Board Vacancy and More Staffing and Budget Discussions

On the Water Front

May 23, 2025

Mark Dolson

 

The San Lorenzo Valley Water District (SLVWD) Board met most recently on May 15th.  The meeting lasted two hours and fifteen minutes and was generally useful and informative.  The two most important things for our community to take away from this are: (1) the Board is seeking applicants to fill a now-empty Board seat, and (2) applicants (and everyone else) should understand the serious staffing and budgeting challenges that the District is currently contending with (see below).

 

Board Vacancy

 

Director Jeff Hill resigned from the Board effective May 12th.  By law, the Board can either: (a) fill the vacancy (through November 2026) by appointment, or (b) call a special election to be held November 4, 2025.  The estimated cost of an election is between $89,000 and $107,000 (based on $5 to $6 per voter for 17,856 registered voters).  Waiting for an election would also leave the Board with only four members for the next six months, increasing the potential for tie votes and for problems obtaining a quorum.

Although Director Bob Fultz initially spoke in favor of having an election, the Board unanimously voted to fill the vacancy by appointment, to make the applications due by 5:00 PM on June 19th, and to interview applicants and finalize the appointment during the Board meeting on July 3rd.  Applications are available online:

 

https://www.slvwd.com/sites/g/files/vyhlif1176/f/uploads/application_for_board_vacancy_schedule.pdf

 

Any adult residing within the District’s boundaries can apply.  The strongest applicants will be those who: (a) can commit perhaps 15 hours per month, (b) are familiar both with the range of issues currently affecting the District and with Board meeting practices, (c) have some relevant experience and expertise that they can bring to the Board (e.g., in an area such as Engineering, Environment, Finance, or Administration), and (d) have a demonstrated ability to engage in constructive discussions and collaborative decision-making.

 

Staffing

 

A public hearing was conducted in compliance with AB2561 which mandates that public agencies present the status of vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts during a public hearing before the agency’s governing body at least once per fiscal year.  During the subsequent Board discussion, Director Layng asked what vacancies are currently open, and Director Largay said his perception was that the District’s ability to operate at full effectiveness is limited in part by vacancies.

 

There are three open positions currently listed on the District website, but there is more to the story than these positions themselves.  Here is the current status (and some personal perspective) as of May 20th:

 

1. A majority of the Board has repeatedly argued for allowing positions to remain open until they can be filled by the to-be-hired General Manager, but this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and it may now be changing.  The Board’s top priority should be to enable the District to function as effectively as possible as immediately as possible.  Any activities that are deferred will simply increase the critical backlog that the new GM will be confronted with.  It is entirely possible that, over time, the new GM may determine that a decision made prior to their arrival (e.g., about who to hire or how to distribute responsibilities) needs to be updated.  This is simply business-as-usual and can’t be avoided by deferring decision-making.

 

1. The Board has repeatedly delayed enlisting a recruiting firm to assist it in attracting candidates for key open positions; happily, this too may now be changing.  The Board is working with RGS (the agency currently supplying Finance Consultant Heather Ippoliti) to fill the General Manager position and plans to start working with RGS to fill the Finance Manager position.  Human Resources Specialist Lisa Young reported during the meeting that the District is facing three notable challenges in its recruiting: (1) the entire public sector is being impacted by a shortage of talent in higher level/technical roles, (2) the remoteness of the District poses a potential drawback for talent as they consider employers, and (3) the District competes directly with other employers in Silicon Valley who often offer higher pay for similar roles.

 

1. It would be helpful for our community to have greater awareness of the impact of the currently unfilled positions.  Operating without a permanent General Managers places substantial extra burdens on recently-appointed Acting General Manager Jen Torres (who is also the District Secretary) and on members of the Board (who have to shoulder some of the load).  In addition, it adversely affects long-term planning; it also deprives District managers of critical opportunities for supervision and mentoring and for helpful dialogues with regard to their performance and decision-making.  Similarly, operating without a Finance Manager has led to a situation in which the District has been foregoing several thousand dollars per week of potential interest income due to under-invested funds.

 

1. Just prior to his departure, former Interim General Manager John Kunkel recommended that the District open a search for a new senior position that may be best described as Deputy or Assistant General Manager.  Happily, this recommendation is garnering further attention.  The District actually searched for someone to fill a similar position several years ago, but the position remained open.  Not only did this result in critical activities being under-resourced, but it left the District without anyone able to step in for former District Manager Rick Rogers when he unexpectedly retired in 2023.

 

1. There are three other open positions that need to be filled, but only one of these is currently listed on the website.  The District is currently assessing candidates for a long-open Environmental Planner position that will enable Environmental Programs and Special Projects Manager Chris Klier to devote more attention to seeking much-needed grant funding.  There is currently an acting Operations Manager, and the District needs to decide whether to conduct a search or simply backfill the position vacated by the acting Operations Manager.  Lastly, the District has been seeking an in-house Construction Inspector, and it now needs to see if this same person can also fulfill the responsibilities of a new state-mandated Cross-Connection Specialist.

 

Budget

Finance Consultant Heather Ippoliti provided some updates to her budget presentation at the previous Board meeting and also shared a spreadsheet with 78 pending infrastructure projects from the District’s Capital Improvement Plan.  Heather said she had gone back and pushed Staff to identify opportunities to reduce increases in operating expenses.  Some minor savings were identified, but the increases were mostly out of Staff control because they were due to salaries and wages, along with other fixed expenses.

Heather said engineering progress had been limited in the current fiscal year due to lack of available funds (due to FEMA’s continuing failure to deliver on its commitments).  In response, she is working with the Budget and Finance Committee to revise the District’s policy about how much money it needs to hold in reserve.  She is also working with a separate team to develop a recommendation for funding essential infrastructure projects via a bond or additional loans.

The ensuing Board discussion made it clear that the District doesn’t have a lot of options: Most of the District’s revenue comes from the sale of water, and it can’t reasonably sell a great deal more.  The District supplements this revenue with grant funding, but seeking this funding requires a significant commitment in terms of Staff and consultants, the future availability of grants is uncertain, and the lack of promised FEMA funds has introduced a major new shortfall.  On the other side of the ledger, the District spends most of its revenue on operating expenses and interest on loans.  Operating expenses can only be significantly reduced by eliminating personnel, and the District’s ability to operate effectively is already being seriously compromised by insufficient staffing.

Director Fultz argued that the District was devoting an insufficient fraction of its revenues to infrastructure improvement.  He said that if the District was unable to more drastically limit is operating expenses, then it actually needed to significantly increase its rates in order to fully fund ongoing infrastructure maintenance and upgrades on an ongoing basis.  This argument ignores two key considerations: (1) the SLV community is currently unprepared to endorse dramatically higher rates, and (2) the more realistic near-term scenario is that the District continues to cobble together short-term fixes as it struggles to regain a more stable footing.

Other Business

The Board unanimously approved the appointment of District Secretary Jen Torres to the role of Acting General Manager at a new annual salary of $165,000.  All four directors complimented Jen’s performance and were highly appreciative of her willingness to shoulder this additional responsibility

The Board also unanimously approved the payment of an additional $77,140 to Granite Construction to replace a number of concrete collars for water valve boxes located under Highway 9 between Lazy Woods Drive in Felton and California Drive in Ben Lomond.  It turned out that the previously installed collars were not strong enough to withstand the traffic load.  The Board advised the Engineering department that the District’s standard for the collars should be updated to match the more conservative County standard.

The next regularly scheduled public meeting of the Board of Directors will be on June 5th at 6:30 PM.