County of Barrhead residents on the municipality's water and sewer system can expect to pay more in the new year.
Councillors unanimously approved Bylaw 14-2020, a.k.a. the Water and Sewer Utility Bylaw, in three straight readings during their Dec. 15 meeting. The key feature of the bylaw is that it sets the rates for the municipality's water and sewer utilities starting Jan. 1.
Finance and administration director Tamara Molzahn said that although the council has updated its utility rates the last time the bylaw was reviewed was 2014.
For most services, including metered and unmetered water service as well as sanitary sewer charges for metered water accounts, the fee is effectively increasing by five per cent.
Metered water, for the first 10 m3 goes from $51.71 to $54.30 per month. For those who use above that amount, for every 4.54 m3 the rate goes from $17.48 to $18.35 per month.
For unmetered water service, individual residential dwelling units will be increasing from $85.04 to $89.29 per month. All other applications go from $132.88 to $139.52 per unit, per month.
For people taking advantage of the municipality's water stations, the amount per cubic metre per 1,000 litres remains unchanged at $7.81.
Sanitary Sewer charges also increase going from $42.52 to $44.65 per unit, per month. In the case of residences, where the water service is unmetered or not provided by the municipality the sewer service charge is 50 per cent of the unmetered water charge.
Water meters will also be read every month instead of the previous two months.
Molzahn said this hopefully will help people catch potential leaks sooner.
"If there is a leak, say in a toilet, it could be a pretty expensive bill for the account holder if they aren't aware of it," she said.
In addition to setting the utility rates, the bylaw also added several definitions, the permanent ones being that of a backflow preventer and cross-connection.
"Backflow connectors are needed to prevent the water system from contamination," Molzahn said, adding in the previous bylaw the definition was not included.
She added that the addition would impact only commercial accounts.
Other changes or additions to the bylaw include adding clarity to how the municipality recovers overdue accounts and that any utility account will now be in the name of the property owner. It should be noted that for tenant accounts in good standing, they can remain in their name. However, once that account is terminated, the new account at that address must be in the owner's name.
"This way there is relatively little risk as any unpaid accounts can be added to the tax roll," Molzahn said, adding most municipalities require the landowner to have the account.
Coun. Walter Preugschas asked how much revenue the increase would generate.
Molzahn said she did not have a dollar amount, but that the increase would allow the municipality to collect 90 per cent of what it costs to provide the service. She also added that they would have come closer to their goal of getting as close to 100 per cent cost recovery if people's water consumption remained relatively high, but in recent years people have been using less water.
"It's a metric that we have talked about for some time … that we need to get to at least the 90 per cent level," interjected reeve Doug Drozd.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
