Sewer rates could go up 6 percent, or about $2.48 a month for the average customer, if the Pima County Board of Supervisors approves a proposed increase on Tuesday.
The proposal being considered calls for a 3 percent rate increase beginning this year, topped with another 3 percent boost next year.
If approved, the rate increases would go into effect in July and again in July 2016.
County officials estimate the average residential wastewater customer now pays $40.81 per month. Under the proposed rate increase, the average monthly bill would climb to $42.03 after the first increase and $43.29 with the second.
The last sewer fee increase was in 2013. At that time, the average residential bill was $37.48.
Sewer rates have increased almost annually over the past decade, county documents show. The average residential sewer bill was $15.16 in fiscal 2005.
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County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry wrote in an April 8 memo that if the board doesn’t want to raise rates, it should consider ordering a 6 percent operations and maintenance budget cut or eliminating as much as $48 million from the wastewater capital improvement plan.
County officials say decreased wastewater flows, fewer new-connection fees and years of paying off capital improvement debt make the proposed rate increases necessary.
The Regional Wastewater Reclamation Department is an enterprise fund that obtains its operating budget mostly from ratepayer fees, as opposed to property taxes or other sources.
The department’s adopted budget for the current fiscal year is more than $162 million. Debt payments make up more than $30.8 million of this year’s budget.
Supervisors discussed the proposed fee increases last month but asked the administration to provide an alternative to the three-year, 4 percent annual rate increases wastewater officials had requested.
Supervisors also plan to discuss a proposed change to a low-income-assistance program that subsidizes as much 75 percent of a qualified person’s sewer bill.
Wastewater officials have asked that participants in the assistance program be enrolled for three years before having to reapply.
This year the program is expected to pay more than $1.1 million in sewer bills for the 3,700 participants.
