections in the cap program. Then we have $60 million of deferred fuel costs from fayette and stp, which we are returning to our customers, psa. The graph on the right shows where that working capital and reserves lie, so it's a total of 693 million, versus a minimum of 474. 417 million is recorded in cash. 105 million is in the power supply reserve. 103 million in the contingency reserve. And 68 million associated with the capital reserves, or quoted as capital assets. And we have $275 million of commercial paper availability, and through the quarter, we had issued 233 million. We expect to be issuing revenue bonds this summer to refund that outstanding commercial paper. Next is our gap financial statement. The comparative statement and necessary position are -- balance sheet is on the left, and it provides some greater detail but it's the same numbers I just presented to you. Income statement on the right in yellow provides a comparison of the rolling 12 months between '17 and '18. And you can see our net income increased by 35 million in base revenues. And $12 million in power production costs. That interplay between non- power supply expense and other revenues attributed to the new stp decommissioning study and overfunding based on the prior study. Average number of customers increased by 10,900, or 2.2% [2:38:21 PM] increase, while our energy sales only increased by 13 gigawatts or .4% and that's been a pretty consistent pattern we've seen in the last few years. So next I want to talk about the community benefits charge, which ties into the prevention that you'll hear from vice president Debbie Kimberly. So the community benefits charge consists of three components. The first is service area lighting, which are street lights and certain park lights. Energy efficiency services, which covers rebates, weatherization, solar incentives, the green building program. And our customer assistance program, which did our cap program, bill discounts for customers in need. Now, as a public utility, Austin energy has the ability to promote rate stability with what we call passthrough rates. It's a group of government accounting standards boards which gives us certain privileges, to recover costs in a different period than when those costs are incurred. There's rules around this regutory accounting and we're diligent in compliance, while managing to provide our customers with stable bills. We have three passthrough rates, the power supply adjustment, the regulatory charge, and the community benefits charge. So this slide here shows which customers pay the community benefits charge. So customers outside the city do not pay for service area lighting. The charges for that are billed directly to the cities like Westlake and pflugerville and bee cave. Cap customers do not pay the cap charges or the fixed -- or the customer charge. And the contract customers do not pay for street area lights or energy efficient charges. Also note that those contract customers, the large industrials, are also [2:40:22 PM] not eligible for energy efficiency rebates as well. And for numbers folks, I have all the current rates here from our terra schedule from each of those rates customers pay, inside and outside city. And finally, we put together a typical bill for a residential non-cap customer in the city of Austin, using 860-kilowatt hours in a month. The total is about $5.25, about 6% of their total bill. Of that, about 55% is energy efficiency or about $2.88. 25% of that is the cap component, or about a buck 32. And the service area lighting is about 20% at just over a dollar. So of the bill, it's the smallest component there. Overall, it's been pretty stable. This graph reflects the rates of the community benefits charge components for residential customers inside the city of Austin that -- we first started this charge in 2013 after the rate review there. And it's ranged from 55 cents to 67 cents pier kilowatt hour. The components have increased or decreased primarily due to that over and undercollection I talked about from regulatory accounting earlier. Finally, each component is a separate rate, so this chart here shows you, so that first bar, the Orange bar, is the revenue that we collect from the customers to pay for the the second bar, or yellow bar, which is our expenses. In a perfect world, if forecast and programs spent all their money those two [2:42:22 PM] bars will be equal, but they're not, so that generates the third bar, the black bar, which is the over or undercollection that we adjust for as we change rates. So this is our service area lighting, in which we have a slight undercollection at this period. The customer assistance program has remained flat until 2019 due to the overcollection from 2013 when the rate was implemented. But the program is actually delayed in implementation while we got customers on board for this. And we purposely delayed adjusting that rate to ensure the program had matured, in that we were an to forecast our customers' needs with greater certainty. As a result, we were able to reduce that cap rate in the last budget cycle. This funds a portion of the weatherization program, the cap weatherization program. Funds come from this program. And finally, as the energies efficiency services, so this rate was increased in 2014, and then reduced in 2016, and then lowered again in 2017 as a result of the over-recovery. The rate has increased in '19 to a level that should support the cost, barring any significant change in program needs. And the weatherization Pam is one of several programs that's funned with these energy efficiency service revenues out of this program. So that gives you a background on how we fund those services that you'll hear next from Debbie Kimberly. So do you have any questions? >> Tovo: Thank you. I'm going to recognize councilmember alter first because you had asked a question earlier that I'm not sure if it got answered. >> Alter: Yeah. I just wanted to dive in a little bit more with the operating margins, so one of the dashboards had us on -- I think it was page 9, in the red, for operating [2:44:25 PM] margins, is that -- if I understood you correctly, that's simply a function of where we are in the time of the year and how the expenses and revenues play out over the course of the year, given demand and those things? >> Right. We have a consistent rate now throughout the course of the year. So we are less reliant in summer months, but still, that's when the majority of the revenue for the utility comes in, although our expenses, like our labor and other things are consistent through the year, they're flat. So we have much more expenses in that first quarter than we have revenue recognized. And so this is a typical pattern for Austin energy. Now, if we have a very mild summer, we may end the year at a margin less than 10% because those revenues forecasted don't arrive. If we have a hot summer, we may then overearn, and we'll cut more in revenues. >> Alter: So if we did the same exercise on an annual basis, where would we be on the chart? >> Last year we finished at 10.4%, I believe is the number, if I remember correctly. >> Alter: Okay, so we're still not meeting that, but we're close. >> Yes. