Water district pays repair bill for truck it does not own

BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

INEZ — Martin County Water District spent over $6,200 on repairs for a truck the district does not own.

The expenditure came to light in a water board meeting Sept. 27 when Alliance Water Resources manager Craig Miller explained the district’s cash basis shortage of $26,078 for August. His explanation included a $6,266 repair bill for a RAM 2500 truck. 

“Last month, the board approved to pay Kevin Dotson and to pay the [Ram] 2500 repairs,” Miller said. “And there was a trailer repaired for the excavator as well. So when you add those bills up, those bills in total were $31,458. Those are bills outside the norm of what the district has been paying.”

According to the list of bills in the water board meeting packet, the $31,458 includes:

•Dotson Contracting for Coldwater/Muddy Branch Bore $19,410

•Dotson Contracting for Pilgrim, Ky., Bore $3,900

•Wilson Equipment for Towmaster TC-12D Work Order $1,882.09

•Hutch for RAM 2500 Repairs $6,266.22.

“If you look at that $31,458 that was spent this month outside of the norm, you would have been positive $5,380 for the month if you didn’t have those expenses,” said Miller.

The water district has no title to a RAM truck, but Martin County Sanitation District owns two RAM 2500s and other RAM trucks.

Since the two districts are separate entities, the water district cannot legally spend money for sanitation district costs. However, a review of the sanitation district’s monthly board packets since 2020 reflects no rent payments for the office it shares with the water district at the Collier Center in Inez. The water district has been paying monthly rent.

The Mountain Citizen looked into cross-spending between the two districts after the sanitation district’s vehicles were included in the water district’s insurance quote in 2020-2021. During the water rate increase case last year, the newspaper wrote an editorial suggesting the water district was spending money on sanitation district expenses – and those expenditures figured into water district costs presented to the Kentucky Public Service Commission. The newspaper editorial also suggested it would not be appropriate for water ratepayers to bear any cost of a separate entity that does not serve them.

In a smack-down move, without investigating possible cross-spending between the two districts, the PSC responded to the editorial and jumped to MCWD’s defense, stating in a July 9, 2021, order: “The editorial claimed that Martin District submitted ‘sewer district expenses in the report they presented to the Public Service Commission for use in setting the price of our water.’ That claim is false as well.”

According to the September water board packet, the water district serves 3,402 customers, while the sanitation district has less than 26 percent of that number at 877. That leaves at least 2,525 water customers who do not receive sewer service.

In other business, the MCWD reported that it had dealt with several outages and leaks in August due to storms and flooding, which resulted in a 76.70 percent water loss rate for the month.

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