GNAW BONE — Gnaw Bone sewer customers won’t be seeing an increase on their bills right away.
The board decided at the Sept. 8 meeting to delay a final vote on a proposal to raise monthly bills from the $50 minimum to a $65 minimum.
That proposal was based on a rate study done by the board’s former accountant, whose contract was terminated in a special meeting on Sept. 2.
Board President Dave Hess said he no longer had any faith in that rate study, which is why their new accountant, Sussi Oxenboell of Carpenter and Associates in Bloomington, is doing a new one.
Hess didn’t know if the former accountant factored in the fact that the utility appears to have about $16,000 in unpaid bills when he suggested the new monthly rate.
He also isn’t entirely sure if that $16,000 figure is correct or how much customers may actually owe. Even if the board were to call the former accountant — which they wouldn’t, because he’s been terminated — the board couldn’t be sure that the numbers are correct, said board attorney John Young.
Oxenboell and the board estimated that it might take as many as two months to sort out the district’s finances enough to determine whether a rate change was needed or how much it might be.
In the meantime, the board will continue to take public comments at meetings about the proposed rate of $65, even though it might change to another figure or even stay the same at $50.
The sewer board is now meeting at 6 p.m. each first Monday at the Gnaw Bone Food Mart/Country Mark gas station.
Three customers — more than usual — showed up at the Sept. 8 meeting (on the first Tuesday instead of the first Monday because of Labor Day) and two of them said they’d never known that the board had meetings.
The board has two members right now — Hess and Shawn Fosnight — but is in need of a third after the death of longtime member Charley White in the spring. Every Gnaw Bone sewer customer is eligible to serve. In addition to attending meetings, board members are expected to physically work on the sewer infrastructure when needed in order to keep costs down for everyone. Sewer board members are paid $50 per meeting and $50 per day they work.
Hess and Fosnight said they don’t want to see sewer bills rise, and they know they have customers for whom $50 a month is already a challenge, but they may have no choice.
It could be much worse, Fosnight said.
Twenty years ago, the rate was a minimum of $35 a month, but the system was a mess, he said. The state was ready to take over and bills were going to be $120 minimum, he remembered.
He’s still thankful for the actions of then-state Senator Vi Simpson, who was able to get a grant and then a loan through the State Revolving Fund to get the Gnaw Bone Regional Sewer District to a good place financially. The district paid off its loan last year. Bills, for awhile, were a minimum of $75 per month until the Forest Hills apartments were built; then, they were able to drop to a minimum of $50, based on water usage.
When Brown County Water Utility decided it needed to raise the rate it charged Gnaw Bone to do water and sewer billing together, the Gnaw Bone RSD switched to a flat-rate minimum bill of $50 instead of a bill based on water usage, and hired its former accountant to handle the sewer billing at $8.50 per customer, Fosnight explained.
However, since flat-rate billing went into effect, the district has seen wastewater usage increase, which has increased costs at the plant. They’d been able to handle that until about the last year and a half, Fosnight said. Now, to satisfy state requirements, they’re concerned that they need to have more money in reserve than what they believe they have now.
The new rate study by the new accountant should clear up much of the uncertainty.
Oxenboell will be paid the same as the last accountant: $150 per month to do financial reports, $8.50 per bill to do billing with postage included, and $175 per hour for other duties if needed. She was hired on a three-month trial initially.
The next meeting will be at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 6 at the Gnaw Bone gas station.
