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Regular City Council Meeting <br />June 16, 2003 <br />Page 6 <br /> <br />and cannot really give him an answer to that question, but what he could answer <br />is after looking at the city' s rate based on the rates that they were recommending, <br />and he looked at them and compared them to cities that are in the City of ?aris's <br />population range and when he starts isolating out the cities that are part of large <br />systems, such as Farmers Branch who is a customer of Dallas Water Utilities, <br />and isolating them out and stand alone for the 25,0000 to 30,000 population, the <br />City of Paris' rates are about in the middle to the low side based on what they are <br />recommended. He said this should give the city some level of confidence that <br />they are doing things right. <br /> <br />Councilman Bell asked Mr. Stowe how much money he provided to be <br />transferred to the General Fund. Mr. Stowe said it was approximately <br />$750,000.00 for general administrative costs and overhead. If the city calculates <br />it as a percentage of revenue, the figure would be 7% to 7-1/2% of total revenue. <br />Mr. Stowe said that they look at this for Paris and for other cities. What Paris is <br />charging is in about the middle area. Mr. Stowe said the franchise fee is <br />approximately 4% and that is what other utilities are charged. <br /> <br />Councilman Guest asked what was the total debt service. Gene Anderson, <br />Director of Finance, advised that the debt service was about 33 million dollars <br />for the water and sewer fund combined; and the annual expenses are about 11 <br />million including debt service. Mr. Anderson said that he had provided the <br />Council two years of the financial statement and in 2000-2001 the transfer out <br />is a larger number. That is because the city did two refunding issues to save <br />money and the money in there would have gone to the Interest and Sinking Fund, <br />because this was done ahead of time as an advance refunding, he had to take that <br />money and transfer it over to the Interest and Sinking Fund to make the debt <br />payment that was coming up, which was a one time deal. That money went into <br />the Interest and Sinking Fund to pay debt. <br /> <br />Mayor Fendley said we show retained earnings and it is not the typical retained <br />earnings because you are showing 30 million dollars in retained earnings. Mr. <br />Anderson said that would include the asset base. Mayor Fendley stated that it is <br />not actually the accumulated profit from the water and sewer departments over <br /> <br /> <br />