11. Assignment of Proceedings
John A. Bohn is the assigned Commissioner and Maribeth Bushey is the assigned Administrative Law Judge in this proceeding.
1. Cal-Am's strategy for asset investment in capacity projects considers customer demand management an acceptable alternative in appropriate circumstances to additional supply projects. The strategy directs subsidiaries to reduce nonrevenue water especially in instances where limited or no customer growth is forecasted, and supports innovative solutions to meet customer needs.
Water Supply Projects
2. A seasonal operating permit for the San Carlos Well will increase Cal-Am's summer supply capacity by 1.5 MGD or 9.5%.
3. The Scarlett Well No. 8, when repaired with a sanitary seal and returned to service, will add about 1.76 MGD in supply capacity during winter, a 14.4% increase in winter capacity.
4. In winter, Cal-Am has sufficient current supply to meet the Maximum Daily Demand of its customers.
5. Interrupting service in an emergency to the Aquifer Storage and Recovery Project will impose less public inconvenience and health and safety threats than interrupting service to a typical residential or business customer.
6. With a seasonal permit for the San Carlos Well, Cal-Am's summer available supply will be increased from 15.7 MGD to 17.20 MGD but will not meet Cal-Am's forecasted Maximum Daily Demand of 19.5 MGD.
7. Cal-Am identified the risk of imposing mandatory water conservation measures as a consequence of failing to meet Maximum Daily Demand.
8. The risk of imposing mandatory water conservation measures does not justify spending $7 million on five wells and associated treatment plant upgrade.
9. Cal-Am presented no evidence that the Comprehensive Planning Study methodology accurately predicts Maximum Daily Demand in systems with declining consumption and aggressive conservation programs.
10. The Comprehensive Planning Study forecasted an extreme increase in Maximum Daily Demand that was inconsistent with historical patterns.
11. Cal-Am's study identified a low-cost means to assess the potential for altering the Playa Well No. 4 to decrease treatment requirements.
12. Well rehabilitations vary in significantly in cost; Cal-Am justified a 20% contingency factor.
13. DRA presented historical cost data for well rehabilitations and recommended an average of forecasted cost $41,337, without contingency allowance.
14. Cal-Am did not present sufficient record evidence to support 10 well rehabilitations per year at a total cost of $1.3 million.
15. Cal-Am proposed and justified prioritizing well rehabilitations in the Lower Carmel River Valley.
16. Cal-Am proposed $8.7 million for 10 new or replacement storage tanks and DRA agreed to nine.
17. Cal-Am did not justify the Lower Rancho Fiesta 150,000 gallon tank to replace a 10,000 gallon tank.
18. Cal-Am failed to justify $10,000 in cost wasted on an infeasible site for the Ambler Park Oaks tanks.
19. Local fire officials have useful information for prioritizing fire flow projects.
20. Cal-Am has justified spending up to $150,000 during this rate case cycle on fire flow projects as supported by the fire flow task force.
Pipeline Projects
21. The Seaside North and South areas have main break rates of 3.5 breaks/mile/year; the Monterey district's average is 0.28 breaks/mile/year and the nationwide average is 0.25 breaks/mile/year.
22. Cal-Am for the first time proposes a proactive pipeline replacement program in the Monterey district.
23. Polybutylene service connections account for 52% of the service connection breaks but comprise only eight percent of the service connections in the Monterey system.
24. Cal-Am historically replaces about 150 polybutylene connections per year but 3,500 remain in the Monterey system. An additional 200 connections must be replaced each year to completely replace all such connections over the next 10 years, and the average cost of replacement is $1,851.
Interconnection Projects
25. Cal-Am proposes and DRA does not oppose interconnections between the Ryan Ranch and Hidden Hills systems, and between Hidden Hills and the main system, but DRA recommends allowing the projects in rate base only upon completion as both require but have not yet received approval by the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District.
Meter Replacement
26. Cal-Am is out of compliance with General Order 103 standards for meter testing or replacement.
27. Cal-Am needs to replace or test 2,630 meters/year to remain current with GO 103 standards.
28. Cal-Am has justified a cost of $191.67 per replaced meter, and a temporary supplemental replacement program rate of 1,885 per year will alleviate the backlog.
