EPHRATA — The Grant County PUD’s preliminary budget projects $263.8 million in expenditures in 2018. That’s about $43 million less than the 2017 budget.

Utility district treasurer Bonnie Overfield presented the 2018 preliminary budget to PUD commissioners at the regular commission meeting Tuesday.

The preliminary budget does include a 2 percent overall rate increase, although the increase will be different for different customer classes. The budget proposal presented Tuesday doesn’t include rate information. Customarily rates are set in the fall; the budget proposal presented to the commissioners assumes new rates will go into effect April 1.

Three public hearings to show PUD customers the budget and the rates, and get their comments, are scheduled for mid-October in Ephrata, Moses Lake and at the PUD hydro office at Wanapum Dam.

Utility district management set budget goals and directed that the result fit the goals, a system Overfield called “top down.” To meet the goals, total operations and maintenance expenses are projected at $111.2 million for 2018. The goal is to keep O&M expenses at about the same level for the five-year period of the budget projection, Overfield said.

Capital expenses are expected to decrease by about $49 million. Utility district officials have decided to restructure the long-term debt in the electrical system to reduce payments in the near term. “In the last couple years we’ve talked about our debt looked like a cliff – it spiked way up and then started to fell off,” Overfield said, which PUD officials called the “pinch point years.”

Paying the debt as originally projected meant the PUD would fall short of the budget targets, Overfield said, so officials restructured to pay only the interest on some debt through 2023, after which payments on interest and principal will resume. For some debt, interest-only payments will continue through 2026.

Most of the capital expenses are part of a decade-long project to refurbish the turbines and generators at Priest Rapids Dam. The project started this year, and the second unit (of 10 total) is scheduled for refurbishment in 2018; the turbine is budgeted to cost about $18.9 million and the generator about $14.7 million.

About $10.3 million is budgeted for recreation improvements at the Crescent Bar Recreation Area. About $4.3 million will be spent to rehabilitate spill gates at Wanapum Dam.

Improvements to the Eastside switchyard are budgeted for $5 million, and about $6 million is budgeted for rehabilitation of the embankments at Priest Rapids. A $2.15 million project is scheduled to improve the Mt. View substation near Quincy.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbabasinherald.com.