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Water and Sewer Subcommittee April 22, 2003 Page 13 location. He said that they do look at it and decide what they think would be the best way to run the operation and that may mean involve staffing or process changing, or look at electrical rate charges. Councilwoman Neeley asked if OMI would use the current employees as much as possible. Ms. Ross advised that, yes, they would. She said they do not have a lot of extra employees sitting somewhere on payroll waiting until they get the next city. The employees of the city have all of the experience and knowledge of the system and they need that, so they assume the employees that are currently working for the city. She said that some cities require them to offer employment to all of the employees and some cities leave it up to OMI as to how they would staff the project. Ms. Ross said they will work with the city as to how they want to work with the employees. She said other cities have openings in other departments of the city where some of the water and wastewater staff may be transferred, or there may be some training required and they will work with the city to help accomplish that and reduce staff that way. In speaking with City Attorney Schenk regarding fee schedules and standard contracts, Ms. Ross said that each contract is evaluated separately and then negotiated. What they will do is bring in an evaluation team and spend several days on site and look at the city's facilities and the condition, type of equipment, all of the records, amount of chemicals, and electrical bills and then, through their management system they will decide how much it is going to cost them to run the treatment plants and that is how they come up with the cost for the city. City Attorney Schenk mentioned that the city belongs to a consortium which has come together to purchase power more cheaply after deregulation, and questioned Mr. Higgins about whether the savings in power that he referred to was from buying power more cheaply or consuming less power by changing the operation. Mr. Higgins responded that it was sometime both. He said they were sometimes able to put in systems and monitors and equipment to run more efficiently and save power consumption. Sometimes they were able to work with the power companies and question the rates and negotiate more favorable rates.