"The only complication here," Jerman said, "is that they might use utility fees to cover costs not associated with the utility department, at least over time. Of course, they say it's a loan, so the energy department gets it back."

Provo's energy department has a cash reserve of more than $16 million, which Mayor Lewis Billings has said is a necessary cushion in case of an energy crisis, and Borget said the energy department might be one to use the city investment fund.

In fact, documents provided to the city council for tonight's meeting used the energy fund as an example:

Say the energy fund had $1 million to invest. It could put it in the investment fund. A city investment committee could loan that money to, say, the recreation department, which would agree to pay back the investment fund at 4.8 percent, the market interest rate, over 10 years.

The investment fund would take the payments and send both the principal and interest to the energy department. In this case, the energy department would earn $261,080 in interest over the life of the loan. And the recreation department would save all the normal fees and costs, in this case probably more than $10,000.

"It turns into a win-win scenario," Borget said.

The idea was generated by Borget's finance department team. It borrowed on the idea that intra-city loans are common and on a similar concept Provo uses to purchase vehicles.

"We have a vehicle bank," Borget said. "When a department needs a vehicle, rather than go out and borrow from a financial institution, departments borrow from this the city's vehicle bank and save on costs. That's worked really well for us. That's what made us start thinking about this idea."

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com