Unaccounted for Water
29. Cal-Am's 2003 to 2007 average amount of unaccounted for water was 11.59%, the industry standard is 10%, DRA recommends 8.5% and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District's standard is 7%.
30. Over the period 2003 to 2007, Cal-Am's percentage and volume of unaccounted for water increased.
31. Cal-Am's consultant recommended pressure management measures and customer meter error reductions to reduce unaccounted for water by up to 650 acre-foot/year.
32. Cal-Am's consultant found that a "significant number of meters tested do not appear to be in the user account database and are apparently not generating revenue."
33. Supply constraints and conservation rate design in the Monterey system require the highest quality program to reduce unaccounted for water in the Monterey district.
34. Cal-Am needs a financial incentive to improve its performance in reducing unaccounted for water.
Purchased Water
35. The parties have agreed that should the Seaside Basin Watermaster deny Cal-Am's request to offset replenishment fees with Coastal Water Project costs, then Cal-Am may file an advice letter to include the replenishment fees in revenue requirement.
36. Purchased water includes $794,073 for Seaside Basin Non-replenishment fees.
37. The Sand City Desalinization plant will produce up to 300 acre-foot/year.
38. Cal-Am's lease of the Sand City Desalinization plant allows Sand City to allocate all 300 acre-foot/year to new development in Sand City, but regulatory approvals retained 94 acre-foot/year for Cal-Am's existing customers in Sand City.
39. The annual lease payments are currently expected to be $850,000, and annual operations and maintenance expenses are projected to be $203,000.
40. Cal-Am is under court or agency order or proposed order to reduce its draw from the Carmel River and the Seaside Basin by 2,361 acre-foot/year in 2009.
41. The initial term of the Sand City Desalinization plant lease is 15 years; pursuant to the lease terms, Cal-Am is obligated to produce 300 acre-foot/year of potable water and to incur all costs required to do so.
42. Cal-Am presented no contemporaneous cost analysis of the Sand City Desalinization Plant lease compared to alternatives.
43. Cal-Am presented no evidence of evaluating or negotiating the terms of the Sand City Desalinization Plant lease.
Regulatory Expense
44. Cal-Am's presentation on regulatory expense focused on expected costs for these proceedings, A.07-12-010, and the cost of capital proceedings.
45. Increased levels of Cal-Am and service company personnel dedicated to supporting rate case and other regulatory matters are included in Cal-Am's requested revenue requirement.
46. DRA calculated reasonable rate case expense of between $500,000 and $1,000,000; Cal-Am's actual outside services for its recent rate cases have been about $1,000,000.
Fine for Failure to File Required Customer Complaint Reports
47. Cal-Am does not dispute that it failed to timely file four customer complaint reports required by D.06-11-050.
48. Cal-Am is not a repeat offender.
49. Failing to file timely customer complaint reports is a serious violation and Cal-Am did not detect the violation.
Tank Painting
50. Cal-Am asserted that it provided DRA a schedule for tank painting but did not provide the schedule for the record; Cal-Am did not explain why its forecasted tank painting costs for test year 2009 were 130% higher than historical costs adjusted for inflation.
51. DRA calculated a five-year average of tank painting costs using recorded amounts, and adjusted for inflation, to determine a forecast of tank painting cost for test year 2009.
52. Cal-Am requested a 42% increase in district payroll over authorized 2006 and DRA agreed to a 32% increase.
53. Cal-Am has had 13 utility workers in the Monterey district since 2003 and did not identify specific required tasks that are not being performed due to insufficient staff.
54. Cal-Am did not present a quantified analysis of the need for and benefits of additional valve turning in the Monterey district.
55. Cal-Am's presentation seeking a permanent backhoe operator consisted of 10 lines of text and no quantification of costs and benefits.
56. Cal-Am reduced its maintenance technicians from five in 2001 to its current one without any payroll reductions or explanation for this change.
57. Cal-Am's presentation in support of its request for a Senior Operations Engineer and an Engineer in Training consisted of one-half a page of text with no numerical analysis.
Seaside Basin Adjudication Costs
58. Cal-Am incurred costs of $2,755,960 to litigate and secure Seaside Basin water rights, and DRA agreed the costs were reasonable and prudent.
