Schaumburg residents can expect water bills to increase by about 10 percent over the next three years, officials said this week.
The water and sewer rates are reviewed every three years and a proposed 5.9 percent increase the first year was cut to 3.5 percent, said Trustee Thomas Dailly, chairman of the Finance, Legal, Administrative and General Government Committee, after Tuesday’s meeting. The increase will take effect May 1, and 3 percent increases will follow in 2008 and 2009, he said.
The average residential water bill will increase about $13 annually, said Douglas Ellsworth, director of finance.
The initial increase was reduced, Ellsworth said, because Chicago did not raise the rate it charges the seven-member Northwest Suburban Joint Action Water Agency. Increases for 2008 and 2009 are anticipated, he said.
That village increase “pays for water usage and infrastructure improvements such as water lines and sewer lines,” Dailly said.
Trustees also approved spending $80,000, mostly on mailing costs, to switch to a monthly billing system. Businesses had been billed monthly and residents quarterly.
The change will improve village cash flow, keep bills small and probably reduce the number of calls about bills, Ellsworth said.