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. >> Casar: I recall, I think it was a couple of budgets ago, we ended up clearing any wait list or backlog of people that we had budget for, are we still in that position where everybody who confuse for help is getting that help? >> I don't know about that program, but I believe you're correct that we no longer have a wait list, that any cap customer eligible has been placed on that program. >> Casar: And do we have any sense about -- I recognize that we reduced that rate, which is good to have less people paying, if we're helping everybody we need to help, but do we have any sense that there are people who need the help that would otherwise qualify for the pep, but just aren't enrolled in the programs that we auto-enroll people into? Do we know if that is an [2:46:25 PM] issue? >> I don't know about that specific question. I know there's adequate funding to meet the customer needs to the customers that are on that, what we forecast in that. I think your question is broader, which is does that program meet all customer -- low income customers and I don't have the answer to that. >> Casar: I think that it's been a, you know, important effort for this to have gotten started, important for us to have calibrated the rate for everybody who needs it, which is great. Seems that's matured to the point we can actually lower what people pay, which is good, but it seems to me, at that point, that's a good moment to check to see, okay, if we're doing this part well, are there people we're missing and is there --anything we can do to find anybody that's missing. I'd like to commend over the last four years of being on the dais, of getting to here, and it seems like a good moment to check and say, is there anybody falling through the cracks and should we do anything about that? I'm not saying I suspect there are lots of people who are, it just seems like once we have gotten this part of the house in order, it's a good time to see if there are other people who need help. >> Perhaps our general manner who runs that program can follow up with you. >> Casar: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Is the community benefit charge the only source of revenue for those three programs? The service area lighting, energy finishes, and customer assistance? >> There are, as members of the community spoke earlier, there are some voluntary payments we receive from customers, the plus one funds, there's some other -- customers may voluntarily put under invoice and make payment that go to those programs, but in terms of a tariff that we collect, these are the only funds that we collect from a tariff that go to those programs. >> Garza: So they receive no other revenue from any other -- >> That's correct. And as a passthrough, we can only use those funds for those purposes, that's part of the accounting rule, and as long as we expect to [2:48:28 PM] expend those funds in the future on those programs, we will -- it's okay to have that as an overcollection. It's when we don't think they will expend them, for example, we held the community benefits charge for a number of years. Once that program is matured, we felt that we had the right funding needed, we were able to reduce that and give those monies back to our customers. >> Garza: And so on slides 29 through 32, 29 is, I guess, a different perspective on the way that it's presented in 30, 31, and 32. Do you -- do you have -- I mean, could you provide information on how much, total, is collected for the community benefits charge, and then how much with all the three programs -- because you have them kind of like separately here. >> Sure. I could add them together for you. We really -- although it's all called a community benefits charge, the three of those, we do really operate those as three distinct and separate funds. >> Garza: Okay. >> So add them together really doesn't give you a good picture. You really have to look at what those individual programs are that's funded with those tariffs. >> Garza: Okay. And who -- was that -- was that a council decision to allocate the 50 -- you know, the 25% to cap -- you mentioned the percentages that go to each -- >> For these, it's really dependent on those program requirements, so as the programs mature, we add goals or customers to these programs. For example, we added management -- those things change the funding needs, and depending on the forecast, what we -- the amount of energy we expect to sell, that determines the rate, and so that determines the amount of the percentage of the bill. So as we make changes to those programs, we'll see a change in those rates. >> Garza: And so when there's surpluses like cap, for example, is that just [2:50:28 PM] put back into the program for the following year? >> Right. So those -- it's considered cash and it sits there either till we use it for that program or till we return it back to the customer via a rate reduction. >> Garza: Okay. So what do we normally do? >> One of the things we try to do is provide rate stability so we don't change rates drastically each year. And if we anticipate that we will have a need for those funds in the future, we will hang onto them. That prevents us from having to drop rates this year and turn around and increase rates next year to meet those program needs. With the cap, we have gone several years. The program matured, we cleared the wait list of the customers waiting to get on cap, so we are pretty comfortable that the rate was correct and that we had enough funds to operate. >> Garza: Okay. >> So then is when we reduced it. An example is, we were undercollected on a regulatory charge for the first three years, and when the power supply adjustment was able to get reduced, we were able to increase that regulatory charge and collect that back from our customers, but their actual bill did not really change because one went down and the other one went up. That's the rate stability I was referring to. >> Garza: And then any, like, shortage -- I'm sorry -- any surplus, you said they kind of operate separately. >> Yes. >> Garza: Do we ever, like, use a surplus in one