Water and Sewer rate increase

At the city council meeting Monday night, the council passed the first reading of the ordinance raising the water and sewer rates. I saw in the SC Herald tonite that Story City is also raising their rates as well.

This rate increase doesn't really have anything to do with putting dollars away for a future sewer plant upgrade. This is to break even on our budget. We haven't kept up with the increases in costs, and this will get us back in line to break even.

Some of the things that have to happen are routine maintenance. We have been improving our manholes, in particular the older part of town. We hire a company to spray this stuff in, and it seals them up pretty good. It is interesting to see some of them. The ones we are fixing are just bricks stacked up in a hole, that was done probably in the early 1900s.

Then we are upgrading our water mains throughout town, slowly, but to maintain good water supply to everyone. And in the past year or so, we have purchased a generator, which will help maintain the sewer plant, and hopefully prevent backups in the town, if we have an extended power outage.

When I have a little more time, I will drop on a spreadsheet, so you can kinda plan on how the increase might affect you. I believe, for my family of 4, I can expect to see about a $15 a month increase total, between water and sewer.