The Water Board held their regular meeting on Monday at 3 p.m. at the Water Department in Oskaloosa.
Discussion of wastewater operations was one of the main topics at the forefront of the meeting.
“There is some work that has needed to happen in the last year plus that we’re finally starting,” said Chad Coon, general manager.
“Some of the processes of being out there and talking with staff, there is a very real concern and a need to have some sort of automation with regard to our stuff that happened as we were out there working on different facets of that digester.”
An alarm going off to indicate an issue is currently hard to notice as there is no notification process for the alarm system.
“As the City has recently spent roughly $500,000 replacing that unit, I think we need to look at getting something in place to notify staff in the event of an alarm,” he said of the digester.
The Water Department and the City will continue talking more about a process or procedure going forward.
There was also a minor change in the Oskaloosa Municipal Water Department rules and regulations, in the billing and collections section 2.400, changing an unpaid account balance fee, mistakenly entered as $40, back down to $30 as it has been in previous years.
“Not sure where the $40 came from in honesty, so we’ve noticed it needs to be addressed,” said Coon. Everything else in the code stayed the same outside of this correction.
One of the most dominant discussions focused around going to a “merit system” in the future when considering the cost of living adjustments for employees. However, the Board requested more clear guidelines and explanation to move forward.
For the time being, the Board did approve a 3 percent increase for an annual cost of living adjustment for employees of the Oskaloosa Water Department.
In closing, the Board talked about procedures to address potential data breaches when handling the new online billing feature that’s slated to roll out to residents and businesses soon. No breach has been reported, these discussions are purely precautionary at this time. More information on the new billing system is available in this issue of the Oskaloosa Herald or online at www.oskaloosa.com.
No customers turned out to the meeting for the public forum. The next regular meeting will be held July 11.