59. Seaside Basin costs awaiting amortization should accrue interest at the 90-day commercial paper rate, as with balancing and memorandum accounts, which similarly record amounts awaiting ratemaking recovery.
General Office
60. In D.06-11-050, we adopted an audit requirement for this Cal-Am General Office application, required that Cal-Am make a comprehensive factual showing on each expense category, and stated that Cal-Am would need to overcome a heavy evidentiary burden to justify increases in excess of inflation plus customer growth.
61. Cal-Am proposed to increase its service company employee count by 38% as compared to authorized 2006 and DRA agreed to 25% by adopting actual employees hired as of May 31, 2008; DRA used this employee count to determine 2008 labor costs, which it escalated by 4% to forecast 2009 labor costs.
62. The 2007 actual incentive compensation payout rate for the service companies, including corrected data for the National Service Company, is a reasonable forecast for the 2009 incentive compensation payout rate.
63. Cal-Am demonstrated no quantified benefits to customers from business development operations.
64. Cal-Am presentation on General Office legislative influence expenses suffered from the same inconsistencies as Cal-Am's 2003 presentation on this issue.
65. The National Service Company provides service to over 100 non-regulated contracts but Cal-Am allocated no National Service Company costs to these non-regulated contracts.
66. Using information provided by American Water to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, DRA calculated that 12% of National Service Company costs should be allocated to non-regulated operations.
67. Accurate cost allocation to non-regulated operations is essential to prevent cross-subsidization and unfair competition.
68. Cal-Am's testimony showed that rather than producing economies of scale, the nationwide consolidated call center model is resulting in costs 5.8% higher than under the stand-alone model.
Settlement Agreements
69. Cal-Am and DRA have negotiated and entered into settlement agreements addressing rate design and certain issues in water district revenue requirement. The rate design settlement is Attachment A to today's decision and the Partial Settlement of Water and Wastewater Issues is Attachment A to the companion decision in A.08-01-023.
70. The continuing use of potable water for outdoor irrigation is not reasonable.
71. It is reasonable for Cal-Am to provide rate making financial incentives and innovative non-potable water solutions to diminish the use of potable water for landscape irrigation.
1. Cal-Am bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the proposed rate increases are just and reasonable.
2. On a forecasted basis, Cal-Am can meet its customers needs on winter Maximum Day Demand adequately, dependably, and safely and can reasonably meet the needs of the Aquifer Storage and Recovery Project.
3. Reducing or prohibiting the use of potable water for outdoor irrigation during peak demand periods is a reasonable means of addressing short-term supply limitations; such use is not entitled to the high standard of reliability accorded to residential and commercial consumption and sanitary uses.
4. In consultation with its customers and landscaping professionals, Cal-Am should develop and implement a program to reduce or prohibit the use of potable water for landscape irrigation during Maximum Demand Periods.
5. Cal-Am has not met its burden of presenting persuasive evidence justifying four replacement wells, one new well, and associated treatment upgrade in the Lower Carmel River Valley. Two replacement wells costing $833,000 each have been justified.
6. Cal-Am should implement the proposed sealing testing for Playa Well No. 4.
7. Cal-Am has justified rehabilitating two wells per year in the Lower Carmel River Valley and two other wells per year in its system.
8. Using DRA's forecasted cost per well rehabilitation and Cal-Am's contingency factor result in a forecasted cost per well rehabilitation of $49,604, which is reasonable.
9. Allowing tank additions to be included in rate base upon completion and filing an advice letter, some with a showing of support by the fire flow task force established in today's decision, is reasonable.
10. The following tanks, along with specific approval requirements, should be authorized:
Tank |
Size (gallons) |
Cost |
New or Replacement? |
Resolution |
Segunda |
$2,905,598 |
New |
Advice Letter | |
Hidden Hills |
2 x 30,000 |
$322,000 |
Replace 16,000 gallon tank |
Allow |
Upper Rimrock |
$479,000 |
Replacement |
Advice Letter/Fire Flow | |
Chualar |
150,000 |
$832,000 |
New |
Advice Letter/Fire Flow |
Withers |
100,000 |
$200,044 |
Replacement |
Allow |
Carmel Woods 1, 2, and 3 |
100,000 replaced |
$750,000 |
Repair and Replacement |
Allow |
Oaks (Ambler Park) |
2 x 200,000 |
$1,962,971 |
Replace 2 x 20,000 gallon tanks |
Allow tanks, but disallow $10,000 |
11. Cal-Am should convene and provide logistical and staff support for a fire official task force to prioritize fire protection upgrade projects, with consensus recommendations reduced to writing.
