Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee Meeting Transcript – 06/01/2020 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 6/1/2020 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 6/1/2020 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [2:04:17 PM] >> I would like to call this meet of the Austin energy oversight committee to order. 2:03 P.M. Let's start with approval of minutes. Council member pool move as approval is there a second? >> Second. >> I'm not clear who that was. Council member kitchen? >> Kitchen: Thank you. >> All in favor? >> Aye. Council member kitchen, pool. Rent Tria, alter and I voted as well, so that passes as well. Next is our general manager report. Miss sergeant. Good afternoon committee member, vice chair and members of the [2:05:17 PM] oversight committee I'm Jacquie sergeant Austin energy general manager. In addition to the general manager's report today, depny general manager mark Dombrowski will present the second quarter financial briefing and deputy general manager and chief operating officer Charles Dickerson will present the second quarter operations reading and decker wokplace update. Next slide. I wanted to start with an update of the plus 1 assistant program. On April 9th tee coupe sill passed an ordinance to ensure customers experiencing hardship due to covid-19 will get immediate utility bill relief. Plus one financial support program helps all residential customers who are having financial difficulties and are unable to pay their utility bills due to unexpected [2:06:20 PM] emergencies. All residential customers can easily apply for help with their utilities bills at www.austinhealth.com. The additional one program also allowed Austin energy to apply payments to 3200 residential customers for a comment of approximately $897,000 is utility bill relief. In just over a month, we have provided more assistance in any other month during the history of this program. So far this fiscal year 2.9 million dollar has been provided for utility bill relief. We accomplished this through the new website and working closely with 56 non-profit session service partners throughout throughout the commit. We're proud of the program and enhancements made to assist cussers that need help at this [2:07:20 PM] time. Deputy genmark mark Dombrowski will cover the details in the next program. Next, our team received a award for the sustain ability award. Recognizing customers for excellence in water stewardship including those using new and existing technologies in innovative sustainable waste in companies making significant trieds. Austin energy partnered with evoqua. And also improved energy efficiency by approximately 15 percent. The new filtration system provides for about 50 percent water savings versus other media filtration technologies which translates into 4 point 5 million gallons of water saved [2:08:25 PM] percent year. Next slide. Please. Finally, I have one more announcement regarding the Austin energy executive team. I am pleased to announce that miss Tammy cooper has accepted the position as Austin energy's vice president of regulatory affairs in corporate communications. Tammy has extensive experience in the electric utility industry, most recently serving as general council and corporate secretary at Texas reliability entity, where she lead the legal communications and training departments. Please join me in welcoming Tammy as today is her first day with Austin energy. I was also like to thank Sheryl mealy for coming back and serving as interim vice president for the ef past several months. Her asset has been an asset to everyones he Pressly during unprecedented times W. That, I'll pause and happy to answer any questions you may have. >> Tovo: Thank you very much [2:09:27 PM] general manager and welcome Tammy cooper. Thanks for being with us here today. Does anyone have any questions, council member alter? >> Atler: Thank you. I wanted to ask a question about the utility bill relief. In the Austin water oversight committee there were challenges getting relief for folks living in multi family buildings. I under that the infrastructure is different for electricity and for water, but can you speak to anything you know about whether you're able to reach the multi family folks through this relief or not and what obstacles there may be still to over come. >> In our multi family installations we have those that are master metered so there's one meter and the property owner manages the collection of costs through the rents of the people that live in those premises. [2:10:27 PM] But we have a number of multi family facilities that have individual meters for each unit and those cases we can make those funds for utility bills assistance available to them, because they are actual city utility customers or Austin energy customers, so they have an account that you can then apply the funding to. When it's master metered, it's looked at and viewed different. >> Is there either any steps that we could take if the landlord if we could assure the landlord would pass the savings on to the tenants to allow in certain Dirks for that multi family master meter situation to benefit from this type of program? Lap lap. >> If I may, do you want to [2:11:29 PM] address that that one? This is Jerry. >> I was going to have you or Elaine. >> Oh, Elaine can take it as well. >> Elaine? >> So, I'm sorry, I