Hope Water & Light Commission Meets
The Hope Water & Light Commission met Wednesday (6-25). The commission approved the minutes from a previous meeting and the financial statements for May were reviewed.
William Miller from William C. Miller, LLC CPA’s presented the audited financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023. Mr. Miller discussed the financial highlights and the basic financial statements answering any questions that arose. Commissioners passed a motion to accept the financials. Chairman Lester Sitzes and General Manager Charlotte Bradley thanked Mr. Miller for his company’s work.
The commission reviewed the “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement 2.0” plan for a possible addition to the possible choices employees of Hope Water & Light could make in their retirement planning. Charlotte Bradley pointed out this was just an added option for the employee. The commissioners approved this new option for the employees.
General Manager Russell Cornelius discussed the SCADA System Software Replacement Project for the water department. The current software being used is by two different systems. The maintenance costs on these systems have become very expensive in one case and almost nonexistent in the other case. Bids were requested for a replacement software to replace both systems. Three companies submitted bids. Of these bids, only one bid was compliant with the Instructions to Bidders. After discussion, the commissioners approved the staff’s recommendation to accept the 1,000 TAG Software System from Blackrock Automation at a cost of $128,309.84. It was pointed out that Hope Water & Light will also consider adding the electric department into this SCADA system at some point in the future. This will be based on the evaluation of how this software system works with the water department.
Project updates were reviewed for Pre-Pay, Transmission, Fiber to the Home, and Integrated Resource Plan.
Under Communications, various areas were discussed including deferred payments and cut-off dates. In addition, the Wadley Bankruptcy was reviewed. Also discussed were 3 different issues HWL was working through with SWEPCO. Two involved FERC and the third was a possible option from SWEPCO to allow HWL to setup a potential Self-Generation system for part of their needs through a solar panel farm.
Finally, the annual AEP/SWEPCO True-Up was discussed. SWEPCO informed HWL that the refund HWL expected this year was going to be reduced by approximately $800,000. Cornelius said SWEPCO said it had to do with one of the FERC issues previously mentioned and that the IRS told SWEPCO they would not have to be give back the $800,000 to their customers. This issue was a result of a deferred income tax election. Cornelius said this issue is still in flux and HWL is talking with their lawyers about filing a response to FERC that could possibly delay or stop this reduction. More updates will be forthcoming.
The final update was about the annual renewal of the Hempstead County Economic Development Corporation contract that will be addressed at a future meeting. This update was strictly informational with comments from Charlotte Bradley and Anna Powell.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.