6.5. ERMUSR 03-10-2009 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Impact of Reduced Hours on Electric Department -March 2009 I would like to share with you several reasons of why we should stay at a 40 hour work week during this slow new construction time: During the winter months we tree trim out approximately 90 miles of overhead utility lines. We schedule to trim trees once every four years leaving us at about 20 miles per year. This work was previously contracted out by the utility but has been done in-house for the past two years. In 2008, Sherburne, Wright and Hennepin counties have adopted the State's traffic control rules. This means when our truck's stiff legs cross the white line we have to use flaggers which takes an additional two employees. We are required to do this every time we work on a county road right-of--way. Along with this, we need to fill out a permit in the County we are working in or the State when working on the highway right-of--way. We have also started doing our own infrared testing instead of contracting out to USG as in previous years. We try to test 20-25% of our 3-phase overhead and our 3-phase underground customers every year along with the substations. This process is a very good way to find problems before they get to the customers. We are also working on our fuse coordination and while doing this changing out our cutouts. We have had problems with the cutouts cracking and then either falling apart or starting the pole on fire. With this fuse coordination study, we have found that we have to change out approximately 54 of our fuse pads; this change out has not even begun. There are many other jobs we would like to finish before frost out that include: * switching out west bank 2 to fix the bypass fuse alignment *repair three different cap banks *change out three phase transformers at Barton's pit, Orono Commons and UHG *new 3 phase service for Aggregate Industries, they will be digging in the frost so their electricians and our crew can get started on March 4th There are many other small jobs we have to schedule in along with jobs that come in daily. Once the frost is out we have jobs to finish from last fall as well as temporary jobs on the ground from this winter. Not to mention a list of projects already in the works for this summer. Due to restructuring we have not hired additional staff leaving us two fewer linepersons than last year. There are people moving to different positions in the company that will need training and this will also take time. The linepersons also need time to train being we have lost two senior linepersons in the last six months.