Des Plaines raises water, sewer rates

Des Plaines residents will pay higher fees for water and sewer services this year.

The city council Tuesday night approved a roughly 21 percent increase to the city’s water and sewer rates, retroactive to Jan. 1, which includes Chicago’s 25 percent water rate increase for 2012 that will be passed on to Des Plaines residents, officials said.

Chicago’s four-year water rate hikes call for a 15 percent increase in each of the following years. Des Plaines must pay an additional $4 million to Chicago for water service — $36 million in total — for those four years.

Des Plaines is in the second year of a 10-year water agreement with Chicago, a deal some aldermen would like to get out of.

“Your city is working hard to look for other alternative plans to resolve this,” Des Plaines 4th Ward Alderman Dick Sayad said.

With Des Plaines’ combined water/sewer rate hikes coupled with Chicago’s water rate increase, a resident’s monthly bill based on consumption will go up $3.49 for low usage (800 cubic feet), $6.55 for average usage (1,500 cubic feet), and $13.10 for high usage (3,000 cubic feet).

Des Plaines’ current water/sewer rate falls just below the average when compared with 15 neighboring communities.

Tim Oakley, director of engineering and public works, said the city hasn’t raised water/sewer rates to keep up with operations and maintenance needs since 2006.

Officials said the higher fees are necessary to maintain operations and the current level of services.

The city’s water and sewer fund, which covers operations and maintenance costs, has been operating in deficit for a couple of years. The fund is projected to have a $2 million operating deficit in the first quarter of 2013.

“We’re running in a deficit position ... we’ve got to get the money from somewhere,” Acting City Manager Jason Slowinski said. “The city shouldn’t be using property tax dollars to pay for the supply of water for residents. This is a one-year increase. At some point, we’re going to have to start talking about what we’re going to do in 2013 and beyond. We’ve bought ourselves time to deal with the larger rate issues.”

In November, the city council was presented with a new water/sewer rate study recommending dramatic increases starting in January, and escalating fees for the next five years to help maintain aging infrastructure.

The stopgap measure approved Tuesday was the less aggressive of three scenarios recommended in the study prepared by Baxter & Woodman Inc.

Des Plaines 5th Ward Alderman Jim Brookman was the only one to vote against increasing rates for 2012 saying the Baxter study hasn’t been fully vetted by the council.

“The Baxter study was referred back to the engineering committee for detailed discussion,” Brookman said. “I think that a vote on this tonight is improper. We have yet to discuss this report that took a year to prepare and this city paid for.”

Brookman suggested the vote on increasing Des Plaines’ rates for 2012 be put off until that meeting takes place. His motion to separate that issue from the decision to pass on Chicago’s rate increase to residents failed.

Des Plaines 8th Ward Alderman Mike Charewicz said by not acting on the staff-recommended rate increase the city would actually be moving backward. “This is a quick deal, and we can always increase it more if necessary,” he said.

Meanwhile, officials are continuing to investigate all available options to supply the city’s roughly 57,000 residents with water.

“This (Chicago) rate increase was forced down our throats with no input from the suburbs,” Mayor Marty Moylan said.