Board Members Present: Patrick Lanning, Ron Farmer, Sandra Bishop, and Dorothy Anderson.
Others Present: Randy Berggren, Jim Wiley, Marty Douglass, Lance Robertson, Terry Bequette, Jim Origliosso, JoAnn Andersen, Dick Varner, Deborrah Brewer, Jim Maloney, Debra Smith, and Krista Hince of the EWEB staff; and Ruth Atcherson, City of Eugene Minutes Recorder.
President Lanning called the Work Session of the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) order at 5:40 p.m.
GENERAL MANAGER'S 2002 GOAL STATUS
General Manager Randy Berggren explained that this was the first time that goal status had been assessed using the new process the Board spent most of 2001 developing and compiling. He related that, as of the 20th of January, staff was able to wrap up most of the Operating Performance Metrics (OPM) reporting. He said that it had seemed timely to provide a status report and an update.
Mr. Berggren referenced the following attachments:
Mr. Berggren reported that the amount of time customers had spent without power rose. He noted that outages due to squirrels had risen. He shared a newspaper article from The Wall Street Journal regarding the increase in the squirrel population across the country and the relationship of the increase to an increase in power outages. He commented that the utility did not have a lot of excess money to augment the system in order to sectionalize outages better.
Vice President Farmer asked what the lefthand scale of the graph entitled Causes of Sustained Interruptions - Excluding Major Events was in reference to. Mr. Berggren replied that it referred to the number of households that had experienced an interruption in their electrical service. Vice President Farmer expressed concern at the rise in outages due to animal activity. Mr. Berggren felt that the milder winters had led to an increase in the squirrel population.
Commissioner Bishop noted that many of the wire facilities are in "wilderness areas," adding that this could be a contributing factor to the rising number of power disruptions. Mr. Berggren responded that the outages were not specific to the outlying areas.
Electric Division Director Jim Wiley commented that there were less interruptions caused by animal activity in the year 2001 than in the years 2000 and 2002. He showed the Board a "Guthrie Guard," a protective device that was intended to reduce this sort of outage. He said that the guards were being applied to bushings.
Mr. Berggren stated, in response to another comment from Vice President Farmer, that what was notable about the power outages for 2002 was that many of them involved substations, which can affect 5,000 customers "in a heartbeat."
Mr. Berggren said that, on a national average basis, EWEB was still in the top quarter for performance relating to the amount of power outages. He added that the upward trend was "still troubling."
Regarding the CAIDI, Mr. Berggren said that, though there was a downward trend, it was still below the national average. He commented that this was partially due to how EWEB had designed the system, how many sectionalizing points were in the system, and how many redundant loops there were to back up systems. He noted that, with the increase of digital clocks, microwaves, et cetera, complaints had increased as every time there had been a glitch in the power customers would have to reset their electronic devices. In response to that, the utility had disabled some of the protective relays or instantaneous relays in the substations, which would sense something on the line, such as a tree branch brushing it, and would take the power out of that particular line momentarily and then restore it. He related that this had resulted in the real power outages taking out fuses and more extensive portions of the facilities, which then had resulted in an increase in the time it took to restore power to customers. He said that the utility was looking into restoring some of the instantaneous relays.
Mr. Berggren pointed out that the target that the utility had set for itself had been surpassed. Mr. Wiley clarified that, while the target for the length of the outage had been 86 minutes and the actual average length of time it took to restore power was 94 minutes, the utility had targeted a ten percent reduction in the amount of time and had met this goal.
Commissioner Bishop wondered why the wind event of February 2002 had been excluded from the statistics. Mr. Berggren replied that the storm would have skewed the statistics of the rest of the year.
Vice President Farmer felt that providing better-than-average employees and salaries should lead the utility to set better-than-average targets.
Mr. Berggren stated, in response to a question from President Lanning, that reliability had not been a point raised by customers to any great extent when customers provided feedback.
Mr. Wiley added that the five worst performing circuits of any given year are focused on in the next year in order to increase the reliability of the system.
Regarding the reliability of the water utility, Mr. Berggren stated that the utility had not set a target for it because it had never been measured and was a completely different concern. He reported that, while only one-half percent of the EWEB customers experienced a water outage, the average duration of the outage was similar to that of the duration of a power outage.
Mr. Helgeson explained that a water outage tended to be localized in a water main or a break in a pipe to a structure.
Regarding water quality, Mr. Berggren reported that the utility had met or exceeded the goals it had set for itself.
In response to a question from President Lanning, Mr. Helgeson stated that there was a targeted range for the Ph factor in the water and that it was for the purpose of minimizing corrosion inside of the pipes. He said that a variety of factors would cause a natural fluctuation in the Ph factor.
President Lanning asked if a flood situation would be removed from the turbidity figures. Mr. Helgeson noted that there had not been such an event in the past year, adding that should there be a major storm event in which the turbidity values were in excess of the pattern, the turbidity of the drinking water would increase. He commented that, like the wind storm, a major flood event would be unlikely to be included in the figures, so as not to skew the data.
Mr. Berggren reported on the service survey results. He noted that this had been the first survey of this kind. He said that tree trimming was a sensitive service area for the utility and that the response rate from people who had trees trimmed was high. He noted that people who had experienced EWEB construction around their properties had a low level of response.
In response to a question from Vice President Farmer, Mr. Berggren said that he did not know if the utility was more likely to receive negative feedback than positive. Mr Wiley stated that he had expected more negative response, but that the results from the tree trimming survey had pleasantly surprised him.
In response to a question from President Lanning, Mr. Wiley stated that the reason there were not more responses was that staff had not gotten the survey out until August of 2002. He felt that getting it out earlier would help.
