DuPage to start process to dissolve sanitary district

Four months after getting Lake Michigan water for a subdivision near Lombard, DuPage County is moving ahead with a plan to disband the sanitary district serving the area.

The Highland Hills Sanitary District manages sanitary sewer service and water operations for roughly 465 residential and business properties. A separate entity, the Flagg Creek Water Reclamation District, treats the sewage.

To disband the sanitary district, the county has agreed to take over the Highland Hills water system. Flagg Creek eventually will get Highland Hills' sanitary system.

In June, the county established itself as the subdivision's water supplier when Lake Michigan water started flowing through the Highland Hills system.

Now the county board's public works committee on Tuesday morning is slated to talk about an ordinance to begin the dissolution of Highland Hills Sanitary District.

"This is the first resolution that needs to be passed to start the process," Jim Healy, the public works committee chairman, said Monday.

Other steps, including an audit, would need to happen in the coming months. If the process goes as expected, the dissolution of the sanitary district would be completed by March or April, according to Healy.

"We have to show that we're saving them (the subdivision's residents) money," Healy said. "We also have to show that we're supplying better services."

County officials say Highland Hills residents will get higher-quality water and improved levels of service at a lower cost.

Disbanding the sanitary district will abolish its property tax levy of $53,500 a year, according to the county. More than $25,000 a year in professional services costs and trustee compensation also will be eliminated.

Once the sanitary district is dissolved, Flagg Creek will provide sewer collection and treatment services to the residents. Flagg Creek's service area includes all or parts of Clarendon Hills, Oakbrook Terrace, Burr Ridge, Hinsdale, Darien, Willowbrook, Elmhurst, Westmont, Oak Brook, Villa Park and Lombard.

DuPage officials say Highland Hills is expected to be the seventh unit of local government dissolved as part of the county's Accountability, Consolidation and Transparency Initiative.

The ACT Initiative, launched in 2012, at first called on two dozen local governmental entities to make structural and operational changes. In 2013, state lawmakers gave DuPage the power to eliminate Highland Hills and a dozen other local government entities.

"We're showing people that this can work," Healy said. "The wave of the future is reducing down the number of these districts."