Grant PUD Commissioners received a presentation from the utility’s Treasury staff during their meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 23 regarding the most recent liquidity analysis performed.
The Risk Department recommended a minimum liquidity requirement of $100 million to cover certain catastrophic scenarios the district may face. Grant PUD’s current financial position meets this requirement.
Treasury personnel indicated the minimum maintained balance in the Electric System Revenue Fund should be increased to $50 million (from $25 million) to cover increased capital spend in the Electric System and allow for timing differences in revenues and expenses.
Staff also requested the commission allocate $15 million from the Electric System Revenue Fund to the Electric System Reserve and Contingency Fund (Commission restricted) to continue to meet strategic financial metrics such as Days Cash On Hand.
Prudent financial planning allows the district to continue to receive positive rating agency reviews and reduce costs to ratepayers, stated Amy Thompson, Manager of Treasury Operations – Investment Banking.
Commission Tom Flint praised the efforts of the Treasury staff.
“You’ve done a magnificent job keeping this district healthy financially,” he said.
See the full report on pages 25-39 of the presentation materials. (The meeting was held at the Hydro Office Building at Wanapum Dam, no recording is available.)
Grant PUD call center metrics improving
Cary West, Senior Manager of Customer Solutions, also told commissioners that customers calling into the local call center in August saw their wait times reduced. Call center representatives exceed performance goals for handling calls, first-call resolution, and percentage of call wait times under five minutes. The call center is still working on achieving the goal of having less than 1% of callers waiting more than 10 minutes. The call center reduced that number from 11.2% to 6% in September. West added that the call center has a monthly average of 6,933 calls with an average duration of 2 minutes and 49 seconds.
The call center also implemented a post-call customer survey in August. More than 300 customers have participated in the three-question survey and the results have exceeded satisfaction targets for the interaction with the call center representative and Grant PUD generally.
West also mentioned that the customer solutions team opened the Ephrata and Moses Lake customer service offices five days a week starting Sept. 1. See hours here.
See the full report on pages 51-60 of the presentation materials.
The Commission also:
- Received a quarterly report from the Large Power Solutions team. The team’s near-term top priorities include a roll-out of the new Large Power Application Fees, onboarding new LPS team members, and developing a strategy to maximize underutilized capacity associated with large customer load limits. See the full report on pages 1-8 of the presentation materials.
- Heard a quarterly report from the External Affairs team. The team’s top priorities include updating a capital project and key initiative public engagement strategy for more intentional public participation and formalizing a grade-school tour program for Wanapum Dam. See the full report on pages 10-18 of the presentation materials.
- Received a report from the Product Development/Rates & Pricing/Energy Services Department. Some of the department’s top priorities are hiring a Senior Manager of Rates & Pricing, working on rate unbundling strategy with the commission, develop programs to incentivize customers to conserve electricity, and take advantage of the district’s income qualified rate. The product development group also shared their three areas of focus - capacity, enabling technology, and other emerging opportunities. See the full report on pages 40-49 of the presentation materials.
- Approved a motion to authorize a $7.7 million change order for a new contract amount of $108.5 with Voith Hydro, Inc. for work on the Priest Rapids Dam turbine upgrade project. See page 9-50 of the commission packet.
- A motion authorizing a 16-month Wholesale Marketing Services Confirmation with Morgan Stanley Capital Group to perform wholesale power marketing services. See page 51-54 of the commission packet.