Mr. Berggren reported that there was a 90 percent response on the survey work and that there was no problem with customer satisfaction with the conservation arm of the utility. He said that EWEB would continue to set a "high bar." Customer Service Director JoAnn Andersen added that the utility was continually looking at the various programs and how they interact with the vendors in the community to determine that the utility was bringing value to the community with its conservation measures.
Regarding billing accuracy, Ms. Andersen stated that the utility was at 99.98 percent and was trying to be even more accurate. Commissioner Bishop commented that customer complaints should indicate if there is an increase in billing inaccuracies. Mr. Berggren responded that a customer complaint did not necessarily mean that a bill was incorrect.
Vice President Farmer expressed concern that the peoples' perception of customer service was not as good as it could be. He wanted to know if there was any way to measure this, not unlike the survey given to people regarding the tree trimming.
Regarding customer calls, Mr. Berggren said that the utility had added five FTEs in the customer service department to improve service, but that the amount of calls received had increased substantially.
President Lanning commented that, in trying to meet the call response rate, the information was being disseminated as efficiently as possible, but perhaps it was not as effective as it could be as customers were perhaps not fully understanding the information. He noted that public service had helped to build the respect that EWEB has among community members.
Mr. Berggren opined that determining a metric for customer service would be beneficial to EWEB, but he was uncertain as to how this could be done. He added that he would like to know how many customers hang up before they are able to talk to a customer service representative.
President Lanning commented that he had periodically heard from members of the public that EWEB was moving toward having a computerized answering system. He added that he assures them that this is not the case.
Commissioner Bishop felt that it was important that representatives had time to address the concerns of customers. She advocated for finding the point at which it was appropriate for a question to be referred to staff in order to answer it completely.
Ms. Andersen reported that the length of the customer service call had doubled. She said that staff was trying to be aware of the level of complexity that, as management, they had expected customer representatives to be able to explain.
Vice President Farmer emphasized that whether the phone was answered should be the most important metric. He stressed that he did not vote to approve the hiring of five new FTE with the assumption that the utility would have a goal that was three percent below the national average. He felt that the utility should at least set its goal at the average level.
President Lanning responded that the comparison was not a fair one, as the Board had imposed a very complicated billing system on the utility's customers which, in turn, had required more explanation from customer service representatives.
Vice President Farmer reiterated that the goal should be set at a higher level. Commissioner Bishop agreed, but noted that the utility was being compared to fully automated customer service systems. Vice President Farmer opined that it was unacceptable to let ten percent of the customer calls go unanswered.
Mr. Berggren agreed to raise the goal for the response to customer calls.
Vice President Farmer likened the year end status of the goals for 2002 to a report card. He said that, without the customer call response piece, the report card was an 'A.'
Regarding the number of recordable incidents of accidents, Mr. Berggren said that injuries such as bee stings and dog bites were too random to affect in a preventative manner, but that there had been enough strains and sprains among employees that the Move Smart program was being brought in to increase employee awareness of proper lifting and safety measures.
Regarding the number of work days lost, Mr. Berggren stated that there was a disconnect between how EWEB reported injuries and how OSHA quantified them. He explained that lost days due to surgery that resulted from a work injury in a previous year was required to be adjusted into the year that the injury occurred.
Vice President Farmer reiterated that, overall, the report on goal status was a "good report card." He advocated for publicizing the results, in the face of the recent negative publicity regarding the increase in the General Manager's salary, to raise customer awareness of the good work that EWEB has done.
GENERAL MANAGER'S 2003 GOAL DRAFT
Mr. Berggren highlighted the goals outlined in the attachment entitled General Manger's 2003 Goals.
Regarding the third goal, that of maintaining an effective Board/staff relationship, Mr. Berggren encouraged the Board to reconsider holding a meeting on Board governance to aid the furtherance of this goal.
Commissioner Bishop commented that the General Manager had done "an admirable job in this arena." She felt that the Board should take more of a leadership role. She said that the outreach that Mr. Berggren was doing with Board members was exactly the kind of support that the Board needed. She commented that it may not be prudent to wait until the Board "is stable" to hold a Governance meeting.
Regarding the fourth goal, that of maintaining financial stability and strength, Mr. Berggren stated that the utility had been ahead of its financial goal, but this had been completely mitigated by the current snow drought. He said that all of the goals continued to be relevant, important, and applicable to the circumstances of 2003.
Continuing, Mr. Berggren said that, after giving careful consideration of the goals, he had decided that his first priority was the surcharge strategy implementation, under the fourth goal. He was also very concerned about the BPA cost/rate revision process, which fell under the fourth goal as well. Capital funding and infra-structure were also of great concern to him. He commented that this fell under the fourth goal, making this goal the pressing priority at this time. He stressed, in particular, the importance of creating strategies to address the snow drought.
Mr. Berggren stated that the 2003 budget would need significant amendments in order to keep a balanced budget in place.
Commissioner Bishop suggested that increasing the utility's customer service representatives capacity to answer calls be included in the goals. Mr. Berggren responded that the commentary he had heard earlier in the Work Session had already elevated the concern to goal status.
Vice President Farmer noted that the goals of EWEB and the goals of the General Manager were not necessarily the same. He stressed the importance of maintaining the utility's position in the metrics. He felt that the role of the General Manager was to work toward this goal. He suggested that Mr. Berggren categorize the goals in the order of importance. Mr. Berggren agreed to do so, and reiterated that the goal of financial stability was the most important goal at this time.
Mr. Berggren said that he would bring a revised draft of the General Manager's goals to the meeting to be held on February 18. Vice President Farmer recommended that each Board member send a summary proposal of what their vision of the goals would be, or revisions that Board members wanted to suggest.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:32 p.m.
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Assistant Secretary President