Council CUI mandate and regulatory review process

After significant debate, Chestermere City Council accepted an amended administration report to accept the Stack’d Consulting report on Chestermere Utilities Inc (CUI) at the regular meeting of council Nov. 21.
“What was approved…was the mandate and the regulatory review process,” said Chestermere Mayor Patricia Matthews.
The mandate sets out how CUI is to operate in three key areas: to achieve full cost recovery and sustainability, to ensure well managed utilities, and to support municipal growth and investment.
“The mandate sets out clear transparent accountabilities,” she said.
The recommendations for the rate setting process will bring Chestermere in line with the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) procedures.
Matthews said it also strengthens the process that council must follow as regulators.
Council chose to defer the details of the interim rate setting process from that motion in council to the next item on the meeting’s agenda that dealt specifically with the interim rate.
This was done because city staff had stated that they needed to work with Stack’d to adjust that interim process to better fit the required timeline to set next year’s utility rate.
“We accepted a staff report,” she said, “but within that staff report sat the interim measures to be taken on the rate setting process and on the utility committee process.”
“It was important that, that interim process be separated from the entirety of the report because there’s going to be upgrades and some changes done to further strengthen that,” she said.
Council’s goal in making the change was to prevent confusion on the part of the public when reviewing this decision.
“We’re trying to be as transparent as possible,” she said.
An interim rate setting process will still occur and will influence the development of the permanent process for the 2018 and onward rates.
“The expectation has always been there would be an interim process and the learnings out of the interim process will help to inform the process going forward next year,” said Matthews.
As part of this decision, Council directed staff to proceed with the mid-term action items listed in the report.
City administration will now be working to establish communication and reporting protocols with the CUI in regards to Council’s role as shareholder and rate regulator. This is to be implemented by the end of March.
They will be reviewing and updating the key administrative processes to reflect the new mandate and regulatory process.
The final mid-term action is to create the 2018 and future rate regulatory process which will be influenced by this year’s interim process.
With Stack’d’s recommendations being implemented Matthews said that council is satisfied that a better more transparent policy exists for the management of utilities in Chestermere.
“Council is confident that there is a stronger process in place to not only review rates but to have a clearer mandate then what existed in the past,” she said.
The Stack’d consulting report as well as the minutes from the council meeting can be viewed online at www.chestermere.ca.