The Board meets on the first and third Monday of each month. Meetings begin at 1:00 p.m. and are held in the department conference room at 65 Lafayette Ave, Littleton. Board meetings are open to the public and time is allotted for public comments at each meeting.
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The regularly scheduled business meeting of the Littleton Water and Light (LWL) Board of Commissioners (BOC) began at 1:00 p.m. on Monday,
September 18, 2023 in the LWL conference room. Present were Commissioner Linda MacNeil, Commissioner Ralph Ross, Commissioner Peter Cooper, Director of Finance Lori Hogan and Superintendent Thomas Considine.
MINUTES REVIEW:
The minutes of the September 5, 2023 regularly scheduled Commissioners meeting were reviewed. Commissioner Ross made a motion to accept the minutes as presented, seconded by Commissioner Cooper.
The vote was in favor of the motion 3-0-0
DIRECTOR of FINANCE and HUMAN RESOURCES REPORT:
Mrs. Hogan reviewed the highlights of the financial statements for the month ended May 2023 and June 2023 with the Commissioners. Several variances as compared to the budget were discussed and explained by Mrs. Hogan.
The Commissioners agreed and accepted the financial statements as presented.
SUPERINTENDENT/ GENERAL MANAGERS REPORT:
Veronica Francis from GoLittleton asked Superintendent Considine if LWL would consider decorating the Pollyanna and River District arches with Christmas decorations this season to help them save installation cost. She knows that this would be in addition to what LWL is already doing around town including decorating the tree at the library. The cost of hiring someone to access and decorate the arches has become a financial burden for those that are providing the funds. The savings would be used to purchase additional decorations.
The BOC agreed without exception.
GENERAL/OTHER BUSINESS:
1. Kearsarge Energy approached LWL about installing a solar array at the old town landfill site on the Industrial Park Road and interconnecting to LWL infrastructure. Following a discussion with LWL regarding lessons learned from similar project proposals regarding the installation of a solar array, Kearsarge adjusted the size of the array and presented LWL with a preliminary overview of their proposed project.
Commissioner Cooper stated that he believes that some customers, especially some large commercials might be willing to purchase a solar product even though the cost will most likely be higher than LWL rates.
A conference between LWL and Kearsarge Energy will be scheduled over the next couple of weeks to discuss details as a purchase power agreement (PPA) will be required.
2. Superintendent Considine presented the BOC with a power point slide deck presentation that proposed that the electric rates be reduced by twenty (20) percent on October 1, 2023.
Though initially the discussion was about reducing electric rates by about 17% as it was not clear at that time if the positive cash flow would continue as LWL operations were still trending slight down over the past three (3) year period. Financial data from the month ended July 2023 and draft financials for the month ended August 2023 was recently made available. It appears that the positive cash flow trend observed in the first half of 2023 will continue through at least the third quarter of 2023. At this point the downward cash trend should change to a slightly increasing trend moving forward. LWL improving cash flow and probable upward cash trend is why about a twenty (20) percent reduction in electric rates seems economically reasonable currently.
Discussion proceeded as to how best to apply the reduction 1) equally across the electric rate tariff or 2) by user class. Appling the reduction by user class would result in the same net effect for LWL (about 20%) but the reduction applied to each user class would vary. This is due to how efficiently each user consumes energy.
Following some back-and-forth discussion, Commissioner Cooper made a motion to reduce electric rates by twenty (20) percent nominally as discussed and that the rate reduction be applied equally across all rate classes with an effective date of October 1, 2023. Seconded by Commissioner Ross.
The vote was in favor of the motion 3-0-0
MEETING ADJOURNMENT:
There being no further business to come before the board Commissioner Cooper made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Commissioner Ross.
The vote was in favor of the motion 3-0-0.
Meeting adjourned at 2:15 p.m.
The above read and approved.
The regularly scheduled Commissioner’s meeting is held twice monthly on the first and third Monday, at 1:00 p.m., in the Department’s conference room.