City water officials debate ways to offset residential development costs
City commissioners and staff discussed ways to fund a program to help developers with water and sewer infrastructure during a Rome Water and Sewer Committee meeting Thursday.
Water and Sewer Division Director Mike Hackett said he had looked at the possibility of creating a special assistance account by temporarily adding a small fee to every water bill.
The main consensus, however, seemed to be that whatever method evolves should have little or no impact on existing customers.
“I don’t think charging ratepayers would be very popular,” City Manager Sammy Rich said.
City Commissioner Wendy Davis argued for the use of as much as $200,000 expected from tap fees this year, contending that the revenue has exceeded budget projections in each of the past five years.
“The way I’m looking at this ... we have a very large savings account (of cash reserves) right now,” Davis said.
The city could waive tap fees for new homes within a certain price range and not hurt the bottom line budget, she said. In response, Hackett said the cash reserves are to help meet increasing regulations and provide a cushion in the event of an emergency.
A second suggestion concerning COVID-19 relief funds could work, though. Davis said some of the money that the city will receive from the American Rescue Plan Act could be used to replace funds pulled from the tap connection line item in the budget. Hackett agreed.
“If there is any possible silver lining to COVID, maybe that is one of them for Rome,” Hackett said. “It is a good way to test this that allows us to do this one time — and later on in the future, if it doesn’t work as well as we want, we can say, ‘look, we did that because we have COVID relief money.’”