At the July 20, 2022 Board Meeting, Ken Unger, HSVPOA Director of Public Services, said, “At the last meeting I requested that the Board increase the fee that we charge the builders to cover our cost of the installation of grinder tanks. “As part of the previous discussion, Unger noted that Public Services is moving away from the responsibility of the installation of grinder tank systems for new homes. The POA would still be responsible for the inspection of the new grinder system installations. Unger wants the installation responsibility to be placed on new home builders as early as August (this month). As part of this process, Unger wants a new fee to cover the cost of inspection and acceptance of the installations. There would be at least three inspections needed:
- The initial inspection for the location of the grinder tank
- Review of the lines before they are buried
- Final acceptance and turn-on of the new grinder system
Unger feels it will take between two to three hours to accomplish the three inspection tasks and the fee should be $200. If extra visits are needed, Unger proposes an additional fee of $75 an hour. Additional visits may be needed due to improper installation or other issues. All builders will be provided with specifications.
Unger said, “we expect this process to go smoothly and we will eliminate the capital purchases you see in the past for tanks, panels, chambers.” The builder will be responsible for the purchase of these items.
Board Director, Robert McLeod, said they needed two motions.
To move the responsibility for the initial installation of grinder tank systems out of the Public Service Department and over to the builders and also a motion for the grinder tank system inspection fee(s).
Board Director, Tucker Omohundro, said, “I don’t think we need anything in the policy on something we don’t do. If we do not install these tanks then we won’t have a policy on how we install the tanks if we are not doing it.”
Unger said, “The specifications for the grinder tank would go into the builder package.”
General Manager, Kelly Hale said that although this involves the POA moving out of new home installations of grinder tank systems, but POA will still maintain the grinder tanks of existing systems. Hale said the POA has been losing money for years with the new home grinder tank system installations.
Hale said, “It’s just astronomical how much this is costing the membership, versus what we’ve been charging these builders for years now. Everybody thinks we’ve been making money on this. No, we haven’t. We’ve been losing a lot of money.” Hale said this would allow us to not have to front all the money to keep as large a supply of the grinder systems. We would still need to maintain a supply of replacement parts.
Vice-chair, Gary Belair expressed that he felt that implementing these changes by August 1 was too soon.
Board Director, Tucker Omohundro, said, “I’ve never heard of a municipality doing this.” They use the same system in Hot Springs and the builders do the initial installations.
The Board decided they needed to do some revisions on the motion to move the grinder system installations from the responsibility of the POA to the builder and they would have an email vote when they were satisfied with the changes to the policy.
The Board approved a motion for an initial permit fee of $200.00 to cover three required inspections of the installation of new grinder tank systems installed by the new home builders. Also, there will be an hourly rate of $75.00 per hour for additional visits by the POA (more than the three visits listed above) is required due to the actions of the builder or their assigned agents.
Contact Information For Public Services Director
Ken Unger
Director Public Services
Hot Springs Village
501-226-9609
Kunger@hsvpoa.org
Report by Cheryl Dowden
The builders will install. There will be 3 inspections by the POA. The equipment will be to specifications. Which is still the Simplex system. The maintenance as I understand it will be performed by the POA as part of your assessment fee. I will add that on new homes, these systems do have warranty’s. It will mostly be the same contractors installing them. The POA contracts out most installs now anyway.
Do I understand that homes for which the POA has installed grinders will be maintained by the POA forever and new homes which have grinders installed by builder will NOT be maintained by the POA??
No, that is not a correct understanding. AT THIS TIME, the POA will maintain all of the grinders after the initial installation. Whether the POA continues to maintain the installed grinders into perpetuity is unknown. Please note, that they have not said they would not. I just don’t know whether they will or will not, so I don’t want to misspeak. I have hard that in the City of Hot Springs, the City maintains the grinders after the initial installation, but the City of H. S. is not in the grinder installation business for new homes (told to me by a reliable source). Sorry for the confusion. Hope this helps. – Cheryl Dowden
Excellent! Hats off to Mr. Unger, Mr. Hale, the POA Board and the POA Staff.
Good! It moves it to new homes and that is as it should be. Good job!