Ski valley council to decide water rate

The Village of Taos Ski Valley appears set to raise water rates by a bare minimum this year, despite the risk it could trigger a repeat audit finding and won’t contribute significantly to the sustainable operation and long-term maintenance of the village’s ailing water system.

At its meeting next Tuesday (July 25), the village council will consider approval of its final budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, in which Mayor Pro-tem Tom Wittman asked village staff to include a 5.5-percent increase in water rates.

Councilor Henry Caldwell and Councilor Chris Stagg, who also serves as vice president for Taos Ski Valley, Inc., previously suggested raising rates by 36 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

“I think we need to bump things this year, because our loan agreement says that we’re supposed to have a balanced budget,” Caldwell said during a July 7 workshop meeting on water rates.

Plagued by massive infrastructure failures, the tiny municipality’s inability to operate — or commission a rate study for — a self-sufficient, user-funded water and sewer enterprise technically violates the loan covenant it made with the U.S. Department of Agriculture several years ago, according to Caldwell, who pointed to repeat findings in the village’s annual audits that have said as much.

The village has been drawing from its general fund in order to cover repeated deficits in its water and sewer budget, which was deleteriously affected this winter and spring by catastrophic leaks that not only posed a potential public safety issue but resulted in less revenue to the village due to swaths of credits issued to users who went without water.

Wittman noted that a couple of ski valley residents buttonholed him recently to make valid “emotional” arguments against raising rates at all.

“Residents that I respect in our community said, ‘You don’t have a right to increase rates on a product you’re not providing,’” Wittman said. “That means these were people that were doing without water this winter.”

On the “practical side,” Wittman indicated that he intends his 5-percent water rate increase to carry over into village budgets for

at least five years.

“We’re not solving this problem in one or two years,” he said. “In a five-year period, we will balance the account between our rates and our sales. I’m an advocate of that.”

By Caldwell’s calculations during last week’s meeting, a sample user (the ski valley charges the same rate for commercial and residential users) could see an increase of around $13 in the fixedrate portion of their bill under a 5.5-percent increase, while the cost-per-gallon rate would go from about 4.86 cents to 6 cents.

“I think that having a balanced budget in five years is kicking the can down the road,” Caldwell said.

Visit vtsv.org for details on how to join the July 25 virtual council meeting.