City utilities to increase 7.4 percent this summer

Come July 1, a typical household here will pay about $5 more a month - a 7.4 percent increase - for the city's package of utility services, according to a budget proposal made to the City Council tonight.

Currently, the monthly fee for a typical Cedar Rapids household is $66.17, an amount that will go to $71.07 under the proposed plan.

The monthly total pays for water, sanitary sewer and wastewater treatment, storm sewer and solid waste services, which include garbage, yard waste and recycling pickup.

Interestingly, one new reason for the rate increase is the decline in water usage, particularly by industrial customers, Pat Ball, the city's utilities director, explained to the City Council at a budget session last night.

Ball said some local industries have begun to dig their own water wells for some of their water needs as the price of the city's treated water has gone up. It is a trend that is apt to continue, Ball said.

As a result, Ball and City Manager Jim Prosser said the city now will increase the fixed monthly cost simply to have the city's water service now that usage is in decline.

Ball said the city's new rate approach as it applies to households is not designed to reward those who cut down on water usage – though, perhaps, it should be, he said – because the city needs to raise enough revenue to cover the system's costs, many of which are tied to the infrastructure no matter how much water flows through it, he said.

Ball pointed to the $40-million renovation project - which includes an ultraviolet disinfection system - at the city's two water treatment plants as one other example of the need for more utility revenue.

As in most discussions about the city's utilities, Ball noted that the city has a water and wastewater capacity of a city of 2 million people because of heavy demand from the city's industries. Industries use 60 percent of the city's water and 70 percent of its wastewater treatment capacity, he said.

Prosser said the city's residential and commercial customers do not subsidize the industrial ones.

The City Council will vote on the new utility rates in March as part of the council's budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

A 7.4-percent increase in the city's utility rate for households will be a smaller increase than those in the previous two years.

The city's rates continue to compare well with bigger cities in Iowa and comparably-sized cities in the Midwest, Ball said.