Board Members Present: Dorothy Anderson, Peter Bartel, Patrick Lanning, and Sandra Bishop.
Others present: Randy Berggren, Tom Buckhouse, Dick Helgeson, Roseanna McArthur, Jim Origliosso, Jim Wiley, Debra Smith, and Krista Hince of the EWEB staff; and Joe Sams, City of Eugene Minutes Recorder.
President Anderson called the Work Session to order at 5:30 p.m.
OPERATING METRICS
General Manager Randy Berggren provided a review of proposed operating metrics. He noted that there was no limit to the amount of data that could be gathered but the key to success was to gather the most important/useful information to the utility at the least amount of cost. He said the metrics were not to be used as a pass/fail system but were really there for giving the Board insight into how the ongoing performance of the utility was progressing. He suggested that the Board use a five year rolling average since there was a high probability of variability due to unplanned events. He also suggested that the Board be willing to look beyond a five year rolling average if that was disguising a dramatic trend that was only two or three years old. He outlined the proposed metrics and their desired outcomes.
Mr. Berggren said staff would continue to work on the proposed metrics and would eventually tie them to the next annual budget to establish goals for 2003.
Desired Outcome: To reduce the number of OSHA recordable incidents and associated lost time.
Mr. Berggren said the goal of reducing employee accidents would be measured on a five-year rolling average. He said the goal would be measured by a standard of 175 or less lost days due to accidents.
Mr. Berggren noted that EWEB was voluntarily involved in an OSHA safety program called "SHARP" which called for voluntary measures taken by an employer to increase employee safety to a level above existing state and federal standards.
Desired Outcome: Receive no environmental citations.
While Mr. Berggren acknowledged that the goal for this metric was to have no environmental citations, he did say that the real focus would be on proactive compliance to environmental laws that were up and coming. He said that managers were also taking a proactive stance on environmental issues with the employees of the utility.
Desired Outcome: Provide timely response to customer inquires.
Mr. Berggren cited a figure of 6-8 percent of lost calls. He noted that the figure increased after the large rate increase to 16 percent. He stressed that this was an unacceptable figure that needed to be improved and said the Board would need to make decisions in the 2003 budget as to how to address the problem.
Vice President Bartel commented that there was a need to track call content as well as the number of lost calls.
Mr. Berggren commented that customer service representatives were already stretched to the maximum of what they could accomplish in a single day.
Desired Outcome: Provide accurate and timely bills to our customers.
Mr. Berggren noted that the customer service division was still working on a better billing system and added that the division was currently concentrating on meter reading accuracy. He said the proposed goal for billing accuracy was 99.5 percent.
Desired Outcome: EWEB wants to demonstrate excellent responsiveness to our customers. We have selected several specific critical services for survey development and implementation. Our 2002 target in all survey areas is an average of 80 percent or better of good to excellent ratings.
Mr. Berggren commented that the utility needed to gather more data than the annual customer survey could provide. He stressed the importance of the utility staying in close touch with the community.
Desired Outcome: To maintain high steam system reliability by minimizing the frequency and duration of customer outages due to both planned and unplanned events.
Mr. Berggren said the real focus for steam reliability was boiler reliability. He said the goal of the utility was two or less steam outages per year. He noted that there were only four steam operations still running on the west coast of the United States so there was not a lot of industry benchmarks that EWEB's steam utility could be compared with.
In response to a question from Commissioner Lanning regarding the costs of gathering data on the steam utility, Mr. Helgeson noted that data for the steam utility was gathered at no cost since the steam operation was inspected on a regular basis.
Desired Outcome: Finished water quality consistently exceeds state and federal drinking water standards.
Mr. Berggren said there were variable water standards with new tests every year. He proposed benchmark targets on water turbidity, chlorine treatments, and PH balance.
Dick Helgeson, Director of Water & Steam Divisions, said these were primary indicators of water quality that could be directly affected by monitoring.
Mr. Berggren commented that with EWEB's water source being so clean to begin with there would be no industry data that would make a valid comparison.
In response to a question from Vice President Bartel regarding collection of data on actual water sources for the utility, Mr. Helgeson acknowledged that there was some analysis of raw water quality but said the utility relied on the McKenzie Watershed Council for most of its data on that point.
Roseanna McArthur, Director of Corporate Services, noted that there was an FTE dedicated to environmental management.
Desired Outcome: To maintain high water system reliability by minimizing the frequency and duration of customer outages due to both planned and unplanned events.
Mr. Berggren noted that there were infrequent outages in the water system so there was not a lot of new information on system reliability.
Mr. Helgeson noted that there were not a lot of utility benchmark statistics available for comparison.
Mr. Berggren stressed the importance of dropping metrics that were not providing valuable information and staying with metrics that provided the essential data for improving reliability.
Desired Outcome: To maintain the electric system reliability by minimizing the frequency and duration of customer outages due to planned and unplanned events.
Mr. Berggren commented on how complex problems with the electric utility could become and noted that those problems ultimately tied in with electric system reliability. He noted that all of the problems would have an impact on the budget. He stressed that the real secret of a monitoring program was to be very specific in the way information was gathered so as to be able to make the correct/effective decision.
Mr. Berggren noted that customer's tolerance for outages grew less when rates were going up.
Regarding water quality, Commissioner Bishop raised concern that a goal of no environmental citations was not enough to really protect the utility's water source.
Mr. Berggren said he would return to the Board with other options for measuring water quality.
Commissioner Lanning reiterated the importance of having a good balance of effective data gathering to provide the right measurements of the utility's operations.
The work session adjourned at 7:20 p.m.
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Assistant Secretary President