By PATRICK ADRIAN
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BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. — The Bellows Falls Board of Trustees voted 4-1 this week to increase the municipal water rate by 20 percent over a two year period to counter a recent decline in customer water usage.
Projected customer-use revenues for 2019 are over $100,000 less than budgeted, and if use remains similar, next year will be $21,000 less than budgeted in 2020, according to Municipal Manager Wendy Harrison.
“Part of the reason is good, in that people are conserving water,” Harrison told the trustees on Tuesday.
The trustees vote will increase the water rate by 10 percent starting Sept. 1 and by another 10 percent starting September 2020. Additional increases of 4 percent in each year are planned thereafter in order to keep the department’s revenues in line with its operation cost.
Harrison attributed the decrease in water consumption levels to more low-flow water systems in homes and less property irrigation last summer due to heavy rain accumulation.
The village already had two major water projects scheduled next fiscal year, one for $1.3 million to replace water and sewer lines along Burt Street and Blake Street, and a $610,255 water and sewer main replacement on Mill Street. With the additional shortfall in projected revenue, the village risked an approximately $200,000 deficit in its water department budget, according to Trustee Jim McAuliffe’s estimate.
The impact of the first 10 percent increase translates to an additional $4.83 per month for a lowest use customer or from about $48.33 per month to $53.16, and a $6.00 increase for a larger family from about $60 per month to $66, Harrison said today.
Harrison also said that customers looking to fill a pool can receive a reduced rate by notifying the village’s billing department in advance.
“We need to know in advance so we can determine the pool size,” Harrison said, explaining that the reduction is through exempting the customer’s bill for sewer.
Trustee Jonathan Wright voted in opposition to the motion. Wright said that he approved of the 2019 increase, but given that the village is currently conducting a water department study — which will provide data and recommendations in coming months for municipal water rates — Wright wanted to wait for that data before determining how much to increase the rate in 2020.
“I don’t want to impose a 10 percent increase for 2020 right now and then return to the taxpayers in six to eight months and add another 10 to 15 percent onto that.”
While other trustees appreciated Wright’s reasoning, the reason they had to vote for both increases now was conditioned by the bond bank in order to approve project funding.
Trustees said that approving these increases was a necessary step to get the fiscal side of the water and wastewater departments back in order, following a period of years where the village approved numerous projects without preparing for their later cost impact.
Too much change in management and a long period without a well qualified finance director resulted in trustees not being properly informed about the long-term impact of these projects, said Village President Deborah Wright.
McAuliffe agreed, saying that these were good projects, as were the federally funding programs that the village took advantage of, but better financial direction would have warned them about long-term costs later, which would require raising customer rates.
“There should have been an attachment on the warrant articles informing voters how much their rates would need to increase to cover these projects,” McAuliffe said. “That might have made people vote differently at the time.”
At Tuesday’s meeting McAuliffe compared the new rate increases to “paying for the sins of the past” by doing things appropriately.
Though paying off the imbalances will take a few years, McAuliffe expressed optimism moving forward, saying that the village benefits tremendously from its new finance director Shannon Burbela.
“With Shannon’s direction, a lot of the mystery [about these projects] is gone,” McAuliffe said, in that trustees now learn what to expect and how to prepare.
The trustees also expect to receive future guidance once the current study of their water department concludes.
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