City ponders rate hikes for water, waste

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

McCook city residents may see higher bills for water, sewer and trash collection that would take effect in October.

City staff is mulling over a 3 percent increase in water rates, a 5 percent increase in sewer and a $1.50 increase per month for solid waste collection, due to declining sales and as a way to beef up weak ending balances.

McCook City Manager Kurt Fritsch told the council at the first budget workshop Monday night, following the regular city council meeting, that the increases would be reviewed before the budget is adopted in September by Public Financial Management, the company that oversees the city's water budget.

Fritsch told the council that there have been no rate increases in water for two years but a $1.50 service charge was added in 2008. He reminded the council that an increase was projected in water rates in 2007-08 but was later deemed not needed and subsequently not implemented.

Rates for the sewer have not been increased for three years as well.

Per the city's auditor's suggestion, city staff is proposing a $1.50 increase for trash collection to keep up the ending balance, the second year for a $1.50 increase. A total increase of $3 was suggested and city staff broke this up into two years.

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  • Wait...didn't I just read on here that the city budget was fat and sassy? This does not compute. I wish I could just jack my customers for more money whenever I need it. Maybe we should make sure city employees are working for our tax dollars and not playing an Facebook all day long.

    Go ahead McCook, make more bad decisions that make people hate living here. Jack our rates uo again, so you can sit around on your fat budget that we the tax pay put there for you. What's a few more dollars anyway, my kids don't need to go to college right?

    -- Posted by Justin76 on Tue, Jul 7, 2009, at 5:57 PM
  • Justin,

    I would suggest that you do some research on how government budgets operate. McCook has a balanced budget and it is recieving additional revenue from the sales tax which can only go to specific projects. Operation of the water department does not qualify for sales tax dollars so that is out. The money that is put into the General Fund is separate from the Water Department which is in it's own fund called an Enterprise Fund.

    An Enterprise Fund is funded through the rates charged for services with funding for some projects using state and federal grants or loans as they are available. An Enterprise Fund is isolated from funding that General Fund departments share amongst themselves. Examples of Enterprise Funds which must pay for themselves are Water, Sewer and Trash Collection.

    The new water treatment plant was to be operated under a series of estimated yearly rate increases well above 3% and 5%. These increases have been reduced by the Council consistently year after year. In some cases, the only increase was $1.50 per month. While the city has had to increase rates as predicted they have been able to keep those increases well under the amount that was proposed.

    They could always go into the red and borrow the money but Nebraskans demand that cities and the state balance their budgets. Perhaps, you have a better solution to balance the budget. Remember, you can only pay for an Enterprise fund with the funds you receive for services.

    -- Posted by McCook1 on Wed, Jul 8, 2009, at 11:10 AM
  • Man am i glad i moved out of mccook.

    -- Posted by kman on Thu, Jul 9, 2009, at 10:09 AM
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