City council wants answers on the proposed water rate in the wake of a 6.7 per cent increase.
If the city’s proposed 2012 budget was approved right now, water would cost the average homeowner $214 a year before tap was even turned on. That fixed rate, which is 45 per cent of the water bill, needs to go down Coun. Aldo Ruberto said.
“We can’t continue this kind of a trend,” he said. “Fixed costs alone to me are incredibly unfair for the people who have fixed incomes.”
At issue is a plan approved by city council two years ago that shifted the city’s water rate structure to larger fixed costs, with increases over the years, in order to make the municipal water system revenue neutral, which is provincially mandated.
But councillors now want to see different options on how that neutrality can be achieved.
Ruberto also pointed out that the idea was supposed to be that after a larger fixed cost, the more you used the more you paid.
“That’s not what the policy turned out to be,” Ruberto said.
Coun. Joe Virdiramo wondered if the rate increases could be spread over 30 or 40 years instead of the 20-year approved plan so that its not just current users footing the bill for a state-of-the-art water system.
“Why can’t we spread that over 40 years?” Virdiramo asked. “So that people in the future…also pay.”
Several members of administration explained that a move to pay over a longer term would mean more interest for debentures the city is paying for its water system now.
Other councillors wanted to know if a $112,000 water rate credit program, which is currently only available to low-income seniors and people with disabilities, could be extended to include all low-income people.
“Water rates are killer for a lot of people,” Mayor Keith Hobbs said.
The mayor was one of several members on council who said water rates being too high is the number one complaint they receive from the public.
“(Water rates have) to slow down. I think all the councillors are pretty much on the same page as I can see,” Hobbs said.
Administration is preparing a memo on the options for council before the 2012 budget is approved.