to -- you said there was a wait list for cap so did we ever use surpluses in one to move over here to help cap people waiting on the wait list? >> No. You know, we collect the revenue for a specific purpose, so that's what it's used for, if it's not used for that purpose, then we return it back to the customer through undercollection, but account got rules don't allow us to collect it for street lights and use it for cap, or vice versa. >> Garza: All right. Thanks. >> Tovo: I have a quick question on page 12, please. [2:52:32 PM] And it also relates to the community benefit charge. I think you may have addressed this when you went through this slide, but if you could just talk about why the actual revenues were less than the budget. Was that just a factor of time? >> Okay. So the bill-based revenue, like I said, it's a rate times consumption or kilowatt hours, and we had milder weather in the first quarter of the year, so customers used less than we had forecasted, so we didn't earn a revenue. The power supply was slightly over budget, and that's because we saw higher prices in the market than we had forecasted. >> Tovo: Got it. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions about this section of the agenda? All right. Then I think we will move on to what is our last topic for the day, and that is the low-income weatherization and solar programs. And I think all of our remaining speakers had wanted to address this topic, in particular. So I would suggest that we hear from our staff and have our staff report, and then I'll invite those who wanted to talk about this within that and had signed up prior to the meeting to address the council. Welcome, Ms. Kimberly. >> Thank you. My name is Debbie Kimberly. I'm the vice president of customer energy solutions and corporate communications. And it's really my pleasure to present to you an overview of what we're doing in terms of our low-income programs. Not just in terms of weatherization but also solar. >> Tovo: So your light is on but I'm having trouble hearing you. I don't know if -- might. >> How about if I move it closer. >> Tovo: That's better. >> Okay. Wave at me if you can't hear me. Today I'm going to talk about three programs. What we do in support of our low-income customers. First is the single-family weatherization program. Second, the multifamily weatherization program. And third, the programs that we offer are solar programs, solar customers. I also want to refer you to [2:54:33 PM] the booklet that you should all have in front of you. This is a booklet that we prepare annually that provides an overview of all of the programs that we offer, all of Austin energy's residential and commercial customers. So please peruse that, and in the back you'll find an appendix that provides a historic overview of the number of customers that we've reached, and I'll talk a little bit about just the last year. But before I do, let me try to frame this question for you. Austin energy is recognized as being among the most Progressive utilities in the country. Over the course of the last 30 years, we have effected improvements in over 94,000 customer dwellings. They were either weatherized or they were rated by our Austin energy green building program, which was the forerunner of the U.S. Green building council. Here to date, we've weatherized over 18,000, almost 19,000 single-family homes, over 68,000 apartment units, just since 1991, and over 7200 S.M.A.R.T. Housing units, and smart stands for safe, reasonablably priced, transit oriented. We know there are obstacles for low-income customers to take advantage of solar because they may rent, they lack the up-front capital to install solar, they may have a roof that's not suited for solar, so what we've done is provide enhanced incentives for affordable housing communities and nonprofits in the form of enhanced rebates and incentives, and as well, we've added low income customers to our community solar program and shared solar program over the last year. I'll cover that in the last part of my presentation. And then beyond that, it's not just weatherization and it's not just solar programs, we do a number of other things that direct-install lighting and other products and services in customers' homes. We provide discounts at over [2:56:35 PM] 61 retail locations throughout our service territory where customers don't have to clip a coupon, we buy down the cost of those products so they get a sale discount. We can't do this alone. We partner with other city departments and other individuals and organizations within the community. So how did we do just last fiscal year? So you've heard some recent results from Charles and from mark about the first quarter, but for fiscal year ending in September of 2018, we weatherized over 800 low-income homes. Looking at this chart, moving clockwise around the chart, we also weatherized over 1500 affordable apartment units, and provided L.E.D.S to those customers in those apartment units, as well as water- saving devices, again, in partnership with Austin water. We provided 15,000 homes with L.E.D. Lighting. At those 61 retail locations that I mentioned, we provided discounts on 300,000 products. The green building group rated almost 300 S.M.A.R.T. Housing units and the graphic on the far left bottom of this chart shows how we spent our residential rebate budget last fiscal year. That budget totaled roughly $8 million, and again, it's recovered in the cvc and the ees tariff that mark spoke to. You can see that a significant portion of that, over half is directed at hard-to-reach markets. Hard to reach are customers that are hard to reach because they rent. That can be small commercial customers as well. They are low- income customers. They require the approval of a landlord to be able to adopt measures. And you can see we've done very well in terms of how we've allocated our budget money. So over 50% has been spent on low income and hard-to-reach markets. [2:58:36 PM] This was a product of a council resolution, and I'm happy to say we've met all of those targets that include how we go about budgeting for our demands side management, our dsm programs, how we go about budgeting for solar and the like. So hard to reach. Hard to reach is a function of renting. Right? And in the case of Austin energy customers, we're the flip of what you would see for other utilities. Over 60% of Austin energy residential customers rent. For most utilities, you're looking at a ratio of about 40%. So trying to get to those customers is especially difficult. And the reason for our success, in addition to a phenomenal staff, I might add, are the community partners that we work with. We partner