Claremont
The study produced three options for raising rates over the next five years by between 75 and 95 percent for water and 30 to 55 percent for sewer.
“We need to adjust rates to get some of this done,” Santagate said about badly needed capital improvement projects for the two departments, which are paid for solely with user fees, not taxes.
Santagate did not say which of the three alternatives he would recommend to the City Council at its meeting on Wednesday night, but said he plans to bring one of them forward.
The options presented by the consultant, Mike Maker of Maryland-based Municipal and Financial Services, range from first year increases of 19, 33, or 64 percent.
Depending on the first year increase, subsequent yearly increases for the next four years to 2021 could be 3 percent, 33 percent (for the second year and 3 percent after that) or 19 percent each year.
“I won’t vote for that,” City Councilor Allen Damren said Friday about the 64 percent increase. “It’s absurd.”
On the sewer rates, the increases would also be phased in under three options over five years. The first year increase would be between 11 and 30 percent and subsequent years would range between a low of 3 percent annually for four years under option one to 11 percent for four years.
According to a table provided with the increase scenarios, Claremont’s average combined water and sewer rate would rise to an average of $463 annually from $333 in 2017, a 40 percent increase. Over five years, that first year increase would more than double based on the recommended percentages from the consultant, meaning the typical Claremont homeowner could be paying more than $800 a year in water and sewer charges at that time.
Santagate said there are a number of improvements that must be undertaken by both departments, including repairs to the dams on the drinking water reservoirs.
In April, Assistant Public Works Director Vic St. Pierre told the council the city must change all water meters on the 3,600 connections because of lead in the brass fittings on the meters. He said the material for the work cost more than $600,000 and just 119 meters had been changed by April 23. Water rates would have to be increased for the work to continue, St. Pierre said. Service lines are also being replaced because of lead.
In June, when the council approved the water and sewer budgets for the fiscal year beginning July 1, it agreed with a recommendation from Santagate to use a large chunk of the fund balance from both departments to cover a projected shortfall in revenues.
The recommendations for rate increases would leave the fund balances for both departments at current levels, consultant Mike Maker said in an email.
