By Dennis Brown

After 15 months at the helm of the Vanceburg Electric Plant Board, Superintendent Eric Bloomfield has accepted a position with a regional bank and Plant Board members are seeking a replacement to the local utility company’s top position.

“I’ve really enjoyed my time here,” Bloomfield said last week after the announcement became public. He praised the Plant Board and utility employees for making his job easier and cited the workers for creating a welcoming environment at the utility company.

Denver Moore, who is a Vanceburg City Council Member, serves at the council’s representative on the Plant Board. During the regular meeting of council last week, he made the announcement that Bloomfield had resigned effective May 31. Bloomfield has been the Plant Board Superintendent since January 1, 2009.

Bloomfield presented his letter of resignation to the Plant Board during a closed session on March 30. The board entered into closed session to discuss personnel matters and took no action after returning to open session.

Bloomfield said he received a telephone call “out of the blue” to see if he would be interested in taking a job as controller for American Savings Bank in Portsmouth, Ohio. “I wasn’t looking for a job,” he said. “I have a wife and three children who count on me to make the right decisions to provide for them,” Bloomfield added.

He said the banking position fits well with his background as a CPA and businessman.

Plant Board members are looking for a replacement and an announcement could be made as early as this week when the board meets in regular session.

Bloomfield said the board aggressively advertised for candidates after former Superintendent Phil Kennedy announced his plans to retire. He said several candidates were interviewed at that time who are qualified to fill the position. Bloomfield was hired at that time based on his experience and interview score.

Bloomfield said the timing wasn’t optimal for coming in as the head of the utility company due to the recession. “It impacted us (the utility company) just like any other company,” he said. “Even more so in some cases.”

He said the poor economy caused local businesses to reduce production resulting in reduced consumption of utilities. Some commercial electric customers closed altogether, including two large sawmills, he said.

The poor economy also resulted in several more customers not able to pay their utility bills on time.

In April 2009, four months after he was named superintendent, the electric supplier increased rates charged to the utility company by 37 percent. He said to help offset the increased cost, the company was forced to increase rates to customers by 25 percent.

The company was also hit with a “true-up” by AEP to the tune of about $467,000, up from about $60,000 the previous year.

The auditor reported to the board last month that the company had a net operating loss of $426,680 for the year ending June 30, 2009. Primarily, he said, due to the true-up.

The Plant Board also followed the recommendation of the auditor, Greg Caudill with Caudill and Associates CPAs in Portsmouth, Ohio, to cease annual payments-in-lieu of taxes to the City of Vanceburg each year and to begin charging the city for utilities it consumes. Caudill cited Kentucky statutes in the recommendations outlined in the audit report.

The payments to the city totaled nearly $290,000 for fiscal 2008-09 and the monthly utility bills the city now pays to the utility company come to about $7,000 a month.

Caudill, whose firm also performed the city audit, was scheduled to present the city’s audit to Vanceburg City Council during regular session last week but requested a delay and was scheduled to present it to council on Monday evening.

Bloomfield said a project to replace the city’s outdated sewer lines has also been a time and energy consuming project, and his biggest challenge. A court order, brought on by the EPA, has mandated the project and will cost an estimated $6.5 million.

“We’ve been going after every available dollar to put toward this project,” Bloomfield said. He explained that the sewer system only has 747 customers and to pay for the project without significantly increasing sewer rates has required the utility company to apply for funding at every turn.

“We have $4.5 million pending in state and federal grant applications,” he said. He added about $4 million has been sought through Kentucky House Bill appropriations. “We should know about those by April 14,” he said.

Bloomfield said he would like to spend about 30 days with the incoming superintendent to make a smooth transition and added he is willing to help the new superintendent well past his departure date of May 31. “I told the board I would be willing to stay through June,” he said.

“I will miss working in the town I grew up in,” Bloomfield said last week.

“The employees here are great and the board is extremely good to work with,” he said. “They are interested in the community and committed to serving their customers.”

“The employees here have made my job a pleasure. They really run an efficient operation,” he said.

Bloomfield said there are 17 employees of the utility company, 13 fewer than 15 years earlier and with 30 percent more customers.