with 60 agencies throughout the community, and those include organizations such as meals on wheels, habitat for humanity, goodwill. We have events at various retail locations. We've significantly, just within the last year, increased our outreach to neighborhood organizations and faith-based groups. We have one individual that spends at lst three days a week in the field dealing with churches and other faith-based communities, as well as neighborhood organizations. How do we go about messaging those customers? I know in the past, you may have been asked a question about what we do in terms of marketing, and it is a multipronged effort. Certainly we utilize Austin utilities now, which is the monthly newsletter. We one print, digital, radio ads, bus phrase, payment center dispraise. We also call our customers before we reach out to them for the weatherization program. Hopefully some of you have seen our news releases about the increased scam activity that we've seen in our service territory. [3:00:36 PM] We try to call customers three times to tell them that they will be receiving a legitimate letter from Austin energy offering them a free weatherization opportunity for their residence. And this has been pretty successful. We've been able to use down time in the call center staff, they placed calls on weekends in the hopes of catching working customers that are home on the weekend but not there during the weekday. At the recommendation of the low-income consumer advisory task force, which convened throughout 2015, we've utilized a third-party resource, the Austin tenants council list, as a means by which to determine that a property is, in fact, affordable and has committed to be affordable for the long term. We refer to properties that are on our E cad or energy conservation and disclosure list and promote those programs, the weatherization programs, and we conduct our E cad outreach. Jackie mentioned the education kits. I'm not used to using props. This is the kit that garnered the award from the smart energy consumer collaborative that we've distributed to school districts throughout our service territory targeting sixth grade students, and we conduct multiple events over the course of the year. I wanted to give you a bit of an overview of how the weatherization program works. So if you look at this schematic, it looks like a funnel. This is just based on the cap program, and so mark talked about the customer assistance program. There are actually two weatherization programs that customers can utilize, for single-family properties, duplexes, fourplexes, and this just looks at cap customers. So we have 34,000 cap customers, roughly. No customers on the waiting list. Those customers are eligible for insulation, weather-stripping, ceiling, duct repair, solar screens, and lighting. [3:02:36 PM] So if you will, just follow with me down through the schematic. You can see that's the population of the cap base, and the combined funding for those two programs annually has been $2.3 million over the last couple of years. A number of those properties drop out, however. And the biggest driver of ineligibility are multifamily and mobile homes. So that's over 20,000 homes are ineligible. Homes that have been weatherized in the last ten years, in other words, we've done our work, the measures are still valid, they haven't expired, that amounts to about 2,000. Some homes are newer and so they've been built to newer code standards, and, thus, don't have as much of the need, shouldn't have. And then we have provisions that govern the square footage limits and improvement value, not on the land but on the property improvement value. So by the time you get down to the bottom of this funnel, you're looking at about 9,000 eligible customers. As I mentioned, we attempt to reach out to these customers in multiple means, but what we find is that customers move, the landlord will not allow us access to weatherize the property. A challenge in addition to the high rental rates is the fact that we have very low vacancy rates. And so the landlords, unfortunately, don't see a need to undertake improvements at the property. Some customers have said they don't want their home to be weatherized. Some customers don't complete the basic program requirements to enroll in the program. But I can tell you that we've seen a real improvement just over the last couple of years by having, in the last two years, roughly 800 homes a year weatherized. We are looking at piloting some changes beginning this spring in the program. We would like to include a pilot to include mobile homes. Some of you, in your [3:04:36 PM] districts, have several mobile home communities. We believe we can accomplish weatherization at scale with those communities. We estimate there's anywhere from 7 to 9,000 mobile homes within our service territory. We're also looking at increasing the square footage limit a bit, as well as the home improvement value limit a bit, because we continue to see increases in home improvement -- or home values within our service territory. So as you saw in the previous slides, one of the primary drivers of ineligibility for the weatherization program is because customers increasingly are living in multifamily properties. And here again, we structured a program that has been in place for a number of years that offers duct, ceiling, insulation, solar screens, and lighting. We have a standard program which we've offered for a number of years which applies to four units or more, and contiguous units. And on those properties, we rebate up to 80% of the installed cost of the property. In our current fiscal year, the budget for that program is slightly in excess of half a million dollars. We also launched a couple of years ago a low-income proof of concept program. This, again, was an outcome of the low-income consumer advisory task force, where we looked at trying to get to properties that were home to customers that were at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines and a significant number of customers. So we launched this program. You heard reference to it earlier this afternoon. What we've done is use the Austin tenants council as the guide to being an affordable property, and to put this in sharper focus, one of the concerns that that consumer task force appointed by council had was [3:06:38 PM] that we would go in and weatherize, at full cost, a property that had a small number of customers that either were on housing vouchers or in the cap program. And that, they felt, would not be an appropriate use of the funds. That body stipulated that if 30% of the residents were deemed low income, then that should be the recipient