By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
SUAMICO – The quarterly debt service charges for sewer service in the village are decreasing by 32 percent, while the sewer use charge is increasing by 2 percent under a resolution approved earlier this month by the Suamico village board.
For residential metered sewer usage, that will result in the fixed quarterly charge for debt service decreasing by more than $20 from $65 to $44, while the charge for sewer use is increasing by 17 cents per 1,000 gallons to $8.90.
Suamico’s finance director, Jessica Legois, said the debt service charge, which was last revised in 2009, will now be $44.34 per quarter.
She said the reduced charges will allow the village to maintain a fund balance equal to the annual debt service payments.
Legois said the debt service fee should be reviewed again in 2024 when hopefully it can be discontinued with all debts being paid.
The 2020 utility budgets the board approved include total sewer utility operating expenses of $1,467,124, of which $872,420 is for sewerage service from NEW Water.
Legois said the 11 percent overall increase in expenses is primarily due to the NEW Water increase of 26 percent.
“However, I will note that much of that increase is being borne by our industrial customers,” she said. “If you look at our actual revenues for 2019, they were up significantly in the industrial revenue line.”
Two representatives of NEW Water appeared before the board to discuss its ongoing operations and budget and take questions.
Bill Oldenburg, laboratory and research manager of NEW Water, attributed the 26 percent increase to the amount of sewer flow and loads in the discharges coming from Suamico.
“Those flows and those loads have been increasing annually the past several years,” he said. “Our projections in our budget have come in below what the actual delivery from Suamico has been.”
Oldenburg said NEW Water has worked with village staff to deal with the charges on the final bill coming in higher than projected.
“When we budget a certain chunk of our pie, if you will, to each of our municipal customers, each municipal customer has a percentage of the total pie,” he said. “As that percentage increases, the fixed charge goes up, and that fixed charge was developed several years ago to try to balance out invoices and the billing on a monthly basis to our municipal customers.”
Oldenburg said the fixed charge now covers 65 percent of NEW Water’s capital debt after being 45 percent a few years ago.
Trustee Michelle Eckert said the swings in sewer costs residential customers experienced have been “insanely high.”
“Do you expect that to start getting a little bit better? Because you’re just killing people here,” Eckert said. “I hear about a lot of projects, but that’s you spending a lot of money, too. We need a little relief here. I mean, that’s ridiculous.”
Oldenburg said the swings in sewer costs occurred because of a different billing methodology previously used, after which the charges became more stable with the cost projections based on actual data.
“Some things are very difficult to project, in particular flow,” he said. “The last two years have been the wettest years in the history of this area going back to 1888… All of our municipal customers, across the board, have had significant increases in the cost of flow, just because of the inflow infiltration that goes on with wet weather.”
With industries in the village, as well as the growth along Lineville Road, Oldenburg said the last three to four years NEW Water has seen a steady increase annually in the total flow contribution and load being delivered.
Oldenburg said revenue generated from discharges exceeding projections is spent in a variety of ways.
Regardless of what the sewer projections are, Oldenburg said, “You will always pay what you deliver to us.”
Reducing load
Public Works Director Andy Smits said pouring bacon grease into the sewer will increase the sewage load and consequently increase treatment costs.
Smits said a mailing could be included with utility bills to urge customers not to do that, but the extra insert would also have an additional cost.
Village President Laura Nelson suggested posting it on the village’s website.
Smits said that could be done without having to spend additional money to include a piece of paper in the utility bills.