(Atlantic) Atlantic Municipal Utilities General Manager Steve Tjepkes presented its’ 2023 budget report at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
Tjepkes report followed the City Council’s approval of AMU’s request to amend the current fiscal year budget. “Wholesale market price of power increased 67 percent in 2022,” stated Tjepkes. “Due to the increased purchase power costs, we must amend the 2022 budget with the State of Iowa to amend the 2022 budget filed to reflect the additional costs.”
On the bright side, Tjepkes pointed out that the much higher purchased power costs of $1.8 million were mainly offset by increased sales from AMU’s share of the W/S#3 generating plant of $1.6 million.
Tjepkes followed up with no increased electric customer rates for the fiscal year 2023. He said the electric department paid off the remaining two-million-five-hundred-twenty-five thousand dollars of outstanding debt in 2022. So now both the electric and water departments are debt free.
AMU’s future capital projects include replacing substation switchgear in the main substation (one million dollars) and closing the ash pond at W/S#3 (one point two million dollars).
Tjepkes says water operations will increase by five percent in 2023. This amounts to an increase of $1.00 per month for the average homeowner. The water operations completed the following projects; refurbishing six large filters in the water treatment plant for $725,000, with the process from a Community Development Block grant, covering one-half of the cost. AMU will begin the engineering and planning to replace an underground water storage tank with an above-ground tank. The estimated cost of this project is $1.8 million. AMU is applying for a $600,000 CDBG grant to offset a portion of the cost.
