Council unanimously adopts water rate hike; Council member Hofstetter says she wants discussion of changing rate structure

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June bills to ratepayers in the Town of Nashville will include a 28-cent increase to the water rate, after the Nashville Town Council adopted a rate increase last month.

The council had a second reading of the proposed ordinance at its April 20 meeting, where the council also adopted the ordinance in a unanimous vote.

The increase is only to the water rates for customers served by Nashville Municipal Utilities.

Nashville Water Utility purchases its water at a wholesale rate from Brown County Water.

According to the ordinance, Brown County Water raised its wholesale water rates as of Jan. 21 by 4.22%.

“It is necessary that the Nashville Water Utility raise rates by 4.22%,” the ordinance states.

The drafted ordinance also states that the town arranged for the municipal consulting firm of O.W. Krohn & Associates to perform a rate study of the utility in connection to the increase of cost, and the study indicated that the current rates and charges were “not sufficient to meet the reasonable financial requirements of the utility.”

With the new rates, the rate per 1,000 gallons for the first 10,000 inside town will be $14.65, an increase of 28 cents.

For those outside of town, the rate will go from $18.52 to $18.80 per 1,000 gallons.

Water rates were increased last in June last year. Before that, they were last increased in 2012.

The rate increase is unrelated to the ongoing water loss issues that the town faces.

Town Attorney Wanda Jones said at the public hearing of the ordinance on April 6 that there are “significant” infrastructure issues to be addressed. The current proposed rate increase will not address those issues, she said.

She said the rate hike is something that the wholesaler is charging the town and they have to pass on because the town is a nonprofit. She said the town did not really have a choice.

Three residents spoke at the public hearing and questioned the rate structure that is in place.

The residents said their water use “doesn’t even come close” to the first 10,000 gallons of use.

Council member Anna Hofstetter said at the hearing that she has been looking into the trends in water usage for residents.

She said she has found that many residents are using about 3,000 gallons of water per month, and a “good chunk” of residents use less than 2,000 gallons.

Hofstetter said she had some ideas on how to edit the ordinance to make things easier for people on lower or fixed incomes that way they are able to afford water.

She said she is interested in a “progressive rate structure,” that she said would address residents’ concerns.

That decision is totally up to the council, she added, and she is gathering data to “persuade fellow council members.”

One resident said that she was “very in support” of having a rate structure that is more encouraging to water conservation.

The resident is a one-person household, she said, and her water use ranges from 600 to 900 gallons per month, but pays just as much if she were to use well above that amount.

The resident said it was discouraging and does not motivate users to be careful.

Hofstetter said on April 20 that she has gone through “thousands of data points” to try to make sense of where water usage trends are, and she has suggestions on how rates can be restructured so the people who have lower incomes are not “carrying the brunt” of potentially high water bills.

She suggested extra cost be distributed differently than it has been in the past.

“I want to open up a little bit of a discussion if possible,” she said on April 20.

She said that she has done a lot of the math as far as water use and rate restructuring on her own, but said she does not trust herself to make that kind of decision without professional guidance.

She also said that she does not want to leave the rate structure “unattended for too long.”

“I don’t trust myself, my rudimentary math skills, to make this kind of decision, because a mistake or miscalculation can have catastrophic effects,” she said.

“I think we need a professional to check the work, but I think as a concept, I do have some major suggestions on how to appease the people, as we all heard at the public (hearing). I at least have a very clear idea of the direction to go.”

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