Lincoln City Council:
Crawford Murphy & Tilly offer fixed rate sewerage billing

 

[October 13, 2018] 

LINCOLN 

As the city of Lincoln prepares to undertake a massive, multi-million dollar upgrade to the city sewerage system, aldermen have been faced with how to pay for it. The Long Term Control Plan that separates sewerage from storm water is state mandated.

Early in the project engineers from Crawford, Murphy, & Tilly, Christy Crites and Shannon Brady, offered examples of sewerage billing based on water usage. The plan included a scaled billing based on zero to 1,000 gallons of water used, 1,001 to 4,000 gallons usage, 4,001 to 8,000 gallons usage, and lastly 8,001 plus gallons water used. Rates per month were recommended to start at $25 per month for the lowest usage and scale upward in $10 increments to $55 per month for the highest usage.

To utilize this type of plan, the city clerk’s office would have to collect water meter readings from Illinois American Water and calculate monthly bills according to those meter readings. This would mean that bills sent to customers could vary from month to month depending on whether or not consumption was high or low.

The scaled plan meant that the city would have to do away with the pre-paid plan for sewerage bills and also the discount offered for paying sewerage bills 12 months at a time in advance. The meter reading method was also going to create a great deal of extra work in the clerk’s office.

In addition, aldermen expressed concern that those in the city who water their lawns and gardens or fill swimming pools would be unfairly billed for water that never actually made it into the sewer system.

This week, at the Tuesday night Committee of the Whole, Crites and Brady came back to the city council with a new plan that would cover the cost of the sewerage project and still establish a fixed rate plan for residents. While the cost will increase for residents, once established, the monthly fee will remain the same for an entire calendar year.

Crites and Brady outlined a plan where meter readings would be utilized to establish an average monthly bill. They recommended that the city use actual readings taken in October, November, and December of each year to establish a set rate for the full year.
 

Crites and Brady explained that using the last three months of the year are the lowest water usage months of the year. It would eliminate unfair billing for water used in swimming pools and for lawn and garden watering.

They said that their research showed that the majority of the residents in Lincoln would fall into the third level of billing between 4,001 and 8,000 gallons per month and would be billed $45 per month.

This rate would be established for the calendar year 2019. In 2020 each of the levels would increase $5 per month, so the same usage would go from $45 to $50 in 2020. A third increase of $5 per month could be incorporated in 2021, but the engineers explained that the third increase would be determined based on the final cost of the LTCP project, and possible Illinois Environmental Protection Agency debt forgiveness.

Ron Keller asked how bills would be determined for people moving into the community, for example in January. Crites said that the city will need to establish a protocol for that. She added that most Lincoln residents are in the 4,001 to 8000 gallon usage scale, so the city could establish that as the set rate for new residents until they reached the meter readings for the fourth quarter, then the rate could be evaluated based on usage.

Crites also noted that looking at the data for Lincoln, they had discovered that of the 4,665 water customers 1,700 do not have three months-worth of data in the fourth quarter of the year. She said the city would have to figure out how to establish a set rate for those people that was fair and equitable for them.

Ron Keller asked if the plan being presented would pay the loans and he was told that it would.

Dayne Dalpoas asked if the city would after 2021 be able to keep a flat rate for constituents with no more increases. Crites that said in respect to the loan, yes, but, the city would need to consider maintenance and other expenses.

Tracy Welch asked then should the city maintain the $1 increase every two years that is in effect now? Crites said, yes, and that the city should consider that as inflationary costs for daily maintenance of the plant and system.

The rate changes proposed this week apply only to residential billing. The CMT is working on a rate plan for business and industry that will be a separate discussion.

There is no action item on the Monday, October 15th meeting agenda for the rate changes. However, examples presented by CMT indicated a rate change effective January 1, 2019. Therefore, it is expected that this could become an action item in the next few weeks.

[Nila Smith]