6.2. ERMUSR 07-11-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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annexation. What started out as a straightforward legal process for municipal utilities to grow with their cities has become a serious impediment to cities' ability to exercise their legal rights. The service territory issue is generally acknowledged to be one of MMUA's highest priorities. MMUA's role in the service territory issue can be summarized as follows: • MMUA's reinvigorated Grow With Your City Committee oversees the development of strategy and provides direction for research and other staff activities. • Staff conducts research in a variety of directions in the hope that the results of the research will be useful to the cities in their proceedings or potentially in the legislature if we ever wind up in a pitched battle there. • Staff works with individual cities with service territory issues to provide advice and strategy on how to proceed. • Staff works with legal counsel (typically McGrann Shea) to provide suggestions on strategy, brief points, etc. • MMUA provides financial support to cities pursuing service territory litigation in the form of contributions from the MMUA Legal and Legislative Fund. It may be difficult to maintain a significant level of litigation support to multiple cities at the current level of the legal and legislative special assessment. See the special assessment discussion below. • We meet with representatives of state government and the Minnesota legislature and Congressional delegation to educate them about the problem and show them the results of our research. Is there anything else that MMUA should be doing in support of members' efforts to grow with their cities? Legal and Legislative Fund and Special Assessment Last year the MMUA membership approved a five year special assessment equal to 10% of electric regular member dues. In developing this new assessment program, the board set a goal of achieving a $250,000 legal and legislative fund. The assessment for the current fiscal year, which is scheduled to be approved by the board at the summer meeting, is budgeted at $64,466. The invoices would go out immediately after the summer meeting. As of April 30, the L&L fund balance was $102,249. We have made commitments for prospective spending that will take the fund down further. I'm concerned that various expenditures from the fund in connection with the service territory issue will be greater than the contributions from the assessment, and that we will be depleting the fund rather than recharging it. It seems to me that there are several things we can consider, both on the supply side and the demand side. 7