Minutes 03/30/1999 - Laserfiche WebLink

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March 30, 1999 These recommended rate increases will be used to continue addressing replacement of Portsmouth's aging water and sewer infrastructure and to fund preventative maintenance and routine replacements. This upgrading of infrastructure is part of five- year, $25 million renewal and replacement plan of the Department of Public Utilities and is necessary to ensure the quality and safety of our drinking water in a system where almost half of the system is more than 40 years old. Stormwater Management The stormwater fee increase will be used toward repair of our aging storm drainage infrastructure throughout the city, as well as development of a Lake Management Program for dredging of lakes and ponds that serve as filters or holding areas for nutrients and sediments. This program is part of mandated federal and state programs that include the Clean Water Act, the Chesapeake Bay Program, and the Tributaries Strategies Program. As a waterfront city with an extended shoreline, Portsmouth has a vested interest in maintaining clean waterways, regardless of mandates, as an economic, esthetic and recreational asset. [Figure 6--Rate Comparison] Figure 6: Stormwater Rate Comparison Chesapeake Norfolk Virginia Beach Portsmouth (proposed) 1.75 5.52 3.68 3.30 These rate increases will help with our backlog, as will the other appropriations mentioned above. Unfortunately, backlog will be with us for some time and will take a steady and dedicated approach to eliminate. We plan to stay the course. INVESTMENT IN CITY EMPLOYEES I have said before and I will repeat here: employees are our most important asset. We are primarily a service organization, providing human contact with our customers on a daily basis in a wide range of services, from police and fire protection to recreational programs and road maintenance, from libraries and museums to health care and social services. For the City of Portsmouth to succeed in meeting and exceeding our customer needs, we must have employees who are carefully selected, well trained, highly motivated, and fairly compensated. For many months we have been working on a new pay plan that must be stable, clear, equitable, predictable, flexible, simple and objective. We have determined that our wages should be competitive in a market made up of the Hampton Roads cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. We have spent considerable time and effort studying that marketplace. We are engaged in a multi-year process to ensure that employees are fairly compensated. This process has involved an unprecedented amount of employee communication and involvement on an ongoing basis. We have taken considerable pains to keep employees informed of principles and issues involved in revising the pay plan and in seeking their input and guidance as we proceed. Our goal is nothing less than for our employees to consider this to be their pay plan, and not just management's.