6.1.b. ERMUSR 07-12-2016 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Elk River Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING TO: FROM: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Theresa Slominski—Finance and Office Manager John Dietz—Chair Al Nadeau—Vice Chair Daryl Thompson—Trustee MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: July 12, 2017 6.1b SUBJECT: Staff Update DISCUSSION: The visit last month from Eric Minard of NISC to review some Customer Care &Billing issues went well. He was able to offer some advice for optimizing reporting options to identify billing errors, identified some changes to improve sales tax functionality, and worked through the new setup for commercial water meter sizes(previously this had to be programmed by NISC.) We still have some things to test and evaluate for their incorporation in the system but the three items mentioned are the big"wins" from his visit. Additionally last month, a two-person team from a new software platform through NISC (called iVUE Connect)was here and worked with staff one-on-one to observe the utilization of this new test platform. Staff were taken individually and shown the platform and were asked to perform certain tasks in the software and asked to provide feedback upon its completion. The staff were also video recorded during process to help iVUE develop the platform to best serve the users. Given we have so many services and it always presents additional challenges, we are grateful that they reached out to us for this testing. Last month I was asked to bring back some numbers and information on the increased cost of a full-time (FT)versus a part-time (PT)Accountant for the remainder of the year. In planning for the future, our projected Organizational Chart anticipated hiring a FT Accountant when the position of the PT Accountant was vacated, although this date was an unknown. Changing from a FT to PT Accountant is warranted due to increased responsibilities created with our software, and ongoing projects that are placed on hold or take that much longer to complete with 1.5 Accountants. Taking into consideration employer taxes, PERA, assuming participation in the health insurance plan at the family level, and adjusting for avoided cost for a month's time of the hiring process where we will have no second accountant, the increased cost ranges from$8,700 to $18,400, depending on the wage at hire. (Although unknown at the June Commission meeting, the savings with our liability insurance renewal noticed this month will help offset most of this unanticipated cost.)We advertised this position in the Star Tribune newspaper June 19th, E. POMEDED 11 Page 1 of 2 NATURE Reliable Public Power Provider P OWERED T O S ERV E 104