Agenda Packets - 2004/02/23 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The remaining $647,540 of the 2004 sewer operating budget is for wages, utilities, supplies, repairs, and depreciation. These costs won’t be changed appreciably by variations in the total flow into the sewer system. So we propose that these costs should be the fixed component of the rate that will be charged to all customers regardless of water usage. The variable sewer bill would be based on water usage for the months of January, February, and March of each year. This avoids months where residents will be using water in ways (washing cars and watering lawns or gardens) that don’t put water into the sewer system. For this report, I analyzed all residential customers who pay the $47.00 per quarter flat rate. These include apartments, condominiums, duplexes and town-homes. The January 5, 2004 preliminary report only analyzed single-family homes. Single-family homes tend to be occupied by a larger number of people than do apartments, condominiums, duplexes and town-homes. As such, they also tend to have higher water consumption. The single-family homes had a median water consumption of 16.45 units of water in the winter of 2003. When all residential properties are analyzed, they had a median water consumption of 14.82 units of water in the winter of 2003 The 4,461 residential properties produce $838,668 of sewer revenue per year. Fifty four percent (763,000 divided by $1,410,540) would need to be replaced by the variable portion of the new rate and forty six percent would need to be replaced by the fixed portion. The fixed rate calculates as: 46% times $838,668 is $385,787. This divided by 4,461 equals $21.58 that would be the fixed charge per household, per quarter. This is the same as in the January 5, 2004 report. However, the variable portion of the sewer rate is different. Since there is lower median water consumption for all residential properties, the variable sewer rate per unit of water is higher. The 4,461 residences used 66,106 units of water in January through March 2003. The variable rate calculates as: 54% times $838,668 is $452,881. This divided by 66,106 equals $6.86 per unit of annual revenue, or $1.72 per unit of water based on the winter usage. In the January 5, 2004 report, the variable rate was $1.55 per unit of water based on the winter usage. The median water consumption was about 14.82 units (1,000 gallons). Anyone who used 15 or more units would see their sewer bill go up. Anyone who used 14 or fewer units would see their sewer bill go down. There would need to be provisions made for staff to adjust the readings for homes that had estimated bills and then supplied an actual or who had a running toilet and then made a repair.