Study advises water, sewer rate hikes in Somerton
SOMERTON — Residents would see their water rate go up $4 over five years and their monthly sewer rate go up $8 over the same period, under a proposal by a consultant to the city.
Somerton City Council members currently are reviewing the recommendations presented to them last month as part of a study done by Willdan Financial Services.
The council hired the consultant firm in 2017 to look into whether rate hikes were needed to keep water, sewer and trash pickup services financially self-sufficient. The city’s cost of providing water service exceeds the amount raised from rates by nearly $200,000 annually, forcing the city to dip into its general fund to subsidize the service.
Dan Jackson, Willdan’s vice president, said the increases would also be necessary finance future improvements to the water and sewer systems.
The study recommends that the base water rate increase over five years from the current amount of $11.50 for first 5,000 gallons consumed to $15.91 per 5,000. It also calls for increasing the sewer rate from $38.50 to $46.86 a month, also over five years.
The water and sewer rates have not increased since 2007, even though the cost of providing the services have gone up.
City council members held off on voting to approve the recommendations in the Willdan study. They said they wanted to consider options to increases, given that the current rates were fully covering the cost of the services only three years ago.
“We still have a lot of questions,” said Gerardo Anaya, the city’s vice mayor. “We want to understand why these recommendations are being made, if just three years ago we were in the black and now we’re in a deficit. We didn’t get those answers in this presentation.”
He said a new, more complete study might arrive at options to a rate increase or at least might recommend smaller increases.
The proposed increases in the Willdan study are based on the assumption that the city would issue a little more than $2.2 million in bonds in 2020 to finance needed improvements to the water and sewer systems. The bonds would be paid off with revenue from the rate hikes.
The system improvements are recommended in the city’s water master plan, and Anaya said the council should study that plan in depth to decide for itself which of the upgrades are essential.
Council members also questioned why the Willdan study recommends a sewer rate increase when the current rate is covering the city’s cost of the service.
The study also proposes increases in water rates charged to businesses and to multi-family apartment complexes.
It recommends a smaller increase — 77 cents over five years — to residents of the Orange Grove subdivision, an unincorporated area within the Somerton city limits that only recently began receiving city water service.
The study does not recommend an increase in trash collection, a service currently operating in the black.
Anaya said the recommended increases in water and sewer rates deserve a close look, given their impact on people’s pocketbooks.
“I believe there are still ways to be creative to avoid an increase,” he said. “In this city there are a lot of people who are on fixed incomes and a lot who work in the field and don’t have incomes in the summer, and that is something we have to take into account.”
The council plans to continue its review the consultant study at a future meeting yet to be scheduled.
Before voting on any increases, the council would have to publish a notice and hold a public hearing.