of the hundred percent rebate, as opposed to the 80% rebate. I want to digress for a moment here and speak to the matter that was brought before you earlier. We did have a property, waters at bluff springs, came to us in the first part of the year. It was not listed in the Austin tenants council. And as such, it would not qualify for our program. It fell into a gray area. We said, you are qualified for a $140,000 rebate, or an 80% rebate, based on your eligibility, unless you can provide documentation, other documentation that we believe we could use as a basis by which we could deem your property affordable for the longer term. Because at the time, based on research that was provided, we had, at the time, one tenant that was receiving a housing voucher out of, I believe, roughly 300 units. I'm happy to report that we went back to the property manager, who I'm pleased is here today, and she provided us on Monday and again tomorrow, additional documentation that we believe will qualify this property for the low-income proof of concept program. We've tried to be as diligent as possible while remaining flexible, but acknowledging that if we start making exceptions to the program rules, we run the risk of not serving the [3:08:38 PM] customers who most need the service. I'm also happy to report that the standard rebate program has been the recipient of several awards from the American council for an energy efficient economy and received the thought leader award in 2017 from public utilities forthnightly. You'll see so the notice we require these properties be E cad compliant and they not be on the repeat offenders list for code violations. And why is that? We are very concerned if there are safety issues at the property. And on several occasions, we've had to call in Texas gas because we found gas leaks. That's the right thing to do. Charles spoke at length about our commitment to safety, and it doesn't stop with our employees. It stops as well with our customers. So let me talk about the low income weatherization program. This is the single-family program, and the map you see here is a map of our service territory. And all of the blue dots, which represent the density of our low-income activities, demonstrate what we've done over roughly the past 20 or 30 years. So the larger the dot, the more homes have been weatherized. They generally tend to concentrate along the I-35 corridor and run north and south, and then out to the east. So that's the standard program for generally single-family residences. This map plots only the proof of concept program that was launched about 18 months ago, and this plots all of the properties that have been weatherized at 100% rebate for low income, multifamily weatherization customers. This chart represents all of the S.M.A.R.T. Housing ratings that have been received, courtesy of the Austin energy green building program, and you will note a few of them fall slightly outside our service territory, so I would observe that whisper valley, [3:10:41 PM] for example, served at least in the first development by bluebonnet, has all been rated by Austin energy green building. The pink light bulbs on this map represent all of the summer savings campaign events that we did last summer. I'm pleased to note that we will do that again this summer. We will start it even earlier in mid-may and we will run it through September. So this is where we went out in the community, reached out to customers. We were pleased to have a couple of you or your staffs join us at some of those outreach events. We had great attendance and we got great feedback from our customers. This was not just my staff. It include Austin water, it it -- it included folks from safety, and reps who were able to pull up customer bills and provide real-time information. And we had events for the family members who joined as well. This excludes the 190 special events that we held last fiscal year that reached all of our customers. >> Tovo: I hate to interrupt you, I just want to have a quick time check. We have about 15 minutes' worth of individuals who want to address us, and I know the council members themselves have questions, so we probably will need to move rather quickly through this so that we have time for the solar briefing as well. >> Message delivered. >> Tovo: Thank you. >> Retail partnerships are shown on this map, then when you combine them all, this is what you see in terms of the total penetration of our programs. So now let me turn quickly to solar incentives for affordable housing. All of our nonprofits including affordable housing providers are eligible for the performance- based incentive that's based over the, could of the ten-year time frame. They are eligible for higher incentives. As well as affordable housing, they receive rebates as well that are 50% higher than the rebates received for other commercial properties, up to $2,500 per unit. [3:12:41 PM] In fiscal 2018 -- and I know we have a representative here today from foundation communities, we had representation, we had participation from foundation, as well as Guadalupe and neighborhood development corporation. We launched our shared solar pilot this past year. There are three properties that are included in that right now. You see one of them shown here, the la vista property with gndc. 177 customers are benefiting from this program, but right now, it is done manually. Our billing system, just like the billing system of any other utility, is complex, so even though they started receiving the value of solar credit in November, staff has been manually billing all of these customers since November. We are hopeful that -- excuse me -- that we'll go live with billing on an automated basis in the spring of 2019, and frankly, we'd like six -- our billing people would like 12 months -- six months of experience before making this available to all affordable housing properties, and then followed by all multifamily properties, perhaps a year later. Community solar, I think we've talked to you quite a bit about that, so I won't dwell on it. Suffice it to say, we've got 220 cap participants that started saving money from day one because they received a one and a half cent discount on the community solar tariff which makes it less than the psa, and half of that from the outset was reserved for cap customers and we're looking at reserving capacity from future community solar installations for our low-income customers. So this, I hope, paints a very direct picture for you. We have over 7,000 customers who live in homes that have rooftop solar. But another 3,000 low-income customers have benefited from ae solar incentives, either because they live