While no one involved in destroying the finances of the water company, included the supposedly vaunted management team of Veolia has been reprimanded, fired, resigned, dismissed or arrested, an additional crime is being perpetrated on the citizens of Indianapolis by our “public servants” and the Board of Citizens Energy by negotiating a “sale / transfer” of the Water Company to Citizens. This “sale” will be paid for by borrowing against the water and sewer user fees that should only be used for supporting the delivery of water and sewer services to the customer. Instead, with this sale, over 260 million dollars would be borrowed by Citizens (paid for by our user fees) for a thirty-year period, with said funds being deposited in the coffers of the Indianapolis Department of Public Works.
Our water fees, which have already been raised (and are proposed to be raised by more than a third) because of the ongoing financial malfeasance are now intended to be diverted to repave streets and repair and construct sidewalks.
The Council has already passed a proposal (132, 2010) to divert money from the user fees paid by the sanitary sewer district, managed by United Water, by bonding against payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) funds (Yes, a portion of our wastewater fees for our public sanitary sewer service are sent to the city general fund as taxes instead of providing for our utility service – so, yes it is a hidden tax permitted by the State Legislature in P.L.27-1992, SEC.27), to repave streets and repair and construct sidewalks.
Of course, we are supposed to be happy about this diversion of user fees because savings have been wrangled from so-called “value engineering” and additional savings have been projected from the synergistic effect of combining the water and sewer utilities under the management of Citizens Energy, a public trust. Our happiness should occur despite the fact that sewer user fees are projected to rise by 400% over the next 10-20 years to pay for the $3.5 billion project related to the Combined Sewer Overflow consent decree and Septic Elimination program, etc.
Well, any savings should accrue to the water and sewer ratepayers, with a reduction in the rate of increase of future fees needed to pay for the Consent decree and maintenance of the existing and proposed improvements. They should not be diverted again (as with PILOT funds diverted during this decade) to fund other city operations. If a transfer of these “public” utilities to a “public” trust is reasonable and prudent, it should occur without any transfer of funds from the ratepayers to the City of Indianapolis general fund. It also should not include the continuation of any contracts with Veolia or United Water. If transferring this entity to Citizens makes sense, then it would not make sense to insert / retain an unnecessary layer of management between Citizens and the services and customers that they are proposed to be responsible for. Anything else would continue and exacerbate the financial and management absurdities related to our public sewer and water services.
In summary, this transfer should be no different than any other transfer of duties or responsibilities from one public entity to another. The fact that Citizens and the city would be borrowing money over a 30-year period to pay for, what are for the most part, temporary improvements should give anyone pause. All aspects of the private and public realm are over leveraged. Yet, the solution that is proposed is another "rob Peter to pay Paul" scheme. The only proposal that should be considered is a straight-forward transfer of duties.
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