City proposes $3.5M citywide water‑meter replacement to reduce losses and give customers online access

City staff on Saturday outlined a proposal to replace every city water meter with a single, modern AMI system to reduce unbilled water, speed leak detection and provide customers online usage visibility.

City Manager Jason told the council the city is seeing significant meter failure rates and water loss estimates that staff said approach double typical acceptable loss rates; staff framed a full replacement as a one‑time capital investment that will improve billing accuracy and system monitoring. "What we're looking to do is a comprehensive full scale citywide meter replacement... This is also in here as well, the 3,500,000," Jason said.

Staff described technical benefits: remote reads, the ability to remotely disconnect or reconnect service, near‑real‑time hourly usage data for customers, pressure monitoring to detect breaks early, and a lead service‑line inventory required by forthcoming compliance timelines. A staff member said meter fail rates are high enough that a mass replacement would be the most effective way to reduce unbilled water and customer complaints.

Questions from council centered on cost, vendor choices, installation timeframe and whether recently replaced meters would need replacement again. Jason and operations staff said vendors can sometimes supply meters in phases but that a comprehensive program avoids continuing piecemeal costs and integration headaches; staff estimated per‑meter installed costs in the low hundreds of dollars depending on size and vendor, and said some vendors told them a full deployment could be staged over months depending on supply.

What’s next: Staff will prepare procurement options (RFP/piggyback/finance scenarios), further cost breakdowns and any recurring software/cellular charges for council review prior to committing capital dollars. The meter proposal was discussed but not approved at the workshop.