Carpentersville water will cost residents a little more
Carpentersville residents who don't want to get soaked by the village's latest water and sewer rate hike should start paying attention to those long morning showers and gardening habits beginning Oct. 1.
That's when the village will begin raising water and sewer rates 9 percent - to $2.90 from $2.66 per 1,000 gallons for water and to $3.22 per 1,000 gallons from $2.95 for sewer. Consumers will begin seeing the increased usage fees on water bills issued after Jan. 1.
A bill for 12,000 gallons of water and sewer combined would increase on average about $6.46 per quarter, or $25.81 annually.
Incremental increases are expected until 2011.
It's the third water and sewer rate increase in three years.
Finance Director Lisa Happ said the rate increase would add between $300,000 and $400,000 to the water and sewer fund. Over a 12-month period, Happ said, that increase would amount to almost $4.9 million in revenue.
In a 6-1 vote Tuesday, village trustees approved the new fee, which village staff members say will sustain services to residents, pay down debt and also contribute to the replacement of the village's aging water meter reading system.
Village Manager Craig Anderson said the revenue would help the village pay off the $10 million bond it issued recently to boost its capital improvement program.
Meanwhile, the program to replace water meter reading systems village-wide would cost about $1.2 million over 5 years, Anderson said. It will replace a 15-year-old system and provide village staff with quicker and more accurate readings without additional manpower.
However, Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski - the only trustee to vote against the increase - said the village is shortchanging residents by employing the same company to install new meters.
"We know the meters are faulty, yet we are going back to the same company," she said Wednesday. "The system is obsolete and now here we are, we have to spend hundred of thousands of dollars to replace it. We can't keep digging into residents' pockets."
Water and sewer rates were raised 6 percent in 2006 and 7 percent in 2007. Before 2006, the village had not adjusted water rates in five years, while sewer rates remained unchanged for eight years.