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(a) The Municipal Council, through its authorized representative, shall be responsible for the proper management of all funds collected through or generated by the ICR system. ICR payments received from industrial users shall be disbursed in the following manner:
(1) Fifty percent (50%) of the amounts received from industrial users, together with any interest earned thereon, shall be returned to the United States Treasury annually. Said payments shall be made to the U.S. EPA Regional Financial Management Office no later than four (4) months after the end of the annual ICR accounting period.
(2) The Municipality shall retain fifty percent (50%) of the amounts received from the industrial users, together with any interest earned thereon. Eighty percent (80%) of this amount shall be used for the allowable Federal costs of any expansion, upgrading or reconstruction of the wastewater treatment works necessary to meet the requirements of the Act. Before expenditure of these funds, the Municipality shall obtain written approval of the U.S. EPA Regional Administrator, or his authorized representative.
(3) The remaining twenty percent (20%) of the fifty percent (50%) retained by the Municipality may be used at the discretion of the Municipality, except that, these funds shall not be used for construction of industrial pretreatment facilities or as rebates to industrial users.
(b) A portion of the amounts retained by the Municipality may be used to pay the incremental costs of administration of the ICR system. (These are the costs remaining after allocating all costs attributable to the administration of the user charge system to the user charge system account.) The incremental costs shall be maintained separately from all other administration costs of the Municipality. Any funds used for these incremental costs shall come from those funds noted in subsection (a)(3) hereof. When the incremental costs exceed those funds noted in subsection (a)(3) hereof, the necessary funds required may be taken from those funds noted in subsection (a)(2), but only after written approval has been received from the U.S. EPA Regional Administrator, or his authorized representative.
(c) All accumulated ICR amounts in excess of five hundred dollars ($500.00) shall be promptly invested, as noted in subsections (d) and (e) hereof, within five (5) days of its accumulation.
(d) Pending the disbursement of the ICR amounts noted in subsection (a) and (b), the ICR system management shall invest ninety percent (90%) of the ICR amounts (those funds noted in subsection (a)(1) and (2)) in one or more of the following: obligations of the U.S. Government (i.e. Treasury bills, notes or bonds); obligations guaranteed as to principal and interest by the U.S. Government or by an agency of the U.S. Government (i.e. savings accounts guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, or securities issued by instrumentalities of the United States, such as, Intermediate Credit Banks, Federal Home Loan Banks, Federal Land Banks and Banks for Cooperatives); or, accounts fully collateralized by such obligations heretofore mentioned.
(e) The funds noted in subsection (a)(3) (ten percent (10%) of the ICR payment amounts) may, at the discretion of the ICR system management, be invested in any of the forms of investment noted in subsection (d) or expended for any purpose except as noted in subsection (a)(3).
(f) Detailed and timely records shall be maintained by the ICR system management. The records shall reflect clearly the ICR cash, investment and disbursement activities. Suggested formats for these records are noted in Table 5, Appendix.
(g) Lump sum ICR payments may be processed as a normal ICR payment or they may be set aside in a separate account to be drawn on annually for the remainder of the ICR period.
(h) Uncollected ICR charges which become bad debts as a result of bankruptcy of the industrial users shall be identified, but shall not be recovered from other industrial users or other sources. The Federal share of such charges shall not be paid to the U.S. Government as long as they remain uncollected. (Ord. 18-1980. Passed 10-13-80.)
(a) The Municipal Council or its authorized representative shall maintain, for the duration of the cost recovery period, all such records as are necessary to document compliance with the Federal grant requirements. Generally, these records will include the following documents:
(1) Federal grant amount(s) documentation;
(2) Original approved ICR system and documentation related thereto;
(3) Subsequent amendments to the ICR system and documentation related thereto;
(4) List of contributing industries and their wastewater loadings to the treatment works;
(5) Data concerning total wastewater loadings to the treatment works;
(6) Municipality’s notification to U.S. EPA of initiation of operation of the ICR system;
(7) Approval(s) of the use of retained funds;
(8) Record of the Municipality's annual payments to U.S. EPA;
(9) All records relating to retention and investment of those funds set aside for future expansion, upgrading or reconstruction;
(10) Any other documents which may be necessary for reviews or audits by representatives of the U.S. EPA or Ohio EPA.
(b) The records noted in subsection (a) hereof, along with any other records of the ICR system, shall be available to the Appeals Board and anyone who is affected by the decisions, actions or inactions of the ICR system management. (Ord. 18-1980. Passed 10-13-80.)
(a) The ICR period shall commence upon the completion of Step 3 construction, final inspection and the subsequent beneficial use of the wastewater treatment works. The date of commencement for the ICR period shall be the date of beneficial use of the wastewater treatment works by the first user, regardless of whether or not the first user is an industrial user.
