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City Council <br /> Page 2 <br /> and not result in an excessive delay. In other words, we should use <br /> the most currently available CPI data when we make this annual adjust- <br /> ment. I will ask our staff to review his suggestion to see if there <br /> is any cost impact to the City, and if there is any significant one, <br /> this should probably also be taken into consideration in our nego- <br /> tiations. <br /> 6 & <br /> 7 . These were discussed simultaneously, and there was considerable contro- <br /> versy. Mr. Blackman' s initial suggestion was that he wanted to drop <br /> all consideration of the commercial bin rates at the present time <br /> because he felt that a discussion of this matter would confuse his <br /> request for a residential supplemental rate increase . My initial <br /> counterresponse was that I felt the entire matter of providing any <br /> additional rate increases, both for commercial and residential, should <br /> be settled simultaneously in this contract revision and that I did not <br /> believe that the City would wish to continue to grant additional <br /> commerical rate increases after the contract had been revised. There- <br /> fore, my counterposition, initially, is that if they do not get approval <br /> for a commercial rate increase in this revision of the contract, the <br /> Council would not consider increases for commercial rates in the future. <br /> During further extended discussion of these two items, the contractor <br /> submitted the attached labor cost data which he has accumulated since <br /> 1971. He indicated that he is willing to verify the accuracy of this <br /> data through a certified audit, and his main point in submitting it <br /> was that the staff' s insistence for a complete certified audit is not <br /> necessary since even this partial audit will reveal that this portion <br /> of his costs have exceeded all of the increases granted by the City <br /> to date (includes both the automatic CPI adjustments and the supple- <br /> mental increases) . This is an interesting point and I think a signifi- <br /> cant turning point in our negotiations . <br /> I have indicated to Mr. Blackman that our staff will review the data <br /> which he has submitted and will ask for further verification and a <br /> previous audit which he indicated was performed in a similar fashion <br /> for the City in 1971 . In addition, I have requested him to update <br /> this data since it was presented on a calendar year basis and, hopefully, <br /> we can now get the data needed for calendar year 1975 to make this <br /> current. Any conclusions which we may reach upon further analysis of <br /> this data could affect our major recommendations both on commercial <br /> rates, supplemental residential rate payments, and extension of the <br /> contract. I am meeting with our Finance Director and our SAMA Team <br /> Analyst later this afternoon and hope that we can make further progress <br /> in this cost analysis before Council 's meeting on Monday afternoon. <br /> 8 . Mr. Blackman advised that he had accounted for a discontinuance of <br /> the refund payments between his first rate increase and the November <br /> increase (in his original letter he requested an immediate 300 per <br /> water meter increase, and in the November letter, this was subsequently <br /> reduced to 150 per water meter retroactive to November 1, 1975) . How- <br /> ever, we did agree on the approximate value of these refund payments <br />