Bossier City has saved nearly $6 million through outsourcing management of its water and wastewater systems.
Since the city formed a public private partnership with Manchac Consulting Group in 2016, Senior Project Manager Ben Rauschenbach told the city council at its Aug. 7 meeting that the city has saved almost $6 million.
“I think the citizens of Bossier City are happy we’re ahead of the curve and don’t have to raise rates,” said councilman David Montgomery, Jr.
Rauschenbach gave a presentation that over the first six months of 2018, the city has saved approximately $1.3 million alone.
The original savings were expected to only total $900,000.
“Summarized, that’s a monthly average of over $200,000 in savings. A little over $60,000 per month extra we’re saving in operational costs,” Rauschenbach said.
He explained the group used 2016 as a baseline because that was when they took over utility department management.
Rauschenbach said the savings were due in part to $160,000 saved in emergency repair work.
“I’d like to say all of it is our foresight but some of that is just luck and good weather. When we first started in 2016, there were multiple emergencies and we’ve been fortunate to not encounter that in the past 12 months,” he said.
More savings came from performing cost avoidance projects internally as opposed to externally. He said $250,000 in various projects were taken care of internally.
Rauschenbach added the company has completed the 2019 operating and capital budget, and is working with the administration on the five year capital improvement plan on water and wastewater improvement plan.
The partnership has completed more than 105 water and sewer main repairs and 28 capital improvement projects. They are also implementing 10 rehab projects on lift stations and the water treatment division completes more than 400 work orders per month.
“The employees deserve compliments for their participation in this process. They’re taking care of a lot of the maintenance and emergency repairs themselves and running it like a business,” Montgomery said. “It couldn’t be better.”
Rauschenbach also told the council in March this year that the city had saved $1.1 million in cost avoidance by doing some work internally instead of employing external contractors for the work.
Manchac took over the city’s water and sewer division in June 2016. The city paid them just over $1 million to operate the treatment plants and water and sewer lines.
The city council approves the city’s payment and revisits the contract each year.