got a little side tracked. So, for the are we talking about for the water or for the electric? ? >> I think I have an understanding that it's not -- I like it to be for both. But my understanding Austin water was already looking at it for us with respect to water. So, I was asking about it from that perspective. >> I don't have an update on water. I believe they mentioned it in the overnight committee meeting that they were looking at some other utilities. To see how those programs were being administered. [2:12:29 PM] I think the challenges, and if I heard your question correctly, about if we could be sure that those are passed along. It would have to occur outside of the utility bills, so, if the discount happened and it was given to the landlord, how would we have proof or any insight or any information, if that was passed along, and what about situations where maybe it's -- I think there's some questions, that if that complex is not all low income, how do we make sure that the right residents get the benefit. So, it's -- there's a lot of challenges wrapped up and ensuring a discount gets to the users in the multi family. We may not - - lap lap. [2:13:29 PM] >> -- Some affordable housing complexes that have -- do they have master meters or do they have them spread out that we might be able to target some relief specifically to buildings that we know are low income? I mean, for instance, do they have to have master meters or do they have individual meters? >> I don't unfortunately know the answer to that. I don't -- I'm -- different properties may be different depending on when they were constructed. So, I think we would have to look into that further. And then see if water has been thought in a bet ware to administer the program. >> So, this is -- thanks for raising that council member alter. I didn't have the opportunity to hear the water oversight committee but I know this issue has come up multiple times in the past and was the subject of a council resolution, probably [2:14:31 PM] six or seven years ago, to look at whether there were options to address this, and I would ask our Austin energy staff to talk with us and see what alternatives out there, but if we might begin by asking those staff to look back at the memo that was provided after the resolution and see, you know, whether there are any -- whether there are any changes that have been made with regard to the technology that would allow us to do this. I know -- Ashley Richardson on my staff. Shannon and holly have both looked that this in the past, too. So it seems like we could find a way. But it is challenging. And in answer to the question you raised council member alter, I think we have some examples probably of some affordable housing developments that are master metered, but I'll need to check with my staff to verify [2:15:35 PM] that. Even if we that V to -- we may have to do something different over the long term but even in the short run, during this covid time, if we could target some of those property, I think to the extent that there's funding available. And I know it looks like the numbers slightly different for water and electric, water it looked like we were not on track for the amount that we might have expected per month at the time we looked at it. I just think that that might be important [2:18:07 PM] relief that we could offer. >> We certainly will reach out to our peers over at Austin water and look into it, and see what they have. Also, we'll look back at resolution in the direction of council and review that as well and we'll follow up. >> Are there any other questions for general manager? I want to thank you for making -- really taking that resolution and working hard to find ways to provide that relief to our customers, to our rate payers, this is really, I'm sure, very, very welcome assistance in our community need them. Thank you very much. That is -- let me underscore, that is one of the benefits that our rate payers in response to the needs and changing needs to the customers, thank you for being such a good strong leader up front. >> I appreciate the work of our team, too. It was a team effort. >> So, we move on to the next segment, is the next segment Mr. Dombrowski's? >> Yes. >> Good afternoon, this is mark Dombrowski, cfo for Austin energy, I'm going to present to you the results for our second quarter fiscal year 2020. That period ended March 21st, 2020. Just up front I like to mention there's no effects in the covid-19 pandemic through these results because of our stay-at-home work order throw protocol belong. So, going on to page 2 here, obviously this information is all unaudited. It could be the comprehensive financial reports. On page 3 here, our standard protocol, I'm going to go through this fairly quickly abbreviated and online to answer any questions. It contains all of the usual quarterly information we have. And on to page 5, at a high level, I like to mention a few noteworthy points. First is we are generally compliant with our financial policies, with the exception of our capital reserve. While that specific reserve is below our minimum funding level, our total cash reserves above our minimum planning level. [2:19:08 PM] Operating reserves are revenue, second quarter 629 million. That's slightly higher than budget in prior year, finally due to higher retail sales during the worker weather we had in the first