Jefferson to raise water, sewer rates

By MAKAYLA TENDALL
m.tendall@beeherald.com

Residents of Jefferson will pay an extra $3 on their utility bill after the city council raises sewer and water rates 3 percent.

City council members discussed the first reading of the proposal to raise rates at Tuesday’s meeting.

Shannon Black, councilwoman at large, said rates are raised to “keep in line with the expense of getting the chemicals and all of the expenses with that.”

“We’ve been doing it about every other year just to keep up with the costs of providing those services to maintain our equipment,” Black said. “We have to recuperate that somehow. It’s definitely not a money-making thing.”

Black said Mike Palmer, city administrator, calculated the rise in rates to be about $3 per bill.

Black stressed that rates are raised only every other year in order to manage costs instead of raising rates significantly when major maintenance is required to sewer and water facilities.

“For some cities to not have to raise the costs so often, they’ll wait for a long time, and then after 5 or 8 years they have to do a pretty significant increase. You tend to feel that a little bit harder than if we do these tiny increases every other year,” Black said.

Black said no one has opposed or praised the proposal yet.

The council will have three more readings of the proposal before it’s passed.

“I think people kind of look at it as a pretty small amount,” Black said.

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