Telephonic Status Conference - W-20446A-25-0022 - Global Water - Santa Cruz Water Company, Inc. SW-20445A-25-0023 - Global Water-Palo Verde Utilities Company

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Arizona Corporation Commission 32 min 5 agenda items transcribed 4 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the purpose of this telephonic status conference and which cases are being addressed?

Chris Nichols 0:00

All right, let's go ahead and go on the record. Good morning, everyone. This is the time set for a telephonic status conference in the consolidated matter of applications of Global Water, Santa Cruz Water Company, Inc., and Global Water Palo Verde Utilities Company, Inc., for the establishment of just and reasonable rates and charges for utility service designed to realize a reasonable rate of return on the fair value of their property and for certain related approvals. docket numbers W20446A-250022 and SW20445A-250023. I'm Administrative Law Judge, Chris Nichols, and I have been assigned to preside over this matter. Let's go ahead and take appearances of the parties, beginning with the companies.

Robert Metley 0:59

Good morning, Your Honor. Robert Metley on behalf of Global Water, Apollo Verde Utilities Company, Inc., and Global Water, Santa Cruz Water Company, Inc. Also online is co-counsel Mike Patton with the law firm of Snow and Woman.

Chris Nichols 1:19

Good morning to you both. For Arruco.

Daniel Pazewski 1:23

Good morning, Your Honor. Daniel Pazewski on behalf of Arruco. Good morning, Mr. Pazewski.

Chris Nichols 1:30

And for staff.

Bridget Humphrey 1:36

Good morning, Your Honor. Bridget Humphrey and Robert Ridenour on behalf of staff. We also have Mr. Baxter present in the room where we're appearing and Mr. Witt is online as well, or is on the phone as well.

Chris Nichols 1:52

Thank you, Ms. Humphrey. Good morning to you all. All right. So today's status conference was scheduled for the purpose of checking in with the parties with respect to the review of the supplemental materials regarding post-test year plant and potentially scheduling new hearing dates. So since the hearing was continued at staff's request, primarily, I'll begin with staff. Ms. Humphrey, do you... Do you have an update to provide us to staff's review of the documents that were disclosed in mid-December? I

Bridget Humphrey 2:32

do, Your Honor. Staff has made a preliminary review of the documents. Nothing very substantive at this point. But as we've discussed previously, those additional documents that were provided the week prior to the hearing in December are voluminous. There was an online newspaper article from Maricopa, the city of Maricopa, someone in the city that the pay ran more than 4000 pages. So that's, that's a lot to look at. What our review of those documents at this point shows that there are additional projects There's more work on the Southwest plant, but there are approximately 70 new projects contained in the materials we received that were not addressed previously. That's in addition to the approximately 70 projects which were listed in the initial application in this case.

Bridget Humphrey 3:33

This could be almost a doubling of the materials that we have to look at, and staff anticipate that this is also going to require another site visit. So there is quite a lot of work to do. In addition, on January 2nd, the company provided significant new information and materials on the AFUDC issue in this case. We've previously discussed the fact that staff is... stretched pretty thin in the next year, and that remains in place. We have, of course, TEP, APS, Liberty, Bermuda Water, EPCOR, and Quail Creek all coming up between now and July. We're also continuing to have staffing problems. As I'm sure Your Honor is well aware, we lost Mr. Yanofsky, who accepted another position. So Cherie Jones is now going to be taking over

Bridget Humphrey 4:31

his area of expertise as well as her own. And we are unfortunately losing two attorneys in the legal division, one in January, one in February. And of course, it's going to take some time to get somebody new in and up to speed. So we're very strapped. Council have spoken separately. I've spoken to both Mr. Metley and to Mr. Pazewski about the schedule. And I know the company would still like to proceed in March or April, but it just simply is not possible for staff to be prepared for the hearing by that time. I think what we're looking at is probably August. And to some extent, we have some concerns about the 70 new projects that we haven't looked at that thoroughly. But it appears that some of those 70 projects are not recent.

Bridget Humphrey 5:31

And it's concerning that we received information so late on those.