City officials discuss 2019 proposed water, sewer rates
2019 proposed sewer rate could increase 4 percent
WATERVLIET, N.Y. >> City officials recently discussed the proposed 2019 water and sewer rates.
According to City General Manager Jeremy Smith, taxpayers will likely not see an increase in their water rate, however, they could see a 4 percent increase in their sewer rate.
The current water rate for 2018 is $3.95 per 1,000 gallons or a flat rate at $358 per year, while the sewer rate for 2018 is $4.16 per 1,000 gallons or a flat at $182.84
“The 2018 total revenues and expenditures was $1.15 million and in 2019 that increases to $1.23 million, that’s an increase from 2018 to 2019 of $86,000, which is an increase in the budget of roughly 7.5 percent in the total,” explained Smith during a recent presentation of the pro- posed rates.” To reach that number of 7.5 percent, we need to increase the sewer rate by 4 percent.”
Smith went on to mention that there is a way to lower the proposed sewer rate down to an increase of around 1 percent.
“There is a way to balance this budget without having to have an increase in the sewer rate,” said Smith. “It was brought to my attention in late 2017 that previously there was a way for those that had a multi-unit property to be able to request to not have to pay their water and sewer bill for property that was vacated.
“If we were to charge, what I would say appropriately, for all units, that reduce an increase in the [sewer] rate to around 1 percent.”
Smith said that when he became general manager in 2017 that he stopped allowing people who requested not to pay the bills for the vacated units because he could not find any previous policies or legislation that stated that it’s allowed.
“I stopped it from happening because I couldn’t find any documentation that said it could happen and this is the opportunity to change that moving forward with the billing,” said Smith. “My suggestion is to do that, [ but] that’s totally up to the [City] Council.”
City officials will host a public hearing on the proposed water and sewer rates Thursday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Watervliet Senior Center.
Smith will go over more parts of the proposed budget in the coming weeks and the council will vote on the 2019 budget in December.