in a multifamily complex that has received these enhanced rebates, they are the beneficiary of shared solar, [3:14:42 PM] or they're receiving the community solar discount. So 30% of the 10,000 residential customers who benefit from Austin energy's residential solar program are low-income customers. And I would wager that that is something that many other utilities would find enviable. So in summary, we lead the industry in terms of the weatherization programs we offer. We've improved 94,000 customer residences. We have 437,000 residential customers, so that's about 20% of our residential customers. We supplement all of those programs with other programs. As I say, our solar customers touch not only those that can afford it, that own their home, but those who can't, we continually look for ways to improve upon our partnerships. We can't do it alone. I would encourage you to look at the monthly, the quarterly, and the annual reports that are available at the link here, and I really thank you for your time and attention. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. I'm going to propose that we go right to our speakers and then I'm sure that we'll have questions for Ms. Kimberly, and I would also suggest that this might be a topic we should revisit next month because our time for conversing among ourselves is going to be a little limited here today. So, let's see, Moore macdona, we'll start with you, and you'll be followed with Roberto Contreras? Is he here? I don't believe he was when I called earlier. Then kaiba, you'll be next. >> Well, I really planned on donating my time to Elisa, and maybe there's some more questions. All I know is that this has been going on for five months now, with Elisa, in trying to -- trying to go through the program, and I almost recommend at this point that Austin energy, [3:16:44 PM] Elisa, and maybe mayor pro tem or somebody, third party sitting in a room, and perhaps get this resolved, one way or the other, because it seems like it's -- obviously, for five months, the can has been kicked down the road time after time. Request has been made of Elisa. She'd make the request, like the hacka list, she got on the hacka list, then saying there's one voucher when she has 23 voucher holders. I mean, dadgum, just in the recommendations of the low income task force is 30% that either are cap customers or voucher holders. 25% of the complex are cap customers, with another 23 voucher holders. So there we are. But anyway, I don't know, Elisa, if you want to say a few things. I would like to say one thing, just going over the financials -- and y'all have this information right in front of you on the budget savings report for the first four months or this fiscal year, in 2017, the multifamily program did 1.75 million. In expenditures for the program. Last year, it was a 73% decline, 2018, of 472,000. If you look, for fiscal year to date, the multifamily program is at $89,000. If you compare that to 2017, it should be at about 600,000 in expenditures for the program. So we're on track to do 267,000, which is a little more -- little more than half -- less than half for [3:18:45 PM] 2017. And single-family weatherization isn't much better. The budget amount is 2.3 million -- I'm not wearing my glasses -- and $90,000 has been spent to date. So just ask for y'all's guidance in these programs. >> Tovo: Thank you, sir. Thanks for joining us today. Kaiba? >> Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I want to talk specifically about he goes pending access to on-site solar and -- oh, kaiba white, public citizen and solar Austin -- expending access to on-site solar and improving the equity of those programs. And I've been in to speak with some of you personally and would like to speak with the rest of you. I don't think that it's the Austin energy -- is not doing their job, by and large as they have been directed thus far; however, I do think that there's much more need and much more opportunity in the community to utilize on-site solar to reduce customer bills. And this doesn't mean that there aren't other opportunities for utility solar and community solar, I think those are important as well. However, there's a much greater opportunity to have a direct impact on customer bills, and I can attest with on- site solar, and I can attest to that because I was able to invest in solar on my home, and at least before I got my electric vehicle, my bill was around $11 a month. I'm not the person who needs that most in this city, and so I would like to see these programs expanded so that those who are at lower income levels and those living in multifamily housing can also benefit from the programs. So that's really what we're asking for, is to not have, you know, just kind of one style of program, which we've had thus far, which [3:20:47 PM] has maybe been property in the past, but isn't now. What we need is the full implementation of shared solar. By full implementation, I do think that needs to include commercial and residential accounts so there being be sharing between the two of them, but also a way for customers to overcome the barrier to capital that up front investment is a major hindrance for any low-income customer, and definitely any renter as well, because the landlord is unlikely to want to invest their money in something that is going to benefit the tenant and not their own bottom line. So what we're asking for is for Austin energy to develop some new programming, some sort of -- on-bill repayment program would be ideal, as well as some sort of utility-contracted or utility--owned program similar to what San Antonio's CPS energy has done with the solar host program. I understand that there are some low-income customers who have benefited thus far and that's wonderful. It's largely thanks to foundation communities, and they have been a real leader in solar and especially in this area of serving low-income customers. If you look at the number here, 2,691, which is 83%, they're benefiting by nature of those commercial accounts having solar foundation communities. I'm guessing that all -- or most if not all of those are foundation communities. [Buzzer sounding] So I'm looking for solutions that will more directly benefit the customer's bill. Thank you. >> Tovo: Thank you. Rachel stone. And you are our last speaker unless I've overlooked someone. And if so, just signal me. >> Hi. Thank you. I'm Rachel stone. I'm the assistant executive terror of Guadalupe neighborhood development corporation. I'm on the executive committee of the Austin housing coalition and I'm on the board of solar Austin, so I get to think about affordable housing and [3:22:47 PM] energy overlap all