quarter. Through March 2020 our energy sale, 101.7 percent of our original forecast. That's all detailed on page 13. Our operating expenses are trending higher, 515 million versus a budget 505. This results in operating income of 115 million. You then use that operating income to pay debt service, administrative services to the city, general fund transfer or economic development, city technology management, and of course we fund our cash portion of the capital improvement plan. So the result of the second quarter is budget tear definite of 5 million versus 53 million. [2:20:08 PM] Austin energy income is weighted heavy in the third and fourth quarter. We expect that to either be reduced or eliminated by year end. Balance sheet is restricted with cash reserve at 705 million. That's found on page 21 in detail. The market news summarized the $25 million package for Austin energy. While most of you have seen this information, we include it here so we can present to our electric utility commission in may's meeting to help keep them informed. So, with that, I would like to go to page 14. So, on page 14 our fund summary, you can see we are staying pretty close to our budget. [2:21:09 PM] We have -- with the exception of those operating expenses, and while much of those expenses are more timing differences, and so we expect to see those that difference decrease over the course of the year and come closer to the budget. But other than those operating expenses, it's pretty much according to what we had planned at the beginning of the year. We had planned, like I said, the $53 million deficit, we are actually at 65. That should ease itself through the course of the year as our revenues increase in the third and fourth quarter. Go to page 15, so, this is a summary, I know some of the people are watching -- these are energy sales. As you can see through March, we were pretty much on schedule. We are about 1.3 percent higher than forecast. And that's because we had a little bit warmer October than we had forecasted otherwise [2:22:11 PM] pretty close to budget there. Pretty close to what we had expected. In fact I can tell you in April, we are almost exactly back on April. So, our energy sales about where we expected. Go to page 19, so this chart displays all of the components and demonstrates the value of those in our ppa portfolio. The cost of the retail load is 69 F 639 million. Our net revenues from owned as sets 261 million and net cost associated with the contracted assets are 38 million. We provide some addition pref new with the green choice of solar and bilaterals the net [2:23:11 PM] effect, the power supply cost 609 million for the customers. This does not include the costs included in the base rates. You can see we provide substantial benefit to our customers. Last thing I want to touch on is on page 21 here of the quarterly brief. This was our balance sheet on the left there, and you can see our cash reserves. And where we hold those reserves. So, as of imagine, we had $705 million in working capital and reserve. You can see where that -- where those funds are kept. And you can see that we have plenty of commercial paper authority. We took that out and converted it to long-term debt back in July. Sox at the end of the second quarter we had 732 million out [2:24:12 PM] of $372 million capacity. So we have plenty of capacity to fund our existing capital funds. Any questions on that? I'll move on to our rate relief package, our bill relief package. >> Tovo: Question on the quarterly report? Some of you have disappeared from my screen, so, just call out if you have any. Alex? I don't see any, Mr. Dombrowski, if you would like to continue on to the billing. >> Sure. I'm going on to page 24 now. So, like I said, many of you had the opportunity to meet with you when we were work on this package. Unfortunately, we did it before we were able to break the electric utility commission, so we used this quarterly breaking [2:25:12 PM] as a way to bring them up to Spead. So, in summary, we recognize that there were some steps we need to take on behalf of our customers during the covid-19. So, we were able to put together a $35 million electric bill relief. So, that's what we estimate the benefits will be for our customers at the end of the year of September 30th. These took effect on April 9th. And I believe, Elaine can chime in here, but it may have been actually April 9th that we were able to execute those changes within the billing system, it took hold almost instantaneously. >> Yeah. It was April 9th and for any meter reads that our usage tied to any meter reads on April 9th or afterwards. So, those customers have been [2:26:12 PM] seeing those on the bill since the emergency resolution. >> Thank you. So, going on to page -- let's see here, 25, so, this is -- this -- the number 35 million does not include Austin water's contribution. They also had $11 million relief. A total of 46 but for Austin energy's 35 million that's through September 30th. We expect these rates to remain effective until we adopt and implement our fy-21 budget rates that council usually approves during the budget cycle. And so, we will have another opportunity to review this and determine whether additional relief needs put in place or back to the original rate structure. We looked at financial needs of our customer, many of those who lost their income during covid-19, as