City of Evanston

Water and Sewer Funding Adjustments

Posted by Wally Bobkiewicz on Aug 7, 2010 at 3:47 PM in Water and Sewer

The City Council's Administration and Public Works Committee will begin discussion of changes to water and sewer funding models at its meeting Monday night.  This comes after several discussions with the Council over the past few months on next steps on how to raise additional revenue for these funds.  All of these proposed changes would take effect on January 1, 2011.

Staff is recommending a ten percent (10%) water rate increase. The existing water rate is billed as a minimum use meter charge for the first 5 units based on meter size, and a quantity charge for every unit in excess of the first 5 units in the bi-monthly billing period. Effective January 1, 2011 both the minimum use meter charge and quantity charge is proposed to be raised by ten percent. For the 5/8” and the 3/4” meter sizes (the meter sizes commonly used in single family homes) the minimum use meter charge will increase from $5.40 to $5.94 for the first 5 units consumed and the quantity charge will increase from $1.52 per unit to $1.67 per unit for every unit in excess of 5 units consumed in the bi-monthly billing period.

Staff is also recommending maintaining the current sewer rate of $3.94 per bill unit to all tax paying properties and effective January 1, 2011 establish a two-tiered sewer rate for users of the system that are tax exempt properties. The first 100 units of water used during a given bi-monthly billing period by tax exempt properties would continue to be billed at $3.94 per unit. Any water usage in excess of 100 units during a given bimonthly billing period by tax exempt properties would be billed at $4.53 per unit.

This will be the first full discussion of this specific proposal.  Additional discussion is scheduled to occur at the next meeting of the City Council on September 13, 2010.

Staff report on water changes (PDF)

Staff report on sewer changes (PDF)

Topics: Water and Sewer