(b) Within thirty (30) days after the commencement of the ICR period, the Municipality shall establish the accounting period for the ICR system. The Municipality shall notify the U.S. EPA Regional Administrator, in writing, within sixty (60) days after the commencement of the ICR period, of the date of the implementation of the ICR system and of the ICR accounting period.
(c) Industrial users shall be required to make the first ICR payment to the Municipality no later than twelve (12) months after the commencement of the ICR period.
(Ord. 18-1980. Passed 10-13-80.)
(a) The ICR system, including all records, shall be subject to review and audit by the U.S. EPA or its authorized representative. These powers may be delegated to appropriate State water pollution control agencies such as the Ohio EPA.
(b) It will be the practice of the U.S. EPA to make a preliminary audit of the ICR system at the time of, and as an extension to, the final construction audit. The scope of the preliminary audit will generally include the following:
(1) Verification that the approved ICR system fully complies with the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, U.S. EPA regulations concerning ICR and subsequent related guidelines; and
(2) Determination of the existence of an adequate accounting system and other administrative procedures and systems, including, waste monitoring systems where these are required to effectively implement the approved ICR system.
The purpose of the ICR system preliminary audit is to identify deficiencies so that corrections can be made. When the final construction audit occurs after several months of operation of the treatment works, or after the first full year of the ICR system operation, the preliminary audit of the ICR system will take the form of a regular audit.
(c) The U.S. EPA will schedule regular audits of the ICR system when determined to be necessary and requested by the U.S. EPA Regional Administrator. Unrequested, random audits will also be made to assess general performance of the ICR system management and to identify potential problem areas. Regular and random audits will normally include the following:
(1) Determination of whether allocable industrial costs have been properly computed, assessed and collected in accordance with the approved ICR system and approved revisions thereto;
(2) Determination of whether collected amounts have been properly accounted for and have been deposited in accounts or invested in obligations as noted in Section 921.17, and a determination of whether the interest earned on collected amounts has been fully and properly accrued;
(3) Determination of whether the Municipality, or its authorized representative, has made all annual submissions and payments to the U.S. EPA and whether these have been complete and correct;
(4) Determination of the effectiveness of actions being taken by the Municipality, or its authorized representative, to collect delinquent ICR accounts;
(5) Determination of the adequacy of wastewater monitoring and reporting by the Municipality and/or the industrial users, to the extent that such monitoring is required by the approved ICR system and approved amendments thereto; and
(6) Determination of whether any and all uses of retained funds have been approved by the U.S. EPA Regional Administrator (or State agency when it has been granted such authority), and have been actually applied to eligible project costs.
(d) Audits may also be made when there is suspicion of non-compliance with the approved ICR system and Federal laws, U.S. EPA regulations and guidelines relating thereto. Examples of noncompliance are: inequitable proration of the ICR charges among industrial users, failure to charge all ICR amounts, failure to account for and invest collected and retained amounts, failure to pay the share due the Federal Government, and use of the Municipality's eighty percent (80%) portion of retained amounts without prior approval of the U.S. EPA Regional Administrator. (Ord. 18-1980. Passed 10-13-80.)
(a) An appeals board shall be formed by the Municipal Council for the purpose of reviewing and ruling on contested cases which may be brought by aggrieved parties as a result of ICR system management decisions, actions or inactions. The appeals board shall be seated within sixty (60) days of the implementation of the ICR system.
(b) The appeals board shall consist of five (5) members. The board shall consist of one (1) each of individuals who possess professional knowledge of, or have a background in, one of the following areas:
(1) Ohio municipal law;
(2) Wastewater testing and treatment technology;
(3) Current local Municipal Council member;
(4) Local industrial community member; and
(5) Local wastewater service area resident.
None of the appeals board members shall be directly involved in the administration of the ICR system.
(c) The appeals board shall hear and rule on only those cases which have not been agreeably resolved by the ICR system management and the aggrieved party. A majority rule shall govern all appeals board decisions.
(d) An aggrieved party can be anyone who is affected by the decisions, actions or inactions of the ICR system management. (Ord. 18-1980. Passed 10-13-80.)
The legal authority of this chapter supersedes and nullifies those parts of any and all State and local laws, ordinances, orders and/or agreements in conflict with the ICR system herein defined and with subsequent Federal amendments hereto.
(Ord. 18-1980. Passed 10-13-80.)
APPENDIX
Table 1 - Identification of Nongovernmental/Nonresidential Users
Table 2 - User Group Classification and Quantifying of Flows and Loads
Table 3 - Determination of ICR Cost Base - Treatment Facilities
Table 4 - Determination of ICR Cost Base - Collection Facilities
Table 5 - Suggested Record Formats
PAGES 25 THROUGH 38
CHARTS
RATES AND CHARGES
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