well as those [2:27:14 PM] customers who were forced to have higher usage for working at home or having their kids at home, so we tried to find some assistance there as well. We also provided assistance to our cap customers by increasing the discount from 10 to 15 percent for those customers. We tried to focus on, mostly the residential customers, although there is rate relief for our commercial customers as well, by reducing the regulatory charge. I'll cover here in a minute. Going on to page 26, we really focused on what relief we could implement right away, so, by changing rate structures can take up to 90 days, so we focus on things we can change right away. In fact as pointed out, we were able to get this done on April 9th, the same day that you [2:28:15 PM] received the package. So, by doing that, we were just adjusting the existing values and discounts and not changing the rate structure itself. Jerry, or Carrie Overton can talk more about the plus one enrollment. But by putting that $5 million directly into plus 1, they are able to directly assist those customer whose may not be cap customers but those who found themselveses in immediate financial straits that needed assistance. That's the program we needed there. And of course, we continued with no disconnects, no late fees, no enhanced payments for our customers. We are being as flexible as possible. And on page 27 is kind of a summary there, so, we transferred $5 million to the plus 1 program, customers seeking immediate financial assistance. Increasing the discount from [2:29:16 PM] their 10 percent to 15 percent, about an additional million dollar relief for our customers. Reducing the regulatory charge that assists residential as well as our business customers. That was $25 million of rate relief. And then moving tiers 4 and 5, we have the same level tier, tier 3 for inside and outside city customers and then provide additional 4 million dollar relief for a pot of 35 million until September 30. Finally on page 28, we continue to monitor the covid impacts and our customers' needs. Our energy sales are approximately what we had forecasted. However, what we are seeing is obviously a reduction in the commercial demand, with an increase in residential usage. We continue to monitor the [2:30:16 PM] customer consumption by class to better understand how that's impacting our customers. We are seeing a slight increase again in our secondary two customers, we believe that's part of the -- partially because of our economy, and those businesses are strong, we use more energy than we would expect. Some of the things we were doing, we're obviously monitoring making sure we are in compliance with our operating policy and debt service covenants and we are good there. And we're working with our partner agencies to help assist our customers op the cap plus 1 program. And maybe I can open this up to Jerry or Carrie to talk about how they are assisting the customers, both cap customers or [2:31:16 PM] plus 1 in the package. >> Certainly, this is Jerry. I mean, as Jackie opened up in her statement early on, she did mention that since 4/9, since April 9th, weave been able to provide our business to over 200 customers. We did that through the relationship we have with 56 not for profit partner, local churches, organizations like Travis county, health and human services that are -- that allowed our service territory, where they can provide assistance, far more than utilities by the way. They can help our customer with food and shelter in addition to utilities and other services. So, the bottom line is that the customers that have needed help have been able to get through very quickly through the process and get the utility assistance. >> So, unless there are any other question, that's our [2:32:17 PM] second quarter report. The good news, we are financially stable and are able to provide assistance for our customers however possible. >> Tovo: I see council member alter has a question. Council member alter? >> Atler: Thank you. Can we go back to slide 14 where it indicates deficiency of revenue, of actual 65 and budget of 53, and I under that there's a difference there because of timing for expenses. But can you explain why we're running that deficit in the first place? Is that largely because we're transferring money over to cip for longer term capital investments that are needed? >> Well, it's because at Austin energy, most of our costs fixed costs but our revenues are volumeetric. [2:33:18 PM] So, we earned most of our income in the third and quart quarter. So, it is very typical for us to run deficiency to the first, second and maybe even the third quarter. And then we finally catch up in positive revenues at that point. It's nothing that surprises me here. Otherwise, Wead have to have less revenue in volumeetric bases to present that deficiency from happening. >> Atler: This is the function of us looking at the actual budget. What you budgeted for the action tour year not what you budgeted for the whole year? >> Say again. I didn't follow. >> Atler: What we are looking at is actual of what we're seeing through March 31st and what we plunge ted through March 31st, not what we budgeted through the [2:34:18 PM] end of the fiscal year. If we look at the full fiscal year, we wouldn't be seeing deficiencies? >> Right. We expect to end the year with -- actual, closer to our budget. That