LAWCO accountant Darwin Viker had only good things to say about the Austin Utilities financial team at last week’s Austin Utilities Board meeting.

Tuesday, March 21, 2000

LAWCO accountant Darwin Viker had only good things to say about the Austin Utilities financial team at last week’s Austin Utilities Board meeting. Viker reported no significant audit adjustments and praised the municipal utility’s financial report and the people who compiled it.

General Manager Jerry McCarthy echoed Viker’s praise.

"We’re in good shape," McCarthy said. "Our people do an excellent job. LAWCO doesn’t have any problem with us."

The major difference between this year’s audit and those in year’s past was a recent law change that requires investments to be reported at fair market value. That means the auditor must look at the value of the investment on that particular day, and record it for the purposes of the audit. Because of rising interest rates, Viker said, that gave Austin Utilities a large "unrealized loss" for 1999. Unrealized, he said, because the loss won’t happen unless the municipal utility actually sells its investments.

"We wouldn’t take money out in a losing market unless we had to," McCarthy said.

As for prices, McCarthy said rising oil costs would not be reflected in customer’s Austin Utilities bills anytime soon, but he did think there would be a slight increase in electrical rates as early as April.

"That’s nothing to do with gas prices, it’s more to do with things we thought would happen, but didn’t," McCarthy said, specifying a 1 percent rate decrease that never materialized from the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, of which Austin is a member city, as well as a slight change in the way the agency calculates its rates.

"It (the increase) will be nothing major," McCarthy said. "Nothing like Rochester or Owatonna." McCarthy said he thought Rochester recently had increased its electrical rates by nearly 4 percent.

In other matters at last week’s monthly meeting, the utilities board:

n Approved a $10,000 budget for this year’s 100th anniversary celebrations.

n Approved an increase in water main extension costs from $12.65 to $14 per foot. The last rate increase was in December 1992.

n Approved the hiring of 11 people as summer help, a decrease of three persons from last year.

n Authorized a maximum expenditure of $4,200 for wellness assessments, which are preventative medical checks, for all Austin Utilities employees.