GNAW BONE — 2020 has not been kind to the Gnaw Bone Regional Sewer District board.
Its longtime treasurer, Charley White, died in March. Remaining board members Shawn Fosnight and Dave Hess have not been able to find anyone willing to replace him.
Since February, the board has spent about $100,000 on essential repairs to the sewer system, Hess said. That’s about half of what they had in their checking and savings accounts combined, said Fosnight, the current treasurer.
Between 2013 and 2017, the most recent period for which the district was audited by the state, Gnaw Bone was doing pretty well, with its sewer district’s general fund rising from $103,024 to $222,429.
As of the Sept. 2 meeting — attended by zero sewer customers — board members didn’t really know where their utility stood financially.
At that meeting, they terminated the contract of the person who had been hired in 2018 to do their accounting and billing. The Helmsburg Regional Sewer District Board did the same in an emergency meeting called the previous night; both boards had used the same person, Frank Muzzillo of FLM Financial Group in Indianapolis.
Members of neither board could say exactly why the contract was terminated. Helmsburg RSD Board President Denise Broussard said that it was “an employee matter” and that it was under investigation. “We cannot make any more comments,” Broussard said, and Hess and Fosnight were similarly tight-lipped the next night.
Muzzillo had been collecting sewer bills and managing the budgets of both sewer utilities. Early last year, the Helmsburg and Gnaw Bone boards decided to work together to buy billing software and hire him to do the work from his accounting office instead of paying $20.50 per customer to Brown County Water Utility to send sewer bills with water bills.
BCWU had been doing sewer billing for both districts for nearly 20 years, but was planning an increase to cover its costs. Muzzillo had agreed to charge the districts $8.50 per customer to do the billings, plus $150 per month for other financial activities and attending meetings when needed.
A message left at Muzzillo’s office last week was not returned before deadline for this story.
At their next meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 8, the Gnaw Bone sewer board is going to consider passing a rate increase, going from the current $50 minimum to $65 per month. Neither Fosnight nor Hess want to do that, but Hess said they feel like they have no choice.
Before the Sept. 2 meeting, Hess showed two new accountant candidates, from Carpenter and Associates in Bloomington, a list of unpaid bills totaling about $16,000 which the board has been unable to collect. For some of them, the board isn’t sure who’s actually living at properties because the owners listed died years ago and previous letters have come back undeliverable. When Hess sent letters to customers about their unpaid bills in August, only two of them responded, he said.
Another complication is that when the sewer system was designed 20 years ago, it didn’t allow a way for cutting off service to individual customers, Fosnight said. So, if one customer who shares a “pit” with another, paid-up customer doesn’t pay his bill, the board isn’t going to cut service to both customers, and customers know that, he said.
The board has put liens on properties before, but actually getting money that way takes time.
The board had built up a small fund to take care of maintenance on the sewer system, but after two months of lost income, it doesn’t look good, Hess said. He has a repaired pump sitting in his shop but it’s going to cost $5,000 just to install it.
Once they fix these messes, though, the plant should be in good shape for another 10 or 15 years, Hess said.
Even though a rate increase is being proposed, Hess and Fosnight hope it’s temporary. They opted to increase it by $15 all at once because raising a rate requires a series of public meetings, but lowering it does not require those steps. Instead of raising it $5 here or $8 there, they decided to go this route, with the hope of lowering it to around $55 when they can, Fosnight said.
Sewer customers rarely attend the board’s meetings, which are usually at 5:30 p.m. on first Mondays at the Gnaw Bone Food Mart/Country Mark gas station. This month, the meeting is on the first Tuesday because of Labor Day.
Anyone who is a Gnaw Bone Regional Sewer District customer can be on the board, including renters, Hess said. Board members serve for six years, and they are hands-on workers on the sewer system when needed. That’s an effort to keep the costs down, which is why Hess joined the board 20 years ago. If they hired people to do what they do, it would cost at least $175 per person, her hour, he said.
Board members get paid $50 per meeting and $50 per day they work, whether the repair or maintenance task they need to do takes 30 minutes that day or 10 hours. If they had more hands, that work would be lighter, said Hess, who is often the only one available during the day to do it.
Gnaw Bone sewer board members were supposed to be elected this November, but miscommunication between the state and locals resulted in the deadline for getting on the ballot being missed. For now, they’re looking for someone to serve in White’s place until at least the next countywide election in 2022. They’ll also need candidates to put on the ballots then.
Previously, this board has been appointed by the county commissioners, but members voted in the fall of 2019 to switch to an elected format.
With only 93 rate payers, it’s been a challenge to find people who are eligible to serve and want to do so, especially on a “working board” where the duties are more than just paperwork. Both Fosnight and Hess have served since around the time the sewers were first installed, and when there’s no one new to pass the knowledge to, a lot can be lost.
“Charley was the backbone of this board,” Fosnight began.
“When he died, everything was messed up,” Hess finished.
