The Village Board next week will discuss raising water and sewer rates as well as inspecting its aging water main system for leaks, trustees agreed Tuesday.
Village President John Geils recommended that trustees consider a 10-cent increase in the water rate and a 35-cent hike in the sewer rate. That would bring the water rate up to $4.10 per 1,000 gallons used and the sewer rate to $2.65 per 1,000 gallons processed.
“This is a modest increase that would put us in the middle of the pack [of what area communities charge for water and sewer service],” he said.
That rate would enable the village to meet current expenses and save a little each month for capital improvements to the systems, including work on the nearly 20-year-old sewage treatment plant, Geils said.
“You have to have depreciation funding at some level,” he said. “If you billed depreciation at 100 percent [of anticipated replacement costs], the rates would be sky-high. I think funding depreciation at 20 [percent] to 30 percent is about all we can do.”
Trustees also will decide whether to spend between $7,500 and $8,100 to have the water mains checked for leaks.
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The latest survey, in 1999, found 34 leaks and saved the village an estimated $67,000 in water losses, said Public Works Director Paul Quinn.
The village lost about $94,000 in Lake Michigan water to leaky mains in 1999, $97,000 in 1997 and about $250,000 in 1993, he added.
“We’ve had an aggressive hydrant replacement program in place that has done a lot to reduce water losses in the system,” Quinn said.
Trustee Frank Caira favored the leak survey.
“This looks like a 5 percent investment that will save 95 percent of the loss,” he said.