6.1.a. ERMUSR 02-09-2016 Elk River
Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING
TO: FROM:
Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Troy Adams, P.E.—General Manager
John Dietz—Chair
Al Nadeau—Vice Chair
Daryl Thompson—Trustee
MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER:
February 9, 2016 6.1a
SUBJECT:
Staff Updates—General Manager
DISCUSSION:
• The Board of Directors of the Minnesota Municipal Power Agency(MMPA)met on
January 26, 2016 in Shakopee, Minnesota.
At the meeting,the Board reviewed 2015 performance. Actual rates for 2015 were 3%
lower than budget.
The Board approved an updated investment policy for MMPA which expanded the list of
permissible investments to explicitly include qualifying commercial paper and bankers
acceptances.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued an environmental assessment worksheet
and a finding that no environmental impact statement is needed for MMPA's 46
Megawatt Shakopee distributed generation project.
The 8 MW Buffalo solar project has applied to Wright County for a conditional use
permit.
• The MMUA Legislative Rally in St. Paul is scheduled for Tuesday, April 19. There will
be the day at the capitol followed by a reception for the legislators. This event was
changed from a Thursday to a Tuesday this year to help improve legislator attendance. If
any of the Commissioners are interested in attending,please let me know as soon as
possible.
• This last month management held an internal planning session to discuss long term
strategy, leadership development, and processes to manage larger projects encompassing
multiple departments in a more efficient manner. With multiple retirements from the
management team and the added management team positions over the past few years, this
was an ideal time to"build the team."This is important to establish before we continue to
grow through electric service territory transfer and organic growth.
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One of the goals was to align our internal processes to provide clear line of sight from our
mission statement to task. In other words,we worked to define and focus how our
multiple services align to provide value through quality of life utility services to our
community.
Another goal was to establish criteria on how to prioritize projects for our 5 year capital
projects projections and determine when projects are presented for Commission approval
through the budgeting process. These criteria will help to quantify and objectify the
process of prioritization.
We also are looking to develop large project management processes to improve
efficiency in the sharing of information and coordination between multiple departments.
Examples of when this project management methodology would prove beneficial are for
projects like our recent billing/accounting software conversion and the electric service
territory transfer.
We are excited to focus on development and value. As these processes are developed,
they will be integrated into the way we work day to day. And to be clear, we are not
adding work but rather refining the methods of how we communicate, document,
prioritize, and evaluate existing work. And,therefore, this is not adding cost to the day to
day operation of the Utilities. This should create an opportunity for all staff to grow
professionally with an end goal of providing higher value of services to our community.
As ERMU grows, so does the value we can provide to the community.
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