“To do what they do really requires teamwork. The workers in each of the departments help each other out,” Bloomfield said. “If there is a problem with the water system, workers from the electric department jump in and help out until the problem is fixed.”

Bloomfield is also impressed with the average response time it takes for employees to respond to problem calls from customers; about 50 minutes for a water line problem and about 20 minutes for a gas line problem. Workers are on call to respond to problems around-the-clock.

Bloomfield also pointed out that there was not a single system-wide electric outage over the winter. He credited that to preventive maintenance measures taken by the utility company over the past several years.

Bloomfield said one of the joys of the job has been to help people get utility service where it wasn’t available before.

He said efforts to reduce non- and late-paying accounts have also paid off with a reduction of nearly 70 percent in delinquencies over the past year.

“The utility rates here are among the lowest in the area,” he said last week. “That makes the Vanceburg area an attractive place to live and is a great incentive for industry to locate here.”

Bloomfield said the job comes with a certain amount of stress, but it hasn’t been something he isn’t used to. “I’ve worked in the restaurant business and as a CPA for some 20 years,” he said. “It’s not bad stress, I’ve handled it fine,” he added.

Vanceburg City Council met in regular session last week and voted to make some changes to the city’s recycling pick-up schedule.

Mayor Angie Patton said fewer state inmates are available to assist city workers with trash and recycling pick-up and workers have begun to concentrate more on street and mowing duties with the change in weather.

City workers are now picking up recycling items only on Tuesdays. She said residents should not set out their recycling items on the same days as trash pick-up, as has been done in the past.

Council also agreed not to host the annual Spring Clean-up this year because of less available manpower and a tight budget.

Patton said past clean-ups, when the city would pick-up and dispose of unwanted items at no cost to residents, have cost the city from $1,000 to $1,500 and require extra trips to the landfill and additional hours for workers.

“As much as we like to provide this service we will be unable to this year due to cost,” she said.

Council members also agreed to cut back on the areas maintained during the summer months by city workers and inmates.

Patton said city workers have been mowing and maintaining areas that do not belong to the city. Most of those, she said, are rights-of-way along state maintained roadways. Patton said she will contact the state and ask them to maintain those rights-of-way.

Greg Caudill, with Caudill and Associates CPAs in Portsmouth, Ohio, was scheduled to present the city’s audit for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009. Patton said Caudill requested an extra week to complete binding copies of the audit and prepare for the presentation.

Council scheduled a special meeting for 5:30 p.m. on April 12 to allow Caudill to present the audit to them.

Council Member Denver Moore, who serves as the

council representative on the Vanceburg Electric Plant Board, presented an update to council.

Moore said the Plant Board would be losing three good people due to the retirements of Chad Clark and Gene Cooper, and the resignation of Superintendent Eric Bloomfield. He said Bloomfield would be leaving at the end of May.

Council adopted a resolution to renew a contract with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Patton said this will be the third year the city will participate in a program in which three percent of the city’s portion of Municipal Road Aid from the state is set aside in an emergency fund.

Patton said cities and counties participating in the program can apply for emergency funding in the event of a disaster resulting in unforeseen expenses for the entity.

She said the city applied for, and received, $28,700 in emergency funding to help with repairs associated with a storm in June 2008. “We’ve already received much more than we’ve paid into this fund,” Patton said in recommending the move to council members.

Council also adopted a resolution to continue participation in the FIVCO Area Drug Enforcement (FADE) Program. Patton said the program operates with grant funding and pays 25 percent of an officer’s regular pay and all overtime pay for the officer from each participating agency.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing to be involved in,” Patton told council members.

She said she believes the program helps to slow down drug trafficking in Vanceburg and Lewis County and credited task force officers for their roundups and arrests of suspected drug traffickers around the area.

Patton said the city officer can be pulled off the task force at any time if they are needed in the city. She added that other task force officers are available to assist here if the need arises.

Council members went into closed session for the purpose of discussing personnel issues and took no action after returning to open session.

Council members approved the minutes of the previous meeting before adjourning.