Council focuses on sewer rates

    Water and sewer rates loom large over the heads of the Washington city councilors. The Department of Natural Resources has ordered the city to construct an $18 million sewer plant. To pay for the project, the city will raise its sewer rates considerably. Councilor Mike Roth said the rate increases will be a ?tough pill to swallow? and recommended the council hold a public meeting solely on the subject of water and sewer rates.

    City Administrator Dave Plyman told the council there are a few ways the council can raise the necessary money to pay for the sewer plant. He said the city could raise property taxes, the sewer base rate or the sewer variable rate. Plyman said he would create a number of possible solutions and present them to the council at another budgetary meeting.

    Plyman said it would be difficult to finance the sewer project simply by increasing the variable rate. Councilor Bob Shepherd said that increasing the variable rate would also spur conservation.

    ?That wouldn?t be a bad thing,? said Shepherd.

    Plyman agreed that it wouldn?t be bad, either, but added that conservation will not help pay for the plant. Plyman said that, conservation or no conservation, the city needs to come up with $18 million to pay its loans. 

    Plyman said the city will probably have to raise its base rate. However, he said the city may need to find a more equitable way of raising the money than to raise everyone?s base rate by the same amount. He said households pay the same base rate as big businesses or large nursing homes.

    The other option is for the city to raise property taxes. Just as with the base rates, there are problems associated with the equitable nature of property tax hikes. Some property owners are exempt from property taxes.

    ?One of the downsides of relying on property taxes is that many organizations get a free ride because they?re not paying their share of the utilities,? said Plyman. ?Providing utilities is among our biggest costs.? 

    ?We may need to ratchet up the sophistication of how we?re billing,? said Plyman.

    A few of the councilors asked Plyman about the condition of the current sewer plant.

    ?Our sewer plant is falling apart,? he said. ?We?re dealing with a lot of old stuff that is breaking.?

For the full story, see the Feb. 11 edition of The Washington Evening Journal