New street light charge will appear on service bills
Beginning with the second-quarter billing cycle (April to June), Milwaukee Municipal Service Bills will have a street lighting charge.
The street lighting charge will provide for the annual operating cost of street light service, repair, maintenance, customer service and electric power. The charge also funds new lighting improvements, according to a Department of Public Works press release.
The city operates roughly 77,000 street lights. The charge is part of the 2021 city budget, which has been approved by the Common Council and mayor.
The charge is calculated for a property based on the length of its street frontage. The rate used is $1.01 per linear foot.
According to the city, a typical residential property with 40 feet of frontage would be charged $10 quarterly or $40 for the year.
The charge applies to all properties within the city that are served by street lighting, including those that do not pay taxes but still benefit from the city, such as churches.
Several subdivisions on the south and northwest sides of the city are not served by city streetlights and will not be charged, according to the press release.
Residential properties located on corners will only be charged for the shorter side of their street frontage.
Non-residential properties will be charged $1.01 per foot of total street frontage.
The charge will appear on the second-quarter Milwaukee Municipal Services Bills and will include both the first- and second-quarter charges. Future charges will appear quarterly.
“The city has found itself with the difficult challenge of needing to increase street lighting maintenance but being unable to fund such maintenance,” Mayor Tom Barrett’s proposed budget states. “In fact, it has become nearly impossible to maintain a reasonable lower service level to preserve our current lighting system.”
The estimated $9.7 million in additional revenue this year would allow the city to improve street lighting services “in a manner that meets its goals for fixing street lighting outages in a timely manner,” the document states.