the time. Gmbc was one of the lucky recipients of the shared solar pilot program. It was key to helping us do solar. It allowed for the -- you know, us to do one array that could be shared by our residents, and I know the building has been difficult for Austin energy, and they are hand-billing it, which we appreciate, you know, the work that they've put into that. But I just want to highlight that, you know, people who get to live in Austin's subsidized affordable housing are not representative of low- income people in Austin. People living in affordable housing are paying rents they can afford and people that are not living in capital a affordable housing, which is most low-income families in this city, are living in apartment buildings mostly that they are paying high rent that they can't afford and are energy- burdened and rent-burdened. And we want to see these kinds of programs be available to all low- income people and not just the people that get to live in these communities and properties. I just want to encourage, once the billing is figured out, I hear the six-month ask that it be tested, but there's really no reason to only keep these programs available to capital a affordable housing properties. There are low income tenants all over the city, renters that need access to -- that should have access to solar, and renters at large should have access to solar. So I'd like to see this program opened generally to multifamily dwellers, not just the capital a affordable housing. And I want to highlight what kaiba said, that similarly, renters across the city, low-income families, should be able to have access to solar that is, you know -- it helps them overcome the barriers to financing. We are seeing -- you know, Austin energy is very Progressive, but there are a lot of Progressive models throughout the state. [3:24:48 PM] San Antonio, there are a lot of cool programs going on in some of our co-ops, assistance for financing with solar where the utility is helping with up front costs and the customer is able to pay it back over time. There are lots of unique programs, we just want to see Austin energy pushing forward. Shared solar is a great start. There's lots of different ways these programs can be implemented to help customers overcome the barriers that are being tested nationally, and we want to see our utility be up there with the rest of them that are trying to go after these low-income customers in as many ways as possible to reach the most customers. So thank you. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. Mayor pro tem Garza, did you have a question? >> Garza: Not so much a question, I guess I wanted to comment on the waters at bluff springs, just to close the loop on that issue. I'm happy to hear there's going to be some resolution to that. But after meeting with the manager of the property, we -- at the end of that meeting, we understood that they were in the process of trying to get on a list that was acceptable to Austin energy, so we were waiting to hear back to see if they got on that list, which they did. And then we knew this meeting was coming up, so we were, you know, trying to see what the progress was at that point. I appreciate that -- that there are rules and that, you know, our low-income task force has provided some input on who or how we accept these things, but I would -- I guess I would push back on the characterization that -- of making exceptions to rules and how we do that. I think you could also characterize that as being flexible in the programs that we provide to our most vulnerable population. And so if Austin energy is going to take the position, we're going to rely on third parties for verification, we're not going to take any accountability, there needs to be flexibility on how -- on who and the different kinds of programs, because, [3:26:49 PM] obviously, there are different affordability things, there's different ways people can qualify, and and for the city to be putting these hurdles up is concerning to me. So I don't know what the context was before the task force that -- I don't know if I'm saying the right thing, but -- or saying the right name, I don't know what the context was and why they only decided to use the Austin tenants council list. I don't know what the discussion was there. , But obviously, this property is one that should qualify for this rebate at the 100%, and whatever policy, maybe it's a future agenda item that I can ask to be put on the agenda next time, that we can lead on to make sure we have that flexibility in these programs because, you know, one could say, our amnesty program is an exception to the rule. Technically that person walked in the courtroom, they could be arrested, but our municipal court does a great job of saying we're going to put a little flexibility in here because we know that some of these -- some populations have difficulties meeting these certain requirements that we set on them, and wee don't want to -- we don't want to be in a position where we're making it harder for our most vulnerable. >> Tovo: Thank you. Councilmember scar. >> Casar: I have a couple of comments and questions, but I'm going to reserve this time to really second what the mayor pro tem said. I think, and I recognize that our task force and our community members want limited dollars to really help low-income people, and that's why I really want to make sure that those dollars go to low-income folks. I think what has happened is, we have then weatherized fewer places and that has justified a smaller budget, [3:28:49 PM] and so instead of these rules protecting limited dollars, it's actually created the adverse effect of us creating a smaller budget. And that's, I don't think, what anybody meant to happen. And while I'm a huge fan of the Austin tenants council and appreciative of their list, I think Ms. Stone made a really good point, primarily what is on this list is income-restricted housing where people are going to have benefit of lower rents usually because of government intervention, but the housing that isn't income restricted, not on the affordable housing list, where low-income people are living and paying not 30% of their income, but 40, 50, and 60, of their income on rent, is where, I think, we need the weatherization the most because that's where we can bring those -- where we can help people -- help people out more. So I think we should be weatherizing our income restricted affordable housing, but non-income restricted affordable housing people may need it even I understand there has been a concern of whether we do a weatherization, is that going to boost folks' rents but we've looked at the data and I think it's