12. Cal-Am has justified proactively replacing pipeline in Seaside North, South, and Pacific Grove Country Club Heights over the three year rate case period at a rate of up to $2.4 million per year.
13. Cal-Am should be authorized to replace an additional 200 polybutylene service connections per year for the next 10 years at an annual cost not to exceed $370,742.
14. Cal-Am should be authorized to combine its pipeline and polybutylene service connection replacement projects to maximize efficiency.
15. Cal-Am should be authorized to file advice letters for inclusion in plant in service upon completion of each of its two interconnection projects.
16. Cal-Am should be authorized to choose between its Hidden Hills interconnection or replacing pipeline in the Hidden Hills subsystem.
17. Cal-Am should implement a permanent annual program of meter replacement at a rate of 2,630 meters/year to remain current with GO 103 and should implement a temporary supplemental program to replace 1,885 meters/year to eliminate its current backlog over four years.
18. The following unaccounted for water standards should be adopted for the Monterey district:
System |
Cal-Am Proposed |
Adopted |
Bishop |
10% |
9% |
Hidden Hills |
16.16% |
13.8% |
Monterey |
11.59% |
9% |
Ambler |
17.04 |
13.5% |
Ralph Lane |
21% |
15.5% |
Chular |
10% |
9% |
19. Cal-Am should include in its annual WRAM filing the following:
1. For the Bishop, Hidden Hills, Monterey, and Ambler systems,
a. Provide the total water production for each system for the preceding calendar year.
b. Calculate each system's adopted unaccounted for water quantity by multiplying the adopted percentage from the table in the preceding Conclusion of Law by the actual production quantity for period in item a. above.
c. Calculate the actual unaccounted for water for the period by determining the difference between each system's production meters and the sum of all the system's customer meters.
d. Subtract the actual volume of unaccounted for water from the adopted volumes calculated in item b. above for each system.
e. Multiply the difference calculated in item d. above by $2,018.79/acre-foot based on the adopted standard rate of $4.5345/Ccf.
f. If the result of item e. is positive, i.e., actual unaccounted for water is less than the standard, then this is a reward amount that will be added to the balance to be included in rates via WRAM Balancing Account amortization.
g. IIf the result of item e. is negative, i.e., actual unaccounted for water is greater than the standard, then this is a penalty amount that would be entered as a debit to the amount to be recovered from ratepayers through the WRAM Balancing Account.
2. For the Ralph Lane and Chualar systems, which are not included in the WRAM, the penalty/reward amounts will be calculated as above but will be assessed to customers by a separate one-time surcredit/surcharge.
20. Cal-Am should be authorized to file an advice letter to include Seaside Basin Replenishment Fees in revenue requirement, should the Seaside Basin Watermaster deny Cal-Am's request to off-set replenishment fees with Coastal Water Project costs.
21. To obtain cost recovery, Cal-Am must present clear and convincing evidence demonstrating that the costs and terms of the Sand City Desalinization Plant lease are reasonable and prudent; that is, the action would logically be expected to accomplish the desired result at the lowest reasonable cost consistent with good utility practices.
22. In the record for this proceeding, Cal-Am has not demonstrated that the costs and terms of the Sand City Desalinization Plant lease are reasonable and prudent.
23. Cal-Am's request to include the costs of the Sand City Desalinization Plant in revenue requirement should be denied without prejudice to re-filing.
24. Regulatory expense is included in revenue requirement on a forecasted basis.
25. Incremental rate case expense should be included at a forecasted amount of $350,000 per year of the three-year rate case cycle.
26. The severity of Cal-Am's offense in failing to file timely customer complaint reports and Cal-Am's conduct require a fine of $10,000 per violation, for a total fine of $40,000.
