Foss budget looks much like old one

Member cities of the Foss Reservoir Master Conservancy District should be billed about the same in 2019 for the water produced there as they were in 2018, a budget adopted at Monday night’s monthly meeting indicates.
The budget for 2019 totals $1,950,430. That’s actually a decrease of just over $23,000 from the amount billed the four member cities in 2018.
As usual, since it’s entitled to the largest share of water produced at the plant, Clinton will again be assessed the biggest share of expenses.
Under terms set up many years ago and later revised, Clinton is entitled to just over 48.6 percent of the water produced at Foss. That compares to 35.8 percent for Hobart, 14.0 for Cordell, and 1.6 for Bessie.
One of the great ironies of that is that other than a miniscule amount for the city’s farm meters, Clinton received no water from Foss in 2018. The last time any water was taken from Foss for this city’s in-town customers was October of 2017.
Of course city leaders both here and in the three neighboring towns which are members of the Foss district would be quick to remind that during a nearly five-year drought which ended in 2015, Foss was Clinton’s salvation, providing it much more water than it had a right to demand.
For its zero take last year, Clinton was billed $918,553. The new budget contains exactly that same amount as Clinton’s projected share of costs for this year. Figures for the other cities are Hobart, $675,258; Cordell, $265,085; and Bessie, $29,868. However, those figures do not include an assessment for the dam and reservoir which also must be maintained. Counting them, the full assessments last year were as follows: Clinton, $965,983; Hobart, $701,727; Cordell, $275,897; and Bessie, $30,157.
Of course, the reason Clinton city faucets are getting no Foss water is a decision of city leaders, in particular City Manager Mark Skiles, who said last fall that Clinton Lake water is better than that at Foss and the town’s citizens deserve the best.
The budget also contains a reserve fund of $649,040, part of which presumably will be used to pay for needed improvements at the water plant which were talked about again at Monday’s board meeting but not enacted.
“Once we get numbers on a clarifier and filters, some of that may have to come from our Reserve 
Fund,” said plant manager Shawn Dewees.
Notes added to the budget this year included the following: “Due to an increase in the amount of money that the Bureau of Reclamation will reimburse to Foss Reservoir for operation and maintenance of the dam and reservoir this year, each member city will see a reduction in its portion of the Dam and Reservoir operating budget for 2019. The cost of potable water delivered to each member city will be billed at $3.67 per thousand dollars for its pro-rata share of water and $2.90 per thousand gallons of overage. Water meters are read weekly and billing is based on each city’s share of the minimum contract requirement of 1,410,000 gallons per day. Foss Reservoir management and staff strive to supply each member city with clean, reliable, potable water as economically as possible.”