Published June 16, 2021
By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD — The average ratepayer will spend about $21 more next year for water and about $20 more in sewer charges. The Town Council last night approved the new water and sewer rates as recommended by the Advisory Board of Public Works. DPW Director Joseph Conway presented the new rates.
Tiered rates were introduced last year based on usage. The following new rates are per 100 cubic feet (cf) of water. The new water rate for Tier 1 users (up to 1,000 cf of water) is $7.56. Tier 2 usage (1001-2500 cf) will cost $7.99 (after discount) Tier 3 usage (2,501-6,000 cf) will cost $8.44. Tier 4 usage (over 6,000 cf) will cost $9.30.
One the sewer side, the new rates per 100 cf are as follows. Tier 1 users (up to 1,000 cf) will pay a rate of $11.44. Usage between 1,001 and 2,500 cf will cost $11.95 per cf. The rate for Tier 3 use (2,500-6,000 cf) will be $12.47. Over 6,000 cf of usage will run you $13.50 per 100 cf.
The new rates will result in an average quarterly residential water bill of $174.62 and an average quarterly sewer bill of $255.32. The combined quarterly bill for the average residential user will be $429.94 ($386.95 after the 10 percent discount for on-time payment).
The Advisory Board of Public works decided not to increase the quarterly “service charge” from the amount voted last year. So the quarterly service charge per water bill will be $19.16. The sewer service charge will remain $21.40 per quarterly bill.
The sewer flat rate (for customers on well water who do not have a meter on their wells) will be $377.44 based on the national average of 3,000 cubic feet of usage per quarter.
The fee for a manual meter read will be $50.
The septic disposal rate includes a facility opening fee of $110, with the disposal cost per 100 cubic feet charged at the current sewer rate.
Conway noted that both water and sewer rates need to fund the operating budget and both the water and sewer reserves need to be sufficient to provide for consumption shortfalls, emergencies and future capital improvements.
He also noted that the MWRA water and sewer assessments to the town are projected to both decrease slightly from FY 2021. The MWRA water assessment represents 45 percent of the water budget. The MWRA sewer assessment represents 75 percent of the sewer budget.
Because of the unusual past year due to the pandemic, the DPW and the Advisory Board of Public Works decided to bring back consultants from the Abrahams group for a reevaluation of their previous year’s study. The Abrahams group reported that with people home more during the pandemic, water consumption was up 6.2 percent from 2020 and was 8.5 percent higher than in 2019. Billing rose by more than $850,000 (14 percent) in FY 2021, leading to a surplus of $400,000. The town consumed approximately 82 million cubic feet of water between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021 (not including municipal consumption of about 2 million cubic feet).