really depend on the weather. We had a really warm summer. We tend to run excess, because a lot of fixed costs collective in volume volume et trick cost. Of the opposite is true if we have a mild summer. We don't sell kwh so we don't collect revenue. But because the majority of kwh sales in summer and fall, we have not earned those revenues to cover the expenses we already incurred. >> Atler: But the end of the fiscal year we wouldn't see the budgeted amount at the end of the fiscal year versus excess of [2:35:18 PM] revenues will not be in large deficiency at the end of the fiscal year? >> I'm still not following. Apologize. Actual and budget are for the first two quarters of the year >> I'm guessing if I'm looking at this and it was through September 30th, what would that number on the bottom, under the budget, say? Perhaps that's deficiency of revenues. >> Let me tell you real quick here, let me hang on here. Actually, I don't have that number with me. Yes, I would hope it would be a lot closer, if not a slight excess, again, that depend on weather. We forecast for a normal weather year. If it's milder, then we don't collect as much revenue and in [2:36:19 PM] the past, that's a deficit. If it's a warmer summer we tend to run excess at the end of the year. >> Atler: Okay. If you could remind me what that is at a later date, that would be great. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Tovo: Any other questions? I don't see any. I do have one. I wonder if we could get some clarification about the 3,200 customers who participated in the plus 1 program. Are those from year-to-date, or are those just in the last month? >> Just in the last month. Yeah, this is Jerry, since 4/9, since April 9th, the fiscal year to date is a little over 7,000. >> Tovo: Do you know -- so, just in that period of time since the enrollment was expanded from 4/9 to now, we've [2:37:21 PM] had 3200 customers, do you know how that compared to ordinarily, what it might have been in an ordinary period? >> Sure. Absolutely. So referring back to the dollar amount. LE 0 off and a little more than 30 days we've done over 9 thousand. An average month prior to covid-19 would have been 100,000 to up to 200,000, so it's significantly more than what we have just been on. >> Tovo: Thank you. That provides some sense of scale that it's really as much as nine times the usual assistance that's provided in that same time period. >> I'll be conservative and I'll say five, but, yes. >> Tovo: Yeah. That's right. Between five and nine. Do you have a sense of what the average assistance is per household? >> That's a good question. I think it's too early to give [2:38:23 PM] you a specific number. I mean, obviously, if I just do the math and back into it, it's less than 300 bucks but what we have to keep in mind, is that we've only just yet again begun and a lot of our customers who are asking us for help had zero balances before covid. >> Tovo: Right. I assume it varies from household to household in terms of the number. That's why I didn't make that division. Could be useful to get some updated information about that, maybe at our next -- I know we don't meet for a while until August, but if there is an opportunity for you to update us, that might be useful information to have. >> Absolutely. >> Tovo: Any other questions for staff? Thank you, and thank you again for making that, for coming up with those options and making them available to our customers at this period of time. One other thing I would be interested in knowing as we [2:39:24 PM] continue to explore this, if our staff are hearing any anecdotal information about whether there are companies who are coming forward and providing utility stipends to their employees? Seems to me that in many cases, people's places of business are now -- I mean, it's hard to know what's happening with their places of business, businesses, utility cost, but certainly, some of that utility cost that some of our customers are facing is a direct result of them working from home. So, they are absorbing a cost that would ordinarily be absorbed by their employer. I know we had conversations at the time the resolution was going through about whether there was a need and opportunity for our city to do something like that for our staff. So, I would be interested in knowing whether there are any partners that are doing that for their employees who are teleworking and how they compute the size of that assistance, [2:40:25 PM] that stay pentd. So, for future discussion if we can review some of those issues. So, I think our next -- and as I believe it to be our last agenda item, would be the update about decker. >> Madam chair, we also have operations followed by the -- [ poor audio ] >> Tovo: My apologies. Thank you. >> Good morning, madam chair. Can you hear me okay? Charles decker, Austin update. I'll walk you through and give you another update on decker and another update with respect to power production you will all be pleased with. If you could go to the next slide. Or, am I controlling the slide. [2:41:26 PM] Okay. Per usual I I want to talk about safety, performance, carbon footprint, carbon production. With your permission, I will switch the order do onlight energy resources, and finish with decker and other proper production update. I was going to speak to, if that's okay. >> Tovo: Certainly. >> Thank you. So, everything at