27. Cal-Am should be ordered to pay a fine of $40,000 for failing to timely file four customer complaint reports.
28. DRA's five-year average of tank painting costs, adjusted for inflation, is a reasonable forecast of test year 2009 tank painting costs.
29. Cal-Am did not justify four new utility workers, a valve turner, a backhoe operator, four new maintenance technicians, an operations specialist, senior operations engineer, engineer in training, or a system operation specialist positions.
30. Cal-Am should be required to present a comprehensive position-by-position description of each budgeted employee in all future general rate case filings, including comparisons of last authorized to proposed.
31. Cal-Am reasonably and prudently incurred $2,755,960 in costs for the Seaside Basin Adjudication.
32. Commission precedent supports including water rights litigation costs in revenue requirement by amortizing the capital costs, plus interest, over a reasonable period of time.
33. A ten-year amortization period, with interest at the 90-day commercial paper rate, is reasonable for the Seaside Basin adjudication costs.
34. Cal-Am should file an advice letter creating a Seaside Basin Adjudication Balancing Account to track the amortization of the costs and interest on the unamortized balance.
35. Cal-Am's forecast of 2009 General Office labor costs should be adjusted to conform to employees actually hired by May 31, 2008.
36. Cal-Am's General Office incentive compensation payout rate for test year 2009 should be forecasted by using the actual 2007 payout rate for each service company.
37. Cal-Am has not justified including business development expense in General Office revenue requirement for California customers.
38. Charitable contributions and sales and marketing expenses should not be included in regulated utility revenue requirement.
39. Cal-Am failed to justify its request for legislative influence expenses in General Office; the request should be denied.
40. DRA's adjustments for unsupported National Service Company costs and corrections for non-departmental interest income and income tax and Operating Risk Department salaries should be adopted.
41. Cal-Am's position-by-position analysis justified the reassignment of 12 employees from the Local Service Company to the California service company.
42. DRA's calculation, based on American Water Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filing, that 12% of the National Service Company costs should be allocated to non-regulated operations, is the best evidence before us of the proper allocation of costs to non-regulated operations.
43. Cal-Am should be allocated 4.56% of the following National Service Company rate filing categories: Belleville Lab, Customer Service Center, Finance, Information Technology, NSC Functions, Operations/Network, and Shared Services.
44. Local Service Company allocations should be based on up-to-date customer counts.
45. The Customer Service Center costs should be adjusted to remove the 5.8% of excess costs over the stand alone model.
46. CalCorp rate case expense should be reduced by $34,664 to reverse double counting of rate case expense.
47. General Office costs should be allocated among the California districts based on number of customers.
48. Cal-Am should meet and confer with the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District regarding District costs properly Cal-Am's responsibility.
49. Cal-Am should be allowed 180 days to develop and file for Commission approval for a program to fund the projects currently performed by the District that are properly Cal-Am's responsibility.
50. The rate design settlement is reasonable.
51. Cal-Am should be authorized to submit an application for non-potable water irrigation demonstration projects, feasibility studies, and other means to develop and implement innovative replacements for potable water use in landscape irrigation.
52. The Settlement Agreement as to Rate Design issues is reasonable in light of the whole record, consistent with the law, and in the public interest. The Settlement Agreement should be approved.
53. Regarding the Partial Settlement Agreement between the Division of Ratepayer Advocates and the California-American Water Company on Monterey Water and Wastewater Issues, filed November 24, 2008, and attached to the decision in A.08-01-023, the portion addressing Monterey district water general rate case issues is reasonable in light of the whole record, is consistent with the law, is in the public interest, and should be approved in this decision.
IT IS ORDERED that:
2. The California American Water Company is authorized to file in accordance with General Order 96, and to make effective on not less than five days' notice, the revised tariff schedules for Monterey that are attached as appendices to this order. The revised tariff schedules shall apply to service rendered on and after their effective date.
