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With economic conditions on the verge of a recession, and with fuel cost at an all-time high, the City of Corsicana voted Tuesday evening to increase water rates by 15 percent. During a work session held prior to the city council meeting, City Manager Connie Standridge explained that water rates have been basically the same for the past 10 years. According to Standridge, the city is trying to avoid passing a deficit budget for the second year in a row, and she feels that by raising the rates to catch up with other cities comparable to Corsicana will at least help the city to break even. “What I’m telling you,” said Standridge, as she addressed council members, “it’s not just a rate increase to cover the expenses. The overall budget has already been cut by 3.5 percent.”
Standridge told council members she hopes the combination of the budget cuts and rate increase will at least solve most of the problem. “The water revenues for the year-to-date,” Standridge said, “are projected to miss our budget by … $115,000.” She pointed out that water revenue was up this year by approximately 17 percent, but the budget projection for the end of the 2007 fiscal year was supposed to be at $7.5 million and realistically ended at $6.8 million. The 2008 projection was set at $7.6 million. “We’ll be lucky to end up at 7.5,” Standridge said. According to reports, wastewater revenue was budgeted at $3.8 million with the projected final total coming in at $3.6 million. “Wastewater revenues overall are down 7.5 percent,” said Standridge. She admitted the city had hoped for a long hot, dry summer so water revenue would increase substantially. So far, this has not been the case despite increasingly hot temperatures, even though water consumption was up 31 percent but pointed out that consumption and revenue are two different things. “We hope this will continue through the rest of the fiscal year,” she said. “That will help us end the year in a better position … since 2001, your revenues have increased 23 percent … your expenses have increased 37 percent.” Concerned citizens attending the meeting asked if the council could split the increase so it wouldn’t hit people so hard all at once, but it seemed that the mayor and city manager had already made up their mind as to how the increase should be implemented before going into the scheduled city council meeting. When the subject finally came up, the mayor asked that a motion be made, but when none of the council members spoke up, initially, he rephrased the motion another way. At that point, Councilman Tom Wilson made the motion to pