By Jessica Mathews/New@whmi.com


New water and sewer rates have been approved for City of Howell customers that officials say address different targets to operate and maintain viable, sustainable systems.

Water and sewer systems are considered enterprise funds, meaning they are completely self-funded though operational revenues which is primarily user fees. A new five rate design was proposed for the water and sewer systems per a study performed by Utility Financial Solutions. Vice President Dawn Lund made a presentation to Council during a virtual meeting held Monday night. It was noted the City has an aggressive capital improvement program that’s needed and includes some large projects such as Clinton Street, East and West Grand River and improvements to the water plant. The recommendations would cover projected revenues needed for both systems for the next five years and Council unanimously approved a resolution approving the new rates.

The change for the average City water customer with a 5/8 inch pipe who uses 9,000 gallons on average in a billing period, would be $4.31 per bi-monthly billing period. For the wastewater system, the change for the average city customer who sends 7,000 gallons of wastewater to the city plant would be $3.48 per bi-monthly billing period. For both the water and sewer rates, the two drivers were said to be inflation and debt service, which involves the capital improvement program and bonding.

City Manager Paul DeBuff told Council the new rate design is an effort to balance softening the impact with increasing the revenues the City will need in the future to cover operations and capital. DeBuff said he felt it was important personally for the City to begin to implement a program that is ongoing that tracks with their operational needs and expenditures. He said one of the reasons he wanted to introduce this particular model was because the City hasn’t necessarily implemented a systematic program so that’s kind of where they’re starting. He said they wanted to avoid rate shock because people are not necessarily accustomed to this and implement a program with a reasonable amount of impact that is not off-putting but still addresses the City’s needs.

It was stated during the meeting that it is not fair to compare different systems to others because all are self-contained and different factors come in to play. That being said, the City’s newly proposed rates are still within the middle range of other rates charged by surrounding municipalities.

DeBuff added they intend to look at where things stand annually with expenditures and if the City is keeping up with capital work, noting the rate structure can always be revisited if needed.

More information is available City Council meeting packet. That link is provided.