The Town of Many recently won a Community Achievement Award in Technology & Creativity for the installation of new digital water meters at the annual Louisiana Municipal Association Convention held in Alexandria on August 3-5.
The award was given after the town replaced aging, broken, manually- read water meters with new ones that are more efficient in terms of the number of employees and hours it took to read and process data in order to send out water bills. The installation increased water sales revenue without raising water rates while reducing the number of man-hours Continued from Page 1 needed to manually read water meters and input data from paper into the billing system.
The Town of Many first did an analysis on how many people and how many hours it took to read 1,444 analog water meters, record water usage on paper, then turn over all of the “water meter books” to the Water Clerk for data entry into the billing system. Findings showed that it took 240 hours for 6 employees to complete their monthly tasks in order to send out water bills each month using this manual procedure. Those hours equated to over 4,000 man-hours per year at a cost of more than $51,000.
Another finding was that many residents on the water system had meters that didn’t work and they were only being charged the minimum amount of $ 38.18 (inside city limits) or $54.56 (for outside city limits) each month and not for their actual water usage. The conclusion at the end of the analysis was that it was costing too much money and time along with lost revenue to not replace the water meters and increase staff efficiency while lowering labor costs to produce bills.
We researched vendors we might want to work with and for the most beneficial financing options. After going through all the correct steps according to Louisiana laws for a project of this size and scope, a vendor was finally chosen to provide and install Neptune 360, ultrasonic, self-reading water meters. The software that came with the system would be integrated into the billing system to reduce the time and costs of the manual system.
The preliminary work for the project began early in summer of 2021, with the above-mentioned analysis then putting the project out to bid. After choosing Core and Main as the project vendor, and getting funding secured and meters ordered, installation was set to begin in February 2022. By the end of December in 2022, 1,439 meters were in the ground, with only 5 more large industrial meters to go---as soon as they were received! They had been ordered during the summer of 2022, but because of unresolved supply chain issues caused by the pandemic, these last few meters were not received until March of 2023 and have since been installed.
The amount that was needed and placed into the escrow account was slightly more than $736,000. The town is making annual payments and should be able to pay for the entire project within 12-13 years. No income from tax money received, bond issues, capital outlay, or grant money was used to fund this project.
The one major problem encountered was that the money was gone before the project was finished. However, being aware that scrap metal is a much-valued commodity, the town could recoup some cash for the almost 1,000 old meters taking up space in the Town’s maintenance barn. Having already been offered $2.50 per old meter from the vendor (less than $3,000), it was known the town could recoup much more if the old meters were put up for auction.
The town reached out to LMA’s Cooperative Purchasing Commission and they put the meters up for auction on Gov Deals. An online bidding war for the old, worn-out meters ensued and by the time the auction ended and the paperwork was processed, $17,300 was put back into the bank to finish paying for the project That amount of money was more than seven times more than what the vendor offered and a stellar way to overcome the problem of “more project left than money”.
The purchase and installation of the ultrasonic, self-reading water meters has exceeded the goal of reducing manhours and associated costs while increasing the amount of water sales revenue. Now it only takes one person around five minutes to upload water usage data into the billing system and just a day or two to verify that the bills were processed correctly.
The annual savings of man-hours with associated salaries is more than the annual payment back to the bank. The new water meters are able to capture accurate data down to the tenth of a gallon on a 24-7-365 basis automatically and can be quickly uploaded for billing customers in the most efficient manner. As the meters are guaranteed for 20 years, the town has been able to use some American Rescue Plan Act funds for other water system upgrades which has also helped reduce costs of water production and delivery to customers. LGAP and CWEF funds have also helped with smaller water projects, like elevated storage tanks and well inspections.
This new water meter project was the largest, most expensive municipal water project the town has undertaken in the past two decades and with dedicated employees taking care of it, this project will continue to pay dividends into the next two decades.