A water and sewer rate increase has been approved by St. Joseph City Commissioners.
City Manager John Hodgson tells us there are two types of rates, those for city residents and those for non-city residents in the system. Commissioners earlier this month approved a systemwide increase. This week’s action focused on city rates.
“The city commission considered rates for the city water and the city sewer, and they continued with what the rate increases that were calculated last year confirmed to be appropriate this year, which is 7% on the water side and 13% on the sewer side,” Hodgson said.
Hodgson says this rate increase has been planned as the city pays for ongoing infrastructure work.
“There’s a great deal of work taking place on infrastructure. You see the road construction projects that are going on, and there’s water and sewer work that takes place as part of that. In addition, there are some pretty significant expenses now and continuing for the future for lead water service replacements that are required by the state.”
The overall increase for a typical residential account will be $3.24 per quarter for water, and $9.88 per quarter for sewer. When viewed together with the system water rate approved last month, the increase in overall utility bills for city customers is 8.84% for typical accounts.
Additional rate hikes will be needed each year for the next few years.