Austin energy tart was safety. You can go to the next slide which is better than the previous quarter, where we have more red. We are seeing near misses are coming down for this reporting period, total injuries are coming down. Still having challenge was total vehicle accidents and we continue to work with the teams and having them think through and be cautious, we are continuing to deploy what I believe are the most relevant and best practices, if there's more than one person in a truck and they have to back up, one person has to get out and spot [2:42:27 PM] check the other person while they are backing up. We continue to have them slow down prior to the covid, I would sometimes get up very early in the morning and go to some yards and make sure people had on safety belts. So, we are going to get their in systematic time. I'm disturbed how these numbers are going to look nexter quarter but for right now they are trending in the right direction. Next slide. One more. Performance size, you see unit availability is lower, but again this has to do with seasonal out annuals where we take out annuals for maintenance and this is to be expected. We take them in the shoulder months where the period amounts is typically low because of milder weather. Next slide. This particular slide is showing net generation relative to load. And without going into too much [2:43:27 PM] details in the upper right-hand corner, how citizens consumed slightly more energy than we produced which makes sense. We take what we produce, sell it to the market and use that as we talked about before to offset the cost of our customers' energy bills. In the upper left hand corner is power generation cost by fuel type. It's always a tricky slide but basically this is cost of different fuels relative to cost of power purchase agreements, so, renewables. You will see renewables are 64 percent of what that total is. And in the lower right hand quad brand consumption is basically 42 percent but that's continuing to move up as we enter into new renewable contracts and continue to work for finding better non-carbon ways to alter our customers costs. [2:44:31 PM] Next slide. Since reliability continues to be a challenge. One of the things we are going to have to assess, instead of our performance relative to that file. 10 percent of our cohort. We're in second quartile. By and large we don't see reliability as a major hurdle. Second quartile is not bad. We need to do an assessment to see what will it take, whether it be first quartile or first decile. First decile will allow us gain, but we may be refreshing these metrics so they won't be first decile metrics. Any questions before I move on? Next slide. >> I did have a question. >> Tovo: Vice chair pool has a [2:45:33 PM] question. >> Pool: Thank you. On the system reliability, does it show the impacts of the series of thunderstorms, light thing storms we had in the last couple of weeks or is this the period before the end of may? >> Hello council member pool it's the period before the end of may. So the second period. >> Pool: Okay. Just anecdotally then, I did not hear of any outams out of my district, and I don't recall hearing any to be able to make it through those electrical storms in pretty good shape? >> We did, but we had outages, and we had teams working around the clock. They did a really good job considering all that was going on. >> Pool: Thanks. >> I'm aware of some in district 3, for example. >> This slide here is basically the previous slide with a [2:46:34 PM] different view. Some people like paragraphs, some people like line graphs. I think the line graphs tend to show more of a trend. I can leave both of them in. I asked euc which they wanted but the feedback they wanted both. Unless there's objection, I'll add this and report both use to this body or you can question whichever two slides, they are given the same information. Next slide. Next one. Carbon footprint, you'll see through March, our reliability percent of load is slightly higher in February that's consistent with January, because we had more wind picking up which allowed our renewables to generate more. This chart is the same whether the sun is shining a lot and wind is blowing. Tos extent sun is shining and wind is blowing our numbers would generate lower and modelless will be higher. [2:47:34 PM] This is not compared to our fleet. As we wind down our carbon this will change. This is a percentage how much energy our customers use relative to how much energy we generate. As we unwind some power plants it would not have impact on how this slide looks. Next slide. So, district cooling continues to be on target. We thought we would have significant slowdowns because of covid-19 but work continues to grow. The folkousen this slide is squares and rectangles in green we're on target and as a slight reminder our district cooling is lous us to cool water or liquid at night when energy prices are low and run the piping into the zee to cool apartments or hotels where we can cool them without having to use electricity. It basically provides another [2:48:35 PM] method of providing cooling without having to use electricity which means we don't have to go to ercot for that low which means it has indirect effect on the number of carbon generated. We're on target in our model here. Next slide. So, we did switch them. Good. I don't have to go back and forth