City moves to save sewer customers $2.7 million with one-time cap on billing

(April 4, 2006) – City Council voted to place a one-time cap on sewer utility billing that will save residential ratepayers $2.7 million between April 2006 and March 2007, modifying the method the City uses to calculate sewage charges. 176,000 of the City’s 195,000 customer accounts are affected by this change.

“This change is intended to be revenue neutral,” City Manager Jim Couch said. “We want to charge a rate that’s fair to our Water & Wastewater Utilities Department, but we don’t want to have customers burdened with charges that don’t reflect actual usage.”

“This is not a rate change,” Water and Wastewater Utilities Director Marsha Slaughter said. “Customers will pay the same amount for each 1,000 gallons used. But we are changing – this one time – how we measure the water used, and we’re doing that in a way that will save most residential customers money.”

The sewer rate is based on water meter readings. The City sets year-round sewer rates based on water usage from October 1 through February 28, when lawn watering is at a minimum. That way, sewer customers aren’t charged for water that went onto lawns instead of into the sewer system.

This winter base rate varies slightly from year to year, but because of last winter's drought and unusual wintertime lawn watering, water consumption was up dramatically –more than 15 percent from the year before. Charging for sewer utility service based on that higher use would have cost residential ratepayers an extra $2.7 million in sewer bills.

The one-time change means that for single family homes, the 2005-06 winter base volume will be no more than 1,000 gallons above the 2004-05 volume, no matter how much water was actually used. The 1,000-gallon cap will apply to duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes.

Sewer volume charge will still go down accordingly for customers who actually used less water.

About 41,000 customers who weren’t connected during 2004-05 will be charged either at their 2005-06 rate or at the new-customer rate of 7,000 gallons per month. Individual rates will be set for 1,500 larger apartment complexes based on water use over previous two years.