By Morgan Pilz, Staff Writer

(April 30, 2020) Town of Berlin officials discussed the utilities budget during a work session meeting Monday evening.

The overall utility budget for fiscal year 2021 is $9.2 million, compared to $9.1 million from the current year figure.

According to Town Administrator Jeff Fleetwood, the utility fund operates as a “quasi-funded budget” with the exception of the electric utility, which is regulated.

Jeff Fleetwood

According to Fleetwood, the overall budget is up three percent and is projected to have a contingency fund of $13,000, which is $2,000 less than the previous year because of the increasing cost of purchasing renewable energy.

Several departments saw an increase in revenues and fees. Water revenue increased by five percent, sewer by three percent and the capital outlay increased to $164,000 compared to $54,000 last year, because of the need to rebuild a water department pump house on Hamilton Street.

Fleetwood warned there would be a shortfall in the purchase of Equivalent Dwelling Units (EDUs) which requires 59 for sale to remain out of debt. Fleetwood estimates 39 will be purchased this year.

The electric general fund has also seen some major changes, according to Financial Director Natalie Saleh. Because of the coronavirus, the revenue projection has been changed to take “a more conservative approach” she said.

“Overall, the residential services have been projected to increase over $140,000,” she said. “Commercial services increase by $15,000, general services (which is large buildings like Atlantic General Hospital or Food Lion, which have demand charges) increase by $9,000.”

There will also be a slight increase for streetlights by $2,000.

According to Electric Director Tim Lawrence, his department’s budget has increased by 5.78 percent, or $56,000, which will be used to help install a new natural gas generator engine to replace the one that failed last summer.

The cost will also cover new software that will allow the department to monitor the engines while they are functioning from a distance for safety reasons. They also can be accessed through a computer or through an app installed on phones.

“The way it’s done right now, [our employee] actually has to go down to each engine while it’s running every 30 minutes,” Lawrence said. “They record it on a piece of paper, what the temperatures are and that type of thing … this basically gives us the opportunity to automate it up to today’s standards, which is how it should be.”

Funds will also be used to replace a computer that has software dating back to 1999 and cannot be updated.

For the water department, the budget actually decreased by almost 16 percent, with most of the decrease coming from the general overhead and the contingency fund.

There was also a decrease in water treatment by about $3,917, or 2.2 percent for a total budget of $172,429. The major decrease was $5,000 in water treatment costs.