City of Columbia, Missouri
Meeting Minutes
City Council
Conference Room
1A/1B
Monday, March 6, 2023
5:00 PM
Pre-Council
Columbia City Hall
701 E. Broadway
I. CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Buffaloe called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m.
This item is open to the public: Cost of Service and Rates Discussion
Assistant Utilities Director Erin Keys presented Council Members with a presentation
regarding Electric Utility Cost of Service. Goals include:
• Ensure financial health to support long term reliable infrastructure
• Maintain positive bond rating for Water & Electric bonds
• Water and Electric Utilities are ONE for bonding
• Bond sale for the Water Treatment Plant needed
• Electric ~$29 million bond authority remaining
• Better bond rating = lower rates = lower costs
• Rate adjustments are needed to improve Debt Coverage Ratio
• 0.79 Debt Coverage Ratio for FY22 (1.1 Bond covenants requirement)
• Account for significant volatility in Power Purchase costs
• Updated Power Cost Adjustment method
Keys went on to discuss the history which started with Integrated Electric Resource
Master Plan (IERMP). They explained that a rate study is a series of connected
investigations by which they review revenue sufficiency, defensible allocation methods
and simple & sustainable rates. The Rate study process includes:
• Perform a Cost-of-Service Study
• Determine the utility’s revenue requirement
• Design rates that produce the revenue requirement while
balancing the bill impacts to different rate classes
Council Members and Staff had further discussions.
This item is open to the public: Transmission and Substation Upgrades
This item was tabled to the April 3, 2023 meeting.
This item is open to the public: Motion for City Council to go into closed
session to discuss:
- Existing or proposed security systems and structural plans of real
property owned or leased by a public governmental body, and information
that is voluntarily submitted by a nonpublic entity owning or operating an
infrastructure to any public governmental body for use by that body to
devise plans for protection of that infrastructure, the public disclosure of
which would threaten public safety. The disclosure of such information
would impair the city's ability to protect the security or safety of persons or