By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer

HOWARD – Sanitary sewer rates will be changing next year in the village.

The Howard village board voted unanimously Monday, Nov. 25, in favor of new rates with trustees Scott Beyer and Adam Lemorande absent.

Chris Haltom, director of administrative services, said the rates are changing to reflect what the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District charges the village and also an increase to reflect declining revenue, which this year has been primarily due to the closure of the OMNOVA facility and a wetter summer.

“We are about $450,000 below where we should be so far this year, which would give us a decent rate of return,” he said.

Haltom said the new rates in the ordinance the board approved are projected to increase revenue by $240,000 annually, assuming there are no other cost increases or revenue losses in 2020.

“It doesn’t grab all the revenue that we need, but we need to keep in mind OMNOVA closed down, part of that revenue is their closing,” he said. “Nouryon is going to open the factory, but not right away. So we don’t want to have an increase and then we have to turn around and have a decrease. So I did kind of a half increase and waiting for Nouryon to come on and see what impact that’s going to have, before we decide we needed to make up any other kind of revenue.”

Haltom said it’s not known currently what usage Nouryon will have upon operating the facility the company bought from OMNOVA.

For Category A sewage, which is defined as “normal or domestic strength wastewater,” the monthly facilities charge for all customers will be increasing by 47 cents to $6.47, while the volume charge for all customers is going up by 40 cents per 1,000 gallons to $5.50.

For Category B sewage, which has higher levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids (TSS), phosphorus (P) and total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) than allowed in Category A, the per-pound rates are decreasing by about 8.5 cents for BOD and TSS and increasing by about 12.5 cents for P and 6 cents for TKN.

The monthly facilities charge and volume charge will also increase by the same amount for Category B sewage as Category A customers.