Two cities consider water rate increases

NORTH GEORGIA

Two North Georgia municipalities are struggling to absorb rate increases from the city of Chattanooga for water and sewage services.

Both Ringgold and Fort Oglethorpe are looking at passing some of the 9.8% hike on to customers. The matter will next be discussed at the cities’ respective city council meetings Monday.

Ringgold has yet to determine how that increase will impact its customers. Ringgold operates and maintains the sewer system for the city and unincorporated Catoosa County, and City Manager Dan Wright explained that there are three different rate structures.

The staff had not had time to finalize the impact of the rate increase on the different

classes of customers, he told city councilors at their July 8 work session. He said he would bring back the discussion of a possible rate increase Monday.

He also noted that the letter Chattanooga sent to the city announcing the rate increase was dated June 7 and received after the council met in June, and that the increase went into effect July 1, before the council had a chance to review it.

“We could have used a little more time,” Wright said. “There was a time when we used to get together regionally to talk about these things.”

Fort Oglethorpe has proposed a 5% rate increase for its water and sewage customers. If passed, the average resident’s current minimum bill will go from $21.82 to $22.91 a month. For commercial users, the monthly minimum will go from $27.95 to $29.35, according to Pam Travillian, the city’s finance director.

Fort Oglethorpe City Manager Jennifer Payne-Simpkins said that while local officials anticipated an increase in costs from Chattanooga, representatives of which they met with in May to discuss the matter, there will be an effect on the city’s bottom line as soon as the next bill.

“This increase will impact the budget significantly beginning this month,” she said at the July 8 city council meeting.

Beginning July 1, the rate Fort Oglethorpe pays to Chattanooga increased from $0.8434 per 1,000 gallons to $2.4033 per 1,000 gallons, Travillian said.

Travillian has worked in the city for 14 years and said she has seen the budget line on water and sewage increase nearly every year. The 2019 fiscal year budget line for sewage is $2.14 million, the highest ever allocated, she said, but it won’t be enough to absorb all of the increase.

Chattanooga has treated the city’s wastewater since the 1990s, and in 2017 the Fort Oglethorpe City Council agreed to extend its contract for another 15 years.

Since 2013, Chattanooga has been under a federal consent decree from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop sewage overflows into the Tennessee River. The city has allocated more than $264 million for related projects, and that cost has trickled down to customers across the region.

“We have been absorbing the increases from Chattanooga for some time,” Wright said before the Ringgold council meeting, “but I am not sure we can continue to do that. We may have to look at a rate increase.”

The city collected $2.5 million in revenue in 2018 while paying the city of Chattanooga about $770,000 to treat the wastewater at Moccasin Bend.

The last related rate increase for Fort Oglethorpe users took effect in January 2018, another 5% increase, Travillian said.

Contact Sabrina Bodon ats bod on@ times free press. com. Contact Davis Lundy at davislundy@aol.com.