3. California American Water Company is authorized to file advice letters seeking Commission authorization for rate base offsets in the Monterey district for the following capital projects when each has been completed and is used and useful, at costs not to exceed those indicated plus an allowance for funds used during construction to the extent the project exceeds one year in construction:
a. Two Lower Carmel River Valley replacement wells, not to exceed $833,000 each.
b. Segunda Tank, $2,905,598; Withers, $200,044; Carmel Woods 1, 2, and 3, $750,000.
c. Upper Rimrack Tank, $479,000, with fire flow task force support.
d. Chualar Tank, $832,000, with fire flow task force support.
e. Interconnection between Ryan Ranch and Bishop, $277,000.
f. Interconnection between Hidden Hills and Monterey Main System, or, as an alternative, replace pipeline in the Hidden Hills subsystem, $546,000.
4. The rate tables and tariff sheets attached to today's decision are adopted.
5. California-American Water Company is authorized to file on or after November 15, 2009, in accordance with General Order 96-B, an advice letter, with appropriate supporting workpapers, requesting an escalation adjustment for Monterey district water rates to be calculated in conformance with the rate case plan adopted by the Commission in Decision 07-05-062.
6. California-American Water Company is authorized to file on or after November 15, 2010, in accordance with General Order 96-B, an advice letter, with appropriate supporting workpapers, requesting an escalation adjustment for Monterey district water rates to be calculated in conformance with the rate case plan adopted by the Commission in Decision 07-05-062.
7. On May 11, 2009, California-American Water Company submitted a Tier 1 Advice Letter seeking interim rates from that date to the effective date of the rate increase adopted in today's decision. The surcharge to true-up the interim rates shall be based on the methodology set forth in Decision 07-12-055 and be collected over the remainder of this three-year rate case cycle. The tariff implementing the surcharge may be included in the filing authorized in Ordering Paragraph 1 or filed by advice letter within 60 days of the effective date of the rate increase authorized by this decision.
8. California-American Water Company is authorized to file Tier 1 advice letters to request amortization of the balancing and memorandum accounts adopted in Paragraph 4.4 of the Water Settlement and to continue the accruals adopted in Paragraphs 4.1 and 4.3 of the Water Settlement Agreement.
9. California-American Water Company is authorized to file an advice letter creating a Seaside Basin Adjudication Balancing Account to track the amortization of the costs and interest on the unamortized balance.
10. If the Seaside Water Master does not offset Replenishment fees with the costs of the Coastal Water Project, California-American Water Company is authorized to file an advice letter to amend its purchased water account by the amount not offset.
11. California-American Water Company shall improve its pipeline break data collection to comply with industry best practices and shall include break type and cause.
12. California-American Water Company is authorized to file an advice letter creating an Aquifer Storage and Recovery project memorandum account to record up to $14,380,000 in costs for the Aquifer Storage and Recovery project for later ratemaking consideration by the Commission, expected to occur in 2012-2014 Monterey district general rate case.
13. The requirement established in Decision 01-09-057 that California-American Water Company demonstrate synergy savings from the Citizen Water Company asset purchase is terminated.
14. California-American Water Company shall implement a permanent annual program of meter replacement at a rate not to exceed 2,630 meters/year to remain current with General Order 103.
15. California American Water Company shall implement a temporary supplemental program to replace 1,885 meters/year, after the 2,630 meters for the annual permanent program, to eliminate its current backlog over four years and is authorized to file an annual advice letter to include the costs of the actual meters installed under its temporary supplemental program, up to a maximum cost of $191.67, when the meters are installed and operational.
16. California American Water Company shall pay a fine of $40,000 payable to the California Public Utilities Commission for deposit to the General Fund, and shall remit said amount to the Commission's Fiscal Office at 505 Van Ness Avenue, Room 3000, San Francisco, CA 94102, within 30 days of the effective date of this order. The number of this decision shall be included on the face of the check.
17. California-American Water Company, in consultation with its customers and landscaping professionals, shall develop and implement a program to reduce or prohibit the use of potable water for landscape irrigation during periods of Maximum System Demand. No later than 180 days after the effective date of this order, California-American Water Company shall file and serve a compliance filing setting forth such a program.
18. California-American Water Company shall conduct the test for Playa Well No. 4 and take appropriate actions based on outcome of the test.
