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Lake Zurich Board eyes increase in residents’ water bills
Updated: February 19, 2013 11:53AM
In as little as four months, Lake Zurich residents could be seeing a 15 percent hike to a portion of their water bills.
Increasing the community’s water and sewer rates was among the most prominent of issues discussed by Lake Zurich Village Board officials during their first meeting of 2013. Finance Director Jodie Andrew presented to the board two possible rate increase options that residents could see on their water sewer bills starting May 1.
The first option showed the village’s water and sewer portion of the bill increasing by 15 percent, and the second showed it increasing by 25 percent. Depending upon which time frame the board decided was most reasonable, either increase could last between one to two years.
“I’m not asking for any formal board action tonight — this is purely getting some feedback from the board,” Andrew said.
Village officials agreed that until the more detailed version of the plan was drawn up, an increase of 15 percent for two years would most-likely be their decision.
Should the village ultimately decide to raise its portion of the bill by 15 percent starting in May, Andrew said that the average family of four consuming roughly 9,000 gallons per month would see their monthly bill of about $104 increase to $111.78. Should they decide to raise it by 25 percent, the same family would see it rise to $116.91.
Though she didn’t specify how much, Andrew explained that the 15 percent combined with a small bond issuance would suffice to fund the village’s capital projects. The 25 percent increase would fund the same capital improvements in addition to providing a small cushion to fall back on, should anything go awry.
Andrew clarified that increasing either amount for two years meant that a portion of residents’ water bills would be raised by that percentage for the first year, and raised by double that percentage the next year — unless the village decides otherwise.
For instance, the village’s portion of the bill would be raised by 15 percent the first year and 30 percent the following year.
During the budget process last year, the board had forgone increasing the water rates by Aug. 2012 due to the unexpected tax revenues they received as a result of the drought; revenues from that month were about .3 percent higher than the originally anticipated $428,846.
Andrew said that delaying the increase also allowed her enough time to consider public works’ feedback during the village’s capital improvements planning process.
“We wanted to get through the capital projects planning, so that once we had public works’ feedback we could see what was truly facing the water and sewer fund,” Andrew said.~ ~~~.
