Water and sewer rates increasing up to 9 per cent

In an effort to make utilities more comsumption based, the City of Meadow Lake’s utility rates have been adjusted, and now quarterly bills will raise anywhere from five to nine per cent for city residents.

The first five percent increase is a base rate that all cutomers will see, and then the rest will depend on how much water is consumed in a household – a user pay style. City Manager Diana Burton said this move will also ensure the water and sewer utilities self-sufficient and not be subsidized by the general tax base.  

The bylaw, which was actually enacted and fully passed in September this year, was discussed at council this week again, as the increase will come into effect Jan. 1, 2018. There will be increases every year until 2021 until the city sees full cost recovery for utilities.

“The purpose of the changes to the water and sewer rates is so they will be bringing in enough revenue to run the utilities, and council’s goal is to bring it to user pay, so higher users pay more,” she said.

City Council started to look at changing the rates in 2015. Before then, all residents were charged a base rate, and then were not charged until their water consumption hit 34 cubic metres in a quarter. Burton said there were a number of users in the city who weren’t hitting that threshold, so essentially those residents were offsetting costs for higher users.

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“The theory behind user pay is that council believes it’s more fair to charge that way,” she said. “But also, the idea to encourage conservation where possible.”

kathy.gallant@jpbg.ca  

On Twitter @ReporterKath