2.00 General Office Plant Improvements

2.01 ORA and Cal Water agree that Cal Water should be allowed $170,000 in 2002 for software, hardware, and site development so that the website calwater.com will meet all the Commission's requirements under General Order 96-B and provide greater customer benefits.

2.02 After Cal Water clarified the calculations shown in its workpapers, ORA and Cal Water agree that $199,400 expended on capital projects in 2001 but omitted from ORA's report should be added to ORA's 2001 plant estimate.

2.03 Cal Water provided additional justification for a new plan to implement PeopleSoft version 8.0 and provided a reduced cost estimate. Peoplesoft version 8.0 is a software package that will be used for maintaining Cal Water's financial, accounting, human resources, and billing records. Currently, Cal Water uses an older Peoplesoft version that will no longer be supported by Peoplesoft. The new plan reduces outside consulting services and spreads the cost of the implementation over 2002, 2003, and 2004. ORA and Cal Water agree that the new plan responds to ORA's initial concerns with the project and that $192,000 in 2002 and $272,000 in 2003 should be added to ORA's estimates of capital improvements.

2.04 As discussed above, in response to ORA's concerns, Cal Water and ORA quantified the operating savings from implementing the Citrix and centralized storage system projects. Cal Water and ORA agree that $324,000 for the centralized storage system in 2002 and $250,400 for the Citrix system in 2003 should be included in ORA estimates of capital improvements

2.05 Cal Water presented additional justification that the project to replace its aging payment processing machines with more efficient machines should be allowed in 2003 and 2004. Based on this additional information ORA agrees that $108,000, one half of the project cost, should be included in its 2003 test year estimate. Additionally, Cal Water and ORA agree that $150,000 should be removed from plant and $125,000 from depreciation reserve in 2003 to reflect the retirement of two existing payment processing machines.

2.06 Cal Water provided additional justification for six vehicles purchased by the company in 2002, but disallowed in ORA's estimate of capital improvements. Based on the discussions that addressed employee compensation and the business use of these vehicles ORA and Cal Water agree that three of these vehicles totaling $75,000 should be included in ORA's 2002 capital improvements estimate.

2.07 After Cal Water showed additional detail reflecting lower costs for the source water assessment program (SWAP), ORA agrees that $70,000 in plant additions for each test year should be included in its estimates and to withdraw its recommendation of an advice letter filing capped at $387,000.