been presented multiple times and thankfully that hasn't played out and I don't think that gentrification is going to be driven so much by being weatherized, there's obviously much larger forces at play and I'd be really open to a conversation and happy to work with you chair, vice chair and mayor pro tem to figure out how to be much more flexible so that -- because I think we generally know where low-income housing in the city is, we should generally be able to identify it and go in and weatherize as much as we can so we are hitting budget and able to expand that budget rather than our rules sometimes getting in our own way and that ultimately restricting the amount that we do. Because, you know, it's not to stereotype but generally you can drive around and take a look and have a sense of, well, this apartment complex is going to go 30% low-income or more just by [3:30:51 PM] talking to people who live there and knowing neighborhoods. I'd rather us be much more swift and nimble and flexible in our rules to weatherize a lot more places. I've got questions and comments as it relates to solar -- >> Tovo: Let me say I'm going to add that to next month's agenda and we'll make sure that we actually have time to talk about that criteria. >> Casar: I have two other points but I'll yield for now. >> Tovo: You're welcome to go on and hit them if you want to. >> Casar: Great. Is it true that we are going to move to weatherizing mobile homes? Is that something that's already in process? That's great if the answer is yes, I just wanted to make sure that -- >> Yes. >> Casar: Great. I imagine that there were rules to not do that before because they're seen as more temporary but we see lots of people living in there a really long time. As far as solar could somebody from nearing tell us sort of if we wanted to take the next step to help more low-income folks reduce their bills with solar, what is the most effective way that we can help get that done? In Austin energy's view if we were to do the next thing to not just do solar but reduce people who need its bills with it, what's the next step. >> There's several things we're doing. We've got a couple community solar installations in the pipeline that as I mentioned we look to allocate 50% of the capacity of those installations. I didn't mention it, but you'll recall the generation resource plan as last amended includes looking at a study for solar hosting. You heard the San Antonio model mentioned by Ms. Stone. We worked and retained the university of Texas under an agreement we have with them to look at the best practices. That will be held -- that will be done this summer. In addition this summer we will be getting input from the low-income community and other stakeholders on the types of programs they would like to see as it relates to solar. So those are some of the things that we're looking at doing, if that's responsive to your question, [3:32:57 PM] councilmember. >> Tovo: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. I, too, look forward to having this discussion again next month. I had some conversations back in January with some contractors, specifically about this project and suggested they get in touch with mayor pro tem Garza. From those conversation it's seems like it's a little broader issue and that there are opportunities for contractors to be doing this work in facilities that serve low-income residents and so I think it would be good to definitely better understand how we can restructure things. So if you guys are going to work on that, I would be interested in. . . >> Tovo: [Off mic] Since we had limited time for real discussion about this element of our agenda and I think there's a lot of interest in it and it's been requested multiple times through the -- in recent history, I would suggest that we just have this on next month's agenda, maybe not as much for council briefing but -- as much for a briefing, as much as for question and answer and that will allow us to take in some additional input between now and then. I know I got an email from the apartment association who wants to be involved with the discussion about community solar, and we have some other things to talk about with regard that to issue. The other issue I think is related to this is the one, councilmember Casar, you just mentioned. At the time that we -- our practice is to collect information about how those rents -- whether rents have changed at all in complexes that have received energy efficiency assistance through our multi-family program. And that was in particular in response to the change where we had once -- we had once subsidized at 100% and started doing 90% and there was a concern and I actually brought forward a resolution to provide some level of [3:34:59 PM] restriction about not increasing rent beyond a reasonable means. And those complexes and I think the compromise was that we would collect that data and look at it. I think it's time to take a look at that as a council. And I know our staff provide us with, I believe, quarterly reports on that. That might be another good topic to look at, to take a look as a council at those reports and see whether there's been an impact on rent in those complexes where we're not providing 100% subsidy, we're providing 90%, and make sure that it's not impacting the residents who live there for the reasons you suggested. We sure don't want to drive rents up by -- after having them participate in our multi-family energy efficiency programs. Anything else that people want to add to next month's agenda? >> Garza: Is the low-income, is that a task force that meets every month? No? It was just a one-time? Okay. I was wondering if we could get more minus. Okay, thanks. >> Tovo: We can certainly reach out. I know many of us are in touch with people who served on it so we can reach out and get some context around that point. >> [Off mic] >> Tovo: Great, you'ding a great warehouse on that topic and we can all maybe take a look at the report again. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: I'm wondering, we don't have an oversight committee for Austin water and it seems like there would be similar opportunities or issues with Austin water and I don't know if we could think about having them provide some information about how they're working with low-income properties for water savings and other issues of that nature. >> Tovo: Sure. Were you suggesting that might work in next month's agenda as well? >> Alter: Yes. >> Tovo: If there's time? Okay. All right. Very good. Okay. Seeing no other business before us, we stand adjourned at 3:35. Thank you all and thanks to the community members who attended. [ Adjourned ]