Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Water Right Solutions

In June 2002, the city contracted with Water Right Solutions from Helena to investigate and analyze the city's existing water rights. What follows are the payments made to this company and the funds from which said payments were taken:

2002:
Jun18: Water - $1,000.
Jul 16: Water - $2,467.
Aug 06: Water - $3,109.
Oct 01: Water - $1,050.
Nov 05: Water - $1,538.
Dec 17: Water - $3,263.

2003:
Apr 01: Water - $ 618.
May 06: Water - $1,108.
Jun 03: Water - $3,788.
Jun 24: Water - $1,109.
Aug 05: Water - $ 581.
Sep 02: Water - $1,575.

2004:
Jul 06: Other Admn. - $3,136.
Aug 03: Other Admn. - $ 625.
Sep 07: Other Admn. - $2,380.
Dec 07: Fiscal Svcs. - $5,374.

2005: (beginning in March 2005, payment only in excess of $5,000 were to be reported. Prior to that time, payment in excess of $500 were to be reported).

Jan 04: Electric - $4,194.
Feb 01: Electric - $1,881.
Oct 04: Electric - $4,388; Fiscal Svcs. - $ 1,842.

2007:
Oct 16: Fiscal Svcs. - $9,465.

2008:
Feb 19: Electric - $1,239; Fiscal Svcs - $5,407

Total reported: $61,137.00

Breakout per fund:

Water - $ 21,206.
Fiscal - $ 22,088.
Electric - $ 11,702.
Other - $ 6,141.

A few questions:

1. How many payments were made that were not reported?

2. Really, no payments made to them in 2006? Seems odd.

3. Why were four funds used?

4. I'm assuming this is the company with the conflict of interest. If so, how could they and the city ethically enter into a contract?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

One more question

5. Why are we paying them on an ongoing basis?

I would think the City water rights are pretty much the same since 2002.

Sandra Guynn said...

According to a conversation I had with Commissioner Jolley, our water rights/reservations have changed within the past year.

She is in the process of trying to obtain the documents that verify when the city commission took action to reduce the city's historic water rights.

Anonymous said...

The conflict has to do with WRS assisting the City in purchasing water rights from another entity that WRS worked with.

I believe the 02 and 03 payments are for general water work, identifying what we have and historical use and such.
The Other Admin and Fiscal Services charges relate to wastewater, sewer and work for IMC and ME. Electrical relates to ECP/SME.

The City water rights attorney appears to be Harley Harris from Luxan & Murfitt.

Water right 41QJ-123410 was amanded from 53,574 af to 20,140 af on 7/10/06. The total af includes 41QJ-123411 and 41QJ-123408.
Also of note, Thomas Dean & Hoskins and Black & Veatch have recently worked on a Water Master Plan, apparently with little or no input from WRS.

Anonymous said...

The conflict has to do with WRS assisting the City in purchasing water rights through another entity that WRS has a partnership with.

The waiver of conflict was signed by John Lawton.