The Greater Pottsville Area Sewer Authority plans to save more than $80,000 on its electric bill in 2017 and 2018, after negotiating a new contract with its current provider.
At its January meeting at its office in City Hall on Wednesday, the board approved a 2017 and 2018 contract with power producer Talen Energy, Allentown.
“That was PPL Energy Plus, but they now call it Talen,” Ian H. Lipton, GPASA chairman, said.
“On June 1, 2015, PPL Corporation completed the spinoff of its competitive energy business, which was immediately combined with the generation assets owned by Riverstone Holdings to form a new independent power producer called Talen Energy Corporation,” according to pplweb.com.
The authority is still bound to a 33-month contract with the group, which expires at the end of 2016. In recent months, GPASA has been negotiating a future contract with Talen, Timothy R. Yingling, the sewer authority’s executive director, said.
“Energy is pretty volatile right now and at the moment the iron is hot and it’s time to strike,” Lipton said.
In the current contract, GPASA must pay 6.37 cents per kilowatt hour.
In the contract the authority approved Wednesday night for years 2017 and 2018, it will pay 4.98 cents per kilowatt hour, Yingling said.
“Based on our current usage, we will save $48,267.19 per year,” Yingling said.
In other matters, the engineering firm hired by the authority is continuing its effort to find cracks in the sewer system causing stormwater to seep in.
In November, the state Department of Environmental Protection decided to lift 73 percent of the sewer hookup moratorium that has haunted the GPASA’s service area for 25 years.
This year, the authority will try to lift the moratorium in three areas which remain under the prohibition: all of Mount Carbon, and portions of North Manheim Township and the City of Pottsville.
In May 2015, the authority installed flow meters in 11 locations: seven in the west end, three in Mount Carbon and one at Second and Mahantongo streets in Pottsville, according to Thomas W. Schreffler, a project manager with Light-Heigel & Associates Inc.
“We sent what I call an interim report of the evaluation of the data from the 11 meters that we had in place for over two months to the executive director via email. Did you get that?” Schreffler asked Yingling.
“Yes I did,” Yingling said.
“It’s an ongoing evaluation and, preliminarily, we have identified some areas that I would categorize as suspicious as far as putting in excess inflow and infiltration,” Schreffler said.
He said areas he’s taking a hard look at are on Pottsville’s west end.
Light-Heigel will have a more complete report to the authority by the end of March.That report will have to be sent to DEP no later than June 30, Schreffler said.
At its meeting, the authority also approved its 2014 audit, which was conducted by Jones & Co., Pottsville.
The authority’s 2014 budget had a total income of $9,487,925, actual expenditures of $6,102,202 and a balance of $3,385,723 by Dec. 31, 2014, according to the audit.
The authority’s total net assets were $31,311,150 as of Dec. 31, 2014, according to the audit.
“We encountered no significant difficulties in dealing with management in performing and completing our audit,” the auditing firm said in a letter to the board dated Jan. 7.
But Jones & Co. made a few recommendations. They included the following:
• “It has been brought to our attention that the authority does not have an accounting manual for staff to follow. We recommend that an accounting manual be created so that in the event of a personnel change, there is something that can be followed by the new staff.”
• “We noted that the authority does not have formally documented computer standards, policies and procedures to provide control over the various computer activities being performed. A computer-based accounting system requires effective controls in order to ensure that assets are safeguarded and transactions are recorded in accordance with management’s authorization. We recommend that the authority develop a computer standards, policies and procedures manual.”
• “At the time of our audit, there were several checks that had been outstanding for several years. Tracking outstanding checks is an important control procedure that ensures that all outgoing checks are accounted for. We suggest that an accurate outstanding check list be kept for each bank account and a periodic review of the list(s) be performed on a timely basis.”