No utility cap for event center

Last week’s meeting of the Board of Public Works witnessed the board working through several small items quickly before spending the majority of the meeting discussing whether or not to cap the utility bills for the Kimball Event Center. They chose not to at this time but may be open to revisiting the issue in a few months.

Christy Warner, representing the Kimball Event Center committee, addressed the board concerning the electrical portion of the event center’s city bill. She explained that after a review of past utility costs, they found that monthly averages over the past six years showed anywhere from $1067.09 for the average month of September to $4,838,86 for the average month of January with January 2017 reaching $6,368.12. The highest month over the past six years was January 2015 with a utility bill reaching $7,012.11. Warner expressed her frustration about the charges, saying, “it seems pretty ridiculous.”

These exorbitant utility costs prompted the committee to ask for an audit from the City of Kimball to see what, if anything, could be done to lower costs. Bill Hinton explained some of the issues that he and his crew found.

According to Hinton, the most significant issue was in regard to the multiple thermostats throughout the building. None of the thermostats had lock boxes on them so anyone could adjust the heating without concern of personal repercussion.

Another large issue is that the heating and air conditioning systems are on different thermostats and the heating system was set one degree higher than the air conditioning system. This caused both units to run almost constantly, causing a continual drain of electricity. Both of these issues have now been attended to.

Other energy draining issues that were dealt with included:

• several large watt items that were plugged in 24/7 even though they were not being used

• several extension cords supplying electricity to multiple wire heat tapes for water pipes in areas that were not adequately insulated

One issue that has not been fixed, but is on the list to be confronted, is that many areas are either not insulated adequately or simply not at all.

Hinton said that approximately 80 hours went into evaluating the building and fixing and reprogramming for more reasonable utility statements.

According to Special Projects Coordinator Amy Sapp, a partial utility bill for the event center after repairs reached only $2,288 in comparison to $4,410.12 the previous year, showing a drastic improvement.

The board still felt quite uncomfortable with capping the event center’s utility bill and asked for the committee to come back in a few months with a clearer picture of what the bills look like after all the issues are resolved. As Chairman Jim Cederburg suggested, any utility caps are essentially gifted money and the city is not currently in the position to be gifting anywhere from $12,000 to $24,000 a year to the event center, which is what a $2,000 and $1,000 caps are comparable to.