Utility bills going up about $12 in 2019

Hatters will pay about $12 per month more in 2019, according to utility department budgets that were presented to city council Monday.

Bylaws to adjust fees and charges will be voted on later this month, but business plans for water, sewer, gas and electric service, and well as garbage collection were approved unanimously.

They require revenue that would have the average homeowner pay more per month for water (up $2.15), sewer ($3.61), solid waste pickup ($0.40), gas delivery ($1.55) and power service ($1.83).

Beyond that, a new municipal consent and access charge, approved by council last summer to bolster dividend-producing revenue to cut into a municipal budget shortfall, would be about $2.30.

“Nobody likes a rate increase but we have to maintain what's in the ground and avoid rate shocks in years going forward,” said division commissioner Cal Lenz.

Lenz presented the plans for the city’s natural gas production unit as well as other utilities — combined this year as a single division.

He said Medicine Hat will maintain a cost advantage over other municipalities. Acting on a two-year-old strategy to grow revenue and contain costs includes no staffing increases over the next four years, despite growth in some service areas. “We are listening,” he said. In terms of major capital projects, the electric distribution department would upgrade equipment and build a new substation in the city’s southwest quadrant to support potential load growth at a cost of about $9 million.

The long discussed need for a waste handling facility at the water treatment plant would be commissioned during the next four-year budget period at a cost of $26 million. That facility would further filter effluent released in the South Saskatchewan River, and is required to meet new environmental standards.

A continuation of water main replacement program at a cost of about $5 million per year — less than a more aggressive regimen that was to see spending increase year to year in hopes to lower overall cost. Instead, the amount will be reduced from $6.3 million next year, then perhaps ramped up again after 2025.

The largest item in the landfill capital plan is a food waste collection program that would begin with a pilot project in 2020, then a major rollout in 2021.