At the upcoming Select Board Meeting this Monday, July 1, the Board will hold a public hearing on proposed water and sewer rates for the new fiscal year. The hearing is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. In the past, the rate hearings have been pretty straightforward – voters approve the operating and capital budgets at the Annual Town Meeting and rates are adjusted accordingly in order to raise the funds necessary.
A re-examination of the rate structure for water was undertaken by the Water Task Force as part of its comprehensive look at our drinking water system. The Task Force recommended taking our current tiered rate system and increasing the spread between the different tiers to provide a greater economic incentive to conserve water. There was pushback from residents on the proposal and the Select Board has been exploring variations to the original Task Force recommendations, especially in light of the need to raise funds for water system capital improvements.
On Monday the focus will be on a modified tiered rate structure that consolidates the number of tiers from 6 to 4 and that increases the spread between tiers but to a lesser extent than originally proposed. Due to the rising cost of operating our treatment plants and providing high quality water to residents all users will see an increase in their water bills. For residents who fall into the higher usage tiers, they will see a larger increase. The range of increases is from roughly 5% to 50% with the majority of users being in the 5% range (about $2.00 a month more for a small household.) Only the small number of very high users (due to large areas of irrigation) would see the big percentage change assuming continued high use.
A second discussion will center on whether to implement a new capital improvement fee for both water and sewer users. With both water and sewer treatment plants needing major upgrades (including those needed to remove PFAS from drinking water) more funds are needed to re-pay the bonds that voters have and will be asked to approve in the years ahead. General revenues from property taxes will also have to be used to repay the bonds but utility fees can help as well.
One proposal under consideration is to assign a new fixed fee every quarter based on one’s water meter size. This provides a reliable, steady stream of income to dedicate towards capital improvement projects. The majority of residents have either a 5/8 or 3/4 inch meter. A charge of $50 or $75 dollars per quarter is being considered. Those with a 1 or 1 ¼ inch meter might be charged $200 a quarter and those with large 1 ½ or 2 inch meters could be charged $400 per quarter. These new meter-based fees would generate about $1 million annually and could be used to repay upwards of $12 million in new bonds – about half of what is needed in the next five years.
For most water users this new fixed fee would total $200 - $300 a year, admittedly a large percentage increase when compared to a small annual water bill of about $500. However, drinking water delivered to your faucet from the municipal system remains an amazing bargain even with this new fee – a gallon costs less than 1.5 cents!)
We have a dual goal of wanting to encourage wise use of drinking water and raising funds to help pay for the system improvements that are needed. Like so many other communities, Manchester has lived off the investments prior generations made in basic municipal infrastructure. We now face the task of reinvesting and need to come up with funding to do the high priority projects to ensure basic services remain in place. Monday’s discussion will look at modifying the current rate structure to accomplish these two goals.
