Hollister
– Water and sewer rates will increase substantially, some
eventually doubling, if the City Council approves recommendations
from a firm that recently conducted a review of all residential
charges.
Hollister – Water and sewer rates will increase substantially, some eventually doubling, if the City Council approves recommendations from a firm that recently conducted a review of all residential charges.
The council received a report at Monday’s meeting from the city manager. The city will also discuss the recommended fees at a workshop Wednesday in the Veterans Memorial Building.
Hollister hasn’t updated the fees in more than a decade, so revenues no longer match the costs to run water and sewer facilities. Hollister also has to offset the cost of building a new wastewater treatment plant and the $25 million bond being issued to fund it.
“Since rates haven’t been adjusted in a while… we’re not covering costs with the rates,” said Steve Wittry, acting public works director.
Under the proposal from the hired consultant, Munifinancial, sewer rates for single-family residential homes would increase from $49.50 to $72 for fiscal year 2004-05, which is under way. And in the following fiscal year, starting in July 2005, those rates would jump to $99.
Water rates, meanwhile, depend on the size of a home’s meter and the amount of usage. According to Munifinancial’s report, a normal single-family residence in Hollister would go from paying $64 to dishing out $105 in the current fiscal year.
About 10,400 households get sewer bills every other month, while about 6,000 are serviced by Hollister water and also receive those bills on a bi-monthly basis, according to City Manager Clint Quilter.
Munifinancial derived the new rates by studying historical relationships between revenues and costs – along with projections of how much those expenses will rise, Wittry said.
The firm did the same task with an array of fees to residents for services ranging from charges to run a recreation basketball team to charges when city staff members have to inspect properties. The council already has approved those new fees.
Once the council approves updated water and sewer rates, it will then turn its attention to the last category of fees needing revisions – developer impact fees.
“That’s the third and final piece of the puzzle,” said Bill Avera, the city’s redevelopment agency director.
The city plans to use an inflationary index to automatically adjust all the rates so it doesn’t have to continually conduct fee studies. The city of Hollister paid Munifinancial $130,000 for the research.
Kollin Kosmicki can be reached at 637-5566, ext. 331 or at
kk*******@fr***********.com
