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The proposal, to be voted on Thursday, would add about $2 onto the average family's bill after May 1. By 2004, rates would be up 38 percent.
By CHRISTINA HEADRICK
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 4, 2000
CLEARWATER -- Faced with cracking pipelines and aging pump stations, city commissioners are ready to vote Thursday to increase sewer and water fees again this year by 6.6 percent to pay for repairs.
City officials plan to continue raising sewer and water fees at the same rate for the next five years, adding up to a cumulative rate hike of about 38 percent by 2004.
Officials say the increases will help generate an additional $24-million, which will pay for half of the $48-million in needed repairs to the city's water and sewer systems.
"This isn't just for things we want to do," said Kevin Becotte, the city's public utilities director. "This is for things we really need to do."
Proposed projects range from plugging leaky sewer pipes that can contaminate local waterways to replacing a 40-year-old water line under Clearwater Harbor that is at the end of its projected life. It's the chief source of water to Clearwater Beach residents, Becotte said.
Also, $14-million would be devoted to a major new initiative to replace a third of the city's old sewer lift stations, which help propel sewage through pipelines toward treatment plants.
At a Monday workshop where the water and sewer fee increases were discussed publicly for the first time, commissioners seemed reluctantly prepared to proceed with the increase in fees, which comes at the start of this year's budget season.
"I guess we are trying very hard to avoid environmental problems that other cities have had," Commissioner Ed Hooper said of the city's sewer system plans. "But to be as environmentally sound as you can be, it takes money."
This year's increase, effective May 1, would add about $2 onto the average family's bill, raising it from $29 to $31, Becotte estimated. Locally, Pinellas County cities charge $25 to $44 monthly for comparable amounts of water and sewer use.
The fee hike will be voted on at the commission's Thursday night meeting. It's one of several increases in various city fees slated to take effect this year.
Becotte tried to give the water and sewer rate increase the best spin possible at Monday's commission workshop. He explained that this year's 6.6 percent increase is much less than the 9.7 percent increase in sewer and water fees that had been planned previously for 2000.
Becotte said the city saved millions by refinancing some water and sewer bonds in 1998, allowing officials to propose a lower sewer fee increase. Finance officials estimate the city will save about $20-million over the next two decades as a result of the refinancing.
But Commissioner Bob Clark punched some numbers into a calculator Monday and questioned the city's math. Despite the savings the city stands to realize from refinancing its bonds, the city's new rate plan actually increases projected rates over prior plans, Clark observed.
The city's old plan was to raise rates about 35 percent from 2000 to 2004. Now, as Clark said, the city is actually raising rates about 38 percent over the same period.
Becotte said the city has few alternatives. Federal environmental regulators have asked the city to do an extensive study of leaky sewer pipes and fix problems. A major study is identifying concerns, and the problems of cracked pipes and illegally hooked-up drainage pipes appear to be significant, he said. The study is scheduled to be completed in about eight to 10 months.
Also, environmental regulators are forcing the city to shut down its small well field and buy 100 percent of its water, rather than 80 percent, from Pinellas County. As that happens, the city's wholesale water prices are expected to rise, and the city will have to pass on higher water costs to residents.