19. California-American Water Company shall convene and provide logistical and staff support for a Monterey District fire official task force to prioritize Monterey District fire protection upgrade projects, with consensus recommendations of the task force reduced to writing. California-American Water Company shall consider the task force's prioritization and may fund fire flow projects up to $150,000 in this three-year rate case cycle and shall include in revenue requirement $10,000 for task force support and expenses.
20. California-American Water Company shall develop and implement a program consistent with the highest engineering standards for reducing unaccounted for water in its Monterey Main District and associated subsystems, and shall include a comprehensive report on its efforts in its next general rate case filing.
21. California-American Water Company shall present a comprehensive, position-by-position description of all district personnel in its future general rate cases, including comparisons of authorized versus actual positions and all proposed changes.
22. In all future general office rate increase applications, any increase beyond inflation and customer growth shall be denied absent a specific demonstration that each element of the proposed increase is necessary to serve California customers. All proposed personnel increases must be justified on a position-by-position basis.
23. Cal-Am is authorized to file a petition for modification of today's decision that fully discloses all non-regulated operations which use any assets or employees included in revenue requirement, specifying the following:
1. Identification of all such goods and services provided to non-regulated operations,
2. Identification of all personnel positions and assets included in revenue requirement and used to provide the non-regulated goods and services,
3. Statement of revenue received for such goods and services,
4. Demonstration that all identifiable costs are direct billed to non-regulated accounts and that all indirect costs are allocated consistent with the multiple tier methodology.
24. California-American Water Company shall meet and confer with the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District regarding costs properly the responsibility of California-American Water Company and its ratepayers.
25. No later than 180 days after the effective date of this order, California-American Water Company shall develop and submit for Commission approval a program to fund the projects currently performed by the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District that are properly California-American Water Company's responsibility, and is authorized to file an advice letter to create a memorandum account for interim costs.
26. California-American Water Company is authorized to submit an application for non-potable water irrigation demonstration projects, feasibility studies, and other means to develop and implement innovative replacements for potable water use in landscape irrigation.
27. California-American Water Company shall present a comprehensive comparison of all authorized capital projects to actual expenditures for the preceding three-year rate case period in all future general rate cases. Deviations from authorized shall be identified and explained.
28. The Settlement Agreement as to Rate Design issues is approved. The parties shall comply with the Agreement.
29. California American Water Company is authorized to file an Advice Letter creating a Water Revenue Adjustment Mechanism and Modified Cost Balancing Account as provided in the Rate Design Settlement Agreement.
30. California American Water Company shall incorporate within its Water Revenue Adjustment Mechanism and Modified Cost Balancing Account the following Unaccounted for Water Incentive Program:
1. For the Bishop, Hidden Hills, Monterey, and Ambler systems,
a. Provide the total water production for each system for the preceding calendar year.
b. Calculate each system's adopted unaccounted for water quantity by multiplying the adopted percentage from the table in Section 6.1.11 in the Decision by the actual production quantity for period in item a. above.
c. Calculate the actual unaccounted for water for the period by determining the difference between each system's production meters and the sum of all the system's customer meters.
d. Subtract the actual volume of unaccounted for water from the adopted volumes calculated in item b. above for each system.
e. Multiply the difference calculated in item d. above by $2,018.79/acre-foot based on the adopted standard rate of $4.5345/Ccf.
f. If the result of item e. is positive, i.e., actual unaccounted for water is less than the standard, then this is a reward amount that will be added to the balance to be included in rates via WRAM Balancing Account amortization.
g. IIf the result of item e. is negative, i.e., actual unaccounted for water is greater than the standard, then this is a penalty amount that would be entered as a debit to the amount to be recovered from ratepayers through the WRAM Balancing Account.
2. For the Ralph Lane and Chualar systems, which are not included in the WRAM, the penalty/reward amounts will be calculated as above but will be assessed to customers by a separate one-time surcredit/surcharge.
31. Consolidation of A.08-01-023 with A.08-01-027, and A.08-01-024 is set aside.
32. A.08-01-027 and A.08-01-024 are closed.
This order is effective today.
Dated July 9, 2009, at San Francisco, California.
MICHAEL R. PEEVEY
President
DIAN M. GRUENEICH
JOHN A. BOHN
RACHELLE B. CHONG
TIMOTHY ALAN SIMON
Commissioners
