The Citrus County Water and Wastewater Authority will meet at 1 p.m. on Monday to consider three current ongoing rate cases: Rolling Oaks, Meadow Wood and Meadows Utility Company.

The authority meets in Room 166 at the Lecanto Government building.

The Meadow Wood case involves simply a franchise certificate transfer and name change. The Rolling Oaks Utilities is a general rate case. The Meadows Utility Co. is a staff-assisted rate case. In the Meadows Utility case, the authority’s consultant, Burton & Associates, has submitted a letter of recommendation for further and more intense accounting investigation than the authority had initially requested to validate the current data.

The Utility Regulation staff has recommended for the August meeting that the authority deny the rate case increase. Their reasoning was that rather than expend $25,000 to $50,000 more in pursuing the staff-assisted rate case, the authority should enforce the burden of proof onto the utility as outlined in the Florida Administrative Code.

In the Rolling Oaks Utilities case, Burton & Associates and Office of Utility Regulation staff met on July 23, and discussed concerns of the Office of Public Counsel. The staff is recommending that the Authority consider the testimony of its consultant and recommendations of staff to approve a rate adjustment based on the analysis and adjustments made to the last consultant’s technical report on the Rolling Oaks Utilities general rate case submittal. That would include the needs versus wants discussion with the utility, as directed by the authority during the July 6 authority meeting, as well as review and inclusion of many of the Office of Public Counsel’s office concerns from its letter dated July 20.

To maintain these rates, the staff also recommends that the proposed miscellaneous fees and service charges be approved as submitted by the utility.

In another case, Tarawood Utilities had been given a July 2 deadline for submitting additional requested information before a Show Cause hearing would be requested by the Office of Utility Regulation. The Aqua Utilities of Florida rate case was scheduled for a draft of
the technical analysis by July 10, with a final revision by Sept. 2. It would then be placed on the September authority agenda.