By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
Jacksonville’s sewer rates will go up, but not yet and not by a big chunk.
The city council Thursday balked at the idea of hitting residents with an all-at-once hike in this economy, especially since the city had recently raised its water and sanitation rates. The council asked the utility to come back to the next meeting with plans for incremental increases.
Alderman Mike Traylor led the charge in voting down the planned increase by a 7-2 vote. His concern was the fairness of the proposed flat rate. Some residents were going to see a small decrease, while others were going to see a 50 percent increase.
During the public hearing over the rates, one resident suggested the utility go back to the drawing board and start over. Another one favored an incremental increase.
“We just had a water rate increase and a sanitation rate hike and now you want to slap us with a high sewer rate increase,” said Jim Moore, a Stonewall subdivision resident.
The new plan called for a flat rate fee of $6.00 per 1,000 gallons used with the minimum charge being for 1,000 gallons. Currently the lowest fee of $11.98 is based on 2,000 gallons, then it’s $3.98 for every 1,000 gallons after that. “We need to understand what we are voting on,” Traylor said.
The utility said it needs increased income of $1 million over the next five years. Traylor said under the new plan about 20 percent of the residents will see a decrease, meaning theother 80 percent of the residents will have to make up the difference to get to the million dollar mark. “That’s increases of 20 to 50 percent,” Taylor said. “That’s not being fair to everyone in the city.”
Traylor proposed keeping the current minimum charge and applying a straight across the board percentage rate of 13 percent the year first, 10 percent the second year, eight percent the third year, six percent the fourth year and three percent the fifth year.
Thea Hughes, director of the wastewater utility, said the commission had not run the actual numbers to see if Traylor’s plan would work. She added that Traylor’s plan favored commercial users over residents.
The utility had looked at an incremental increase that had the rates start next-year at $5.50 per 1,000 gallons and go up 25 cents each year until it reached $6.50 per 1,000 gallons, higher than the all-at-once fee.
Traylor said his step increase would start at $3.98 per 1,000 gallons and go up to $5.84, adding that the first two years would be pretty lean for the department.
Alderman Reedie Ray, favored the utility’s plan, said, “I understand the needs are now, not two years from now.”
Jacksonville’s wastewater system has now gone 15 years without a permit violation. “Few facilities can claim such a feat,” said Joan Zumwalt, chairwoman of the city’s sewer commission.
According to a wastewater report, the city’s system successfully treated 1.92 billion gallons of wastewater in 2010, all without a plant permit violation. No violations were cited during plant and solid waste inspections by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and no problems noted during biomonitoring testing.
But in spite of those achievements, the utility ended up in the red last year.
The sewer department operated at a loss of nearly $741,000.
Alderman Terry Sansing told the council that he was a bite-the-bullet type of a person, but in this case he preferred an incremental increase. “That’s what my constituents are saying. Small bites are easier to handle in this economy,” Sansing said.
Alderman Kevin McCleary said the phone calls he was getting were clearly for the smaller step increase. “It will give the department what it needs,” he said.
While the debate bounced between the big jump and one of the two increment plans, the council solidly agreed that outside customers needed to continue to pay one and a half times more than city customers.
Alderman Kenny Elliott was upset that the new plan call for the outside customers to get a break on what they were paying. Hughes pointed out that there were only 20 customers outside the city and financially it didn’t make much difference.
Elliott said it was not a money issue here but a selling point to be in the city.
The utility was instructed to go over Traylor’s plan and present details for both step plans at the next council meeting.
The city system includes around 164 miles of sewer lines and 3,500 manholes. Some of the lines date back 60 years.
During 2010, the wastewater utility repaired 6.5 miles of main sewer lines, repaired or replaced 115 manholes and used television equipment to inspect nearly 16 miles of sewer lines.
Although grease remains a major problem for the sewer utility, the number of main line problems related to grease was slightly down from 2009. In 2010, the utility had 29 grease calls compared to 30 in 2009 and a high of 68 in 2007.
