Tomball will receive a total of $2.92 million from the ARPA, Community Impact Newspaper previously reported.
Assistant City Manager Jessica Rogers said there are about 4,700 meters and transmitters that will be replaced. During the City Council’s last meeting Jan. 3, then-Public Works Director Beth Jones said there are 1,200 transmitters that have failed and need to be replaced with 100 more failing a month, Community Impact Newspaper reported.
Public Works Director Adam Ballesteros, who took over Jones’ role after she left the city Jan. 7, said at the Jan. 17 meeting that transmitter failures mean public works employees have to manually read water meters, taking away time from other tasks they could be doing.
“The water meters are a cash register for the enterprise fund,” Ballesteros said. “When our staff is having to [read meters] independently, [they’re] performing that task when they could be mowing or doing sewer checks or things of that nature.”
City Manager David Esquivel said the city budgets about $250,000 every year for the replacement of water meters and transmitters. He said it would take a multiyear process to be able to replace the entirety of the city’s system were the city to do it using only budgeted funds.
Esquivel said the $1.7 million quote for the infrastructure from the vendor is good until the end of January, meaning the cost could go up after that. Additionally, Rogers said there is a 40- to 52-week waiting period for the meters and transmitters once they are ordered.
Council Member Derek Townsend said the city should not wait to purchase the meters in case the prices rise.
“Let’s not put this off,” Townsend said at the meeting. “Not financing stuff right now with the government we have right now, that’s not wise in my humble opinion.”
The conversation about the water meters was part of a larger discussion of how the city should use its ARPA funds. Council Member Chad Degges, the lone elected official to vote against using the ARPA funds for the water meters and transmitters, expressed frustration with how the city was proposing to use the funds.
Degges said council should budget the funds instead of using them now and use it for major projects to be done in the city. He also said the city should have called a bond in previous years to be able to get some of those projects finished.
“Let’s pour some concrete and do some hard stuff,” Degges said. “Where’s our alleyways? Where’s our concrete? Where’s our parking problem? Why isn’t that solved?”
Council Member Lori Klein Quinn said since the city has access to the funds, she believes it would be better for the city to pay for the replacement of the water meters and transmitters now as opposed to going into debt with a bond to get the project done.
“It is taking a project we budgeted for and cash funding it at today's prices,” Klein Quinn said. “I think it would be better to do it now at today's prices than over the next four years.”
