The price tag to fix damage resulting from Madison Utilities’ routine fluoride treatments represents a drop in the bucket for a financially flush water utility, documents acquired by AL.com show.

The Madison Utilities board voted in March to stop adding fluoride to the water it sells to nearly 19,000 customers in the city and parts of Madison County, effective June 16. This week, Madison city council summoned a representative to explain the decision, which minutes show took place with no members of the public present and was listed on the meeting’s agenda as “Chemical Feed Discussion.”

City council seats a representative on the board but has no control over the public utility.

David Moore, water manager for Madison Utilities, told councilors that the move followed the discovery of “very heavy, costly damage” due to corrosion from fluoride at a treatment plant. The cost to upgrade the facility would be just shy of half-a-million dollars, he said Monday.

Financial documents paint a picture of a public utility with large and growing financial resources.

The utility’s most recent audited financial statements show assets of $441.2 million – including $15.9 million in cash — and liabilities of $245.7 million. Operating revenues were just over $32 million, up from $28.5 million in 2023. Expenses were $19.5 million, for an operating surplus of $12.5 million.

The utility reported unrestricted assets of $25.4 million. Its auditors issued a clean opinion.

Minutes of the January 21 board meeting, where the audit was presented, state Madison Utilities is “significantly better off financially than other comparable utilities.”

Board members did not respond to multiple emailed requests for comment.

Moreover, the standard financial documents that public agencies routinely make available – audited financial statements, annual reports and budgets – are unavailable on Madison Utilities’ website. That makes the utility an outlier among public water utilities that serve Alabama’s Big 10 municipalities.

Huntsville Utilities, Birmingham Water Works, and Mobile Area Water and Sewer System are all independent of their city governments, but each posts budgets and other financial documents on their websites. Hoover’s water is mainly supplied by Birmingham Water Works.

Water systems in Auburn, Dothan, Decatur and Tuscaloosa are owned by their respective cities, so their routine financials, budgets and reports show up in municipal documents. Only Montgomery’s water utility documents appear to be unavailable online.

U.S. public health officials have recommended since the 1960s that public water supplies contain fluoride to help prevent tooth decay. It is now used in the public drinking water supplied to about 3 out of 4 Americans, according to the American Cancer Society website.

Madison’s water has been fluoridated since 1991.

City Councilor Connie Spears sits on Madison Utilities board as the council’s liaison. She was traveling on city business during Monday’s meeting, but Councilor Ranae Bartlett said Spears “was empowered” to ask the utility’s board to reconsider its decision.

The next scheduled meeting of the Madison Utilities board of directors is scheduled for May 5, at 5:30 p.m. at 101 Ray Sanderson Drive.