Sec.16-262o-1. Definitions

For purposes of Sections 16-262o-2 through 16-262o-8 of the regulations:

(a) "Department" shall mean the Department of Public Utility Control.

(b) "Water Company" shall include every corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership, municipality, other entity or person, or lessee thereof, owning, leasing, maintaining, operating, managing or controlling any pond, lake, reservoir, stream, well or distributing plant or system employed for the purpose of supplying water to not less than fifteen service connections or twenty-five persons nor more than two hundred fifty service connections or one thousand persons on a regular basis.

(c) "Acquiring Water Company" shall mean the private entity determined by the Department of Public Utility Control, in consultation with the Department of Health Services, to be most suitable to acquire a water company pursuant to Section 16-262n and subsection (a) of Section 16-262o of the General Statutes of Connecticut.

(d) "Acquired Water Company" shall mean a water company that the Department of Public Utility Control determines, in consultation with the Department of Health Services pursuant to Section 16-262n and subsection (a) of Section 16-262o of the General Statutes of Connecticut, should or must be acquired by a private entity to assure the availability and potability of water and the provision of water at adequate volume and pressure to the persons served by the water company.

(e) "Acquisition Costs" shall include the amount of compensation for acquisition pursuant to Section 16-262q of the General Statutes of Connecticut, any administrative costs, legal expenses, any maintenance and repair costs expended prior to the date of transfer, and liabilities assumed, related to the acquisition of the acquired water company, and shall not include the original cost of the utility plant less accumulated depreciation.

(f) "Needed Improvements" shall mean the capital improvements necessary to rehabilitate the acquired water company's system, pursuant to orders in the proceeding in which acquisition of the acquired water company is ordered by the Department of Public Utility Control, in consultation with the Department of Health Services.

(g) "Rate Surcharge" shall mean an amount, determined by the Department, applied to the rates of the customers of the acquired water company or of the customers of both the acquiring water company and the acquired water company, as determined by the department, that would recover on a current basis the revenues necessary to provide a net after-tax return on acquisition costs and expenditures for needed improvements at a rate of return equivalent to that authorized for the acquiring water company in its last general rate proceeding. A rate surcharge may be revised on a quarterly basis pursuant to subsection (b) of Section 16-262o-6 of these Regulations.

(h) "Current Basis" shall mean the time periods provided for surcharge applications in section 16-262o-6 of these regulations.

(i) "Purchase Price" shall mean, for the purpose of acquisitions ordered pursuant to Section 16-262n and subsection (a) of Section 16-262o of the General Statutes of Connecticut, and of the Uniform System of Accounts, as codified in Sections 16-27-4, 16-27-5, and 16-27-6 of the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies, the amount of compensation for the acquired water company determined in accordance with Section 16-262q of the General Statutes of Connecticut, less the difference between the assets and the liabilities per the books of the acquired water company, and less the sum of the administrative costs, legal expenses, and maintenance and repair costs expended prior to the date of transfer, related to the acquisition of the acquired water company.

(j) "Efficiency of Construction" shall include, for the purpose of determining whether any expenditures for needed improvements should be disallowed pursuant to subsection (g) of Section 16-262o-3 of these Regulations, the use of planned construction schedules, programmed budgeting, and an allowance for lead-lag times in the letting out of bids, and in the awarding of construction contracts.

(Effective March 22, 1990)