Monday night, Montgomery County supervisors will take a third look at a proposal for the county to take over the operations, maintenance and management of the county Public Service Authority.
The board of supervisors will meet at 7:15 p.m. in the second floor board chambers at the county government center, 755 Roanoke St., Christiansburg.
Supervisors discussed the PSA proposal June 9 and July 14. Monday, they will discuss it again during their work session, then will vote on whether to advertise the plan for public comments and possible adoption at their Aug. 25 meeting.
The authority provides water and sewer service to unincorporated sections of the county.
The upcoming retirement of the PSA director got officials thinking about how to streamline operations that already involve county staff, according to County Administrator Angela Hill.
Unlike many other public service authorities in Virginia, Montgomery County’s PSA board and the board of supervisors have the same members.
In previous discussions, Hill noted that Supervisor Derek Kitts, who is vice chair of the PSA board, suggested using the director’s impending retirement as an opportunity to look at streamlining PSA and county operations.
While the PSA bills customers and collects the revenue, the county’s finance department already acts as the fiscal agent.
What’s proposed is to keep a separate PSA board that would approve a yearly budget, set utility rates and provide strategic direction for facility expansion and investment, but employees would become county employees in a new county utility department. The PSA would transfer operation, maintenance and billing responsibility to the county, which would lease the PSA equipment, vehicles and its garage. According to county officials, these probably will be leases only for $1 per year.
Hill and Kitts emphasized that a main goal of the proposal is to improve coordination among the PSA and county departments as the fast-growing county works on planning for new property developments.
This plan would have the new PSA director reporting to the county administrator instead of the PSA board.
Hill noted that one reason not to eliminate the authority altogether is to maintain the ability to require mandatory water and sewer connections in new property developments.
Supervisor Todd King, who chairs the PSA board, has said he fails to see a major benefit from the proposed changes as compared to how the PSA now operates and interacts with county staff. Supervisor Sara Bohn also has raised questions about the need for changes, especially since the county doesn’t have projections for potential cost savings at this time.
But Supervisor Mary Biggs, who is the PSA board secretary, and other supervisors have said they can see the benefits, particularly in closer coordination on property development projects.
King has said if the consolidation goes through, he thinks PSA board members should no longer be paid separately for their service.
Other business
Also on Monday’s agenda are:
— A work session discussion on affordable housing strategies.
— Appropriating more than $31.7 million for capital projects in the new fiscal year, including nearly $3.25 million for unspecified future projects; nearly $24,800 for jail renovations; nearly $552,800 for the Cinnabar Green Space project; more than $1.95 million for the county juvenile probation department project; nearly $734,000 for the magistrate and court services facility; $10.95 million for the new Elliston Fire Department facility; more than $8.94 million for New River Valley 911 radio system upgrades; more than $465,600 for Teel Park upgrades; nearly $585,000 for parks revitalization; $500,000 for the Valley to Valley Trails project; and nearly $3.8 million for the Falling Branch Corporate Park expansion.
— Appropriating more than $4.36 million for building upgrades to house a new county fire and emergency medical services office building.
— Appropriating nearly $96,400 for the Floyd library and the Montgomery-Floyd regional library.
— Appropriating nearly $95,700 to the sheriff’s office to buy automatic external defibrillators for patrol vehicles, airway clearance devices for county facilities and drones for rescue and recovery.
— Appropriating $10,000 in state grant funds to the sheriff’s office to buy Flock license plate recognition equipment.
— Approving a one-year opioid abatement partnership agreement between Montgomery, Floyd, Pulaski and Giles counties and the city of Radford. The state Opioid Abatement Authority will provide nearly $4.2 million to the effort.
You can find meeting agenda documents at https://go.boarddocs.com/va/montva/Board.nsf/Public.
