City officials are looking at raising the base culinary water rate from $17 to $19.75 in the near future. Individual homeowner bills would also include any charges for the actual amount used.
In addition, officials are looking at raising the base fee each fiscal year, which runs July 1 to the following June 30. That would continue until 2015, when the city’s base fee would be at $32.
“The city’s water fees aren’t high enough to cover maintenance, repairs, installing meters and just everything that goes into making sure residents have clean water,” said City Engineer Brandon Jones.
He told city council members recently that the proposed culinary fee increase is necessary because the city’s water fund has had to be subsidized from the general fund for the last three years. In Utah, water funds are supposed to be self-sustaining.
“We are proposing a fixed rate fee to allow for enough money,” said Jones. “We would prioritize projects and as soon as we collected enough money we will take some extra funds and try to get ahead on some of these projects.”
Council members are looking at collecting and saving money for the next 50 years at a 3 percent increase, hopefully providing sufficient funds to pay for existing and future projects.
“We looked at every conceivable way to get revenue without raising residents’ water rate,” said Council member Kris Christensen.
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