between slides. Future state, generally everything is good. We continue to hold, considering our fossil fuel item red until we -- I mean, fed, we are still working on that as we discussed in executive session, things are moving along. The only thing is our asset management. Also energy has a very, very strong transition asset management construct that's starting to mature drikdz asset management and that's coming along. But I'm a hard grader, but so I won't allow us to give ourselves [2:49:36 PM] a green until we move down the next path. Next slide. Now, I'll talk about decker. We have filed something called a notice of suspension of operation today. This makes the closing of decker even more real. We filed it with ercot letting them know that we intend to close the unity, 180 days from when we do the notice of suspension that will put us on track for October 31st. They've acknowledged receipt of that prior to this being publicly shared with the people at decker who would be the most impacted by it. We remained stand by our commitment. Even though it's not going to have any impact on the employment status and people there. We will hold them over and once the unit is retired those people will Stitt be on the books and allow them more time during the course of the day, during work hour to continue to seek training opportunities and career opportunities. There has been no change since [2:50:39 PM] the last update with respect to the people at the power plant. We have had no people seek career development or career coaching. We still over a number of online training tools so they can get to hone their skills and those are always available. There's no change in the number of people that have taken advantage of it since the last report. Finally we filed a in the of suspension of operation for nacogdoches. You remember we purchased that facility last year. We requested it to be mothballed between October of this year and may of next year. We plan to run it during the summer months. Moth ballballing will allow us to not worry about rubbing it during a period of time it's generally not called for. Two notice of suspension of operations the decker one is not mothballed it's permanent shiftdown request. We'll wait to hear back from ercot. That concludes my report and [2:51:40 PM] I'll open for questions >> Tovo: Thank you very much. Mr. Dickerson. Colleague, any questions? Council member pool >> Pool: No questions but a heart felt thank you for that good report Mr. Dickerson and for the progress we're making in closing down decker and nacogdoches and keeping you us on staff. >> Thank you for your leadership and support. We do what you ask us to do. [ Laughter ] >> Pool: That works. >> That's right. >> Tovo: Sounds from your report as if the opportunities that are available to employees currently at decker have now shifted to online, so they are still able to access that workforce, that workforce assistance and other things? >> Yes, council member they are still able to access all of those, and they can still do the career counseling which is doing the way we do this with video or [2:52:44 PM] web chat, just not many people have availed themselves to those opportunities. I should also add two people have retired since the last update. What that means the number of people possibly disaffected is smaller because there's two less people that would have to worry about that. >> Did you have a sense -- can you remind us what that pool is of individuals? >> I apologize, I don't have tos he numbers. >> Tovo: I'll look back at the last -- we can simply add or subtract from the last. Have you done additional outreach to the employees to let them know what kinds of resource -- just to remind them of the resources that exist? >> We remind them at my vice president's level, monthly. The plant manager reminds them -- the failure to have more people sign up for resources is not as a result of not having notification and understanding. [2:53:44 PM] I've been out there many times, general manager has. Some people are less interested than others and maybe some other people are rating for their retirement dates. >> Tovo: I see. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Tovo: Are there any additional agenda items that anyone wants to talk about under no. 6 for future meetings? You know, I think that just out of an abundance of caution, it would be worth taking the vote again for the minutes. I don't -- I think at various times people have been off camera and I think the requirement we all be on camera. At least six of us be on camera. I forgot who made the motion. I think vice chair pool made the motion to approve the minutes is that correct? Who second it? If somebody just second the motion approving the approval of minutes. Council member alter thank you. Those in favor for approval of the minutes -- >> Madam chair, this may be a [2:54:46 PM] breach in protocol. I said 180, may have something else in line. Should be 150 suspension. I don't want it approved with the wrong note in there. >> Tovo: Thank you. Thank you very much. Those are the minutes we approve next time around. Thank you for that clarification. That is really important and thank you, colleagues for reaffirming our approval of minutes just so there is not any issue there. Seeing no other business before us, then, we stand adjourned. Thank you, all. >> Thanks, everybody. >> Thank you.