(June 9, 2016) During a landlord/tenant meeting earlier this year, conducted sans tenants City Manager/City Attorney Ernie Crofoot said, the landlords asked why water and sewer bills for rentals were higher than the rates for owner-occupied units. They didn’t get the answer they expected.
“The mayor and I were surprised when it came up,” Crofoot said. “Yes, it was true in the sense owner-occupied properties paid a lower rate. Owners got more usage from a smaller base amount.”
There are a number of factors contained within that minimum base charge, Crofoot said, but at the end of the day, owners and renters were paying different rates for similar services.
The fix, Crofoot said, wasn’t to lower the bills of the renters but to raise the rates on the owners to the tune of about $10 per month starting when next year’s budget goes into effect on July 1. The budget passed first reading during Monday night’s regular meeting of the City Council, but won’t be formally adopted until the next meeting on June 20.
This change does not affect industrial-grade water usage, and renter’s bills will not increase, Crofoot said.
“There was a price break at the owner’s level we’ve taken away to raise $90,000 next year,” he said.
That money, he explained, went towards plugging a $130,000 hole in the budget for water and sewer service. Water and sewer service aren’t big moneymakers for counties or municipalities, and often operate at a shortfall, Crofoot said, and are usually funded through grants and other mechanisms to help defray the costs of the services.
As the town is required by state law to produce a balanced budget, he said, with revenues cancelling expenditures, the $90,000 expected from the fee rebalancing went a long way to balancing the fiscal 2016 budget.
“The mayor and I were surprised when it came up,” Crofoot said. “Yes, it was true in the sense owner-occupied properties paid a lower rate. Owners got more usage from a smaller base amount.”
There are a number of factors contained within that minimum base charge, Crofoot said, but at the end of the day, owners and renters were paying different rates for similar services.
The fix, Crofoot said, wasn’t to lower the bills of the renters but to raise the rates on the owners to the tune of about $10 per month starting when next year’s budget goes into effect on July 1. The budget passed first reading during Monday night’s regular meeting of the City Council, but won’t be formally adopted until the next meeting on June 20.
This change does not affect industrial-grade water usage, and renter’s bills will not increase, Crofoot said.
“There was a price break at the owner’s level we’ve taken away to raise $90,000 next year,” he said.
That money, he explained, went towards plugging a $130,000 hole in the budget for water and sewer service. Water and sewer service aren’t big moneymakers for counties or municipalities, and often operate at a shortfall, Crofoot said, and are usually funded through grants and other mechanisms to help defray the costs of the services.
As the town is required by state law to produce a balanced budget, he said, with revenues cancelling expenditures, the $90,000 expected from the fee rebalancing went a long way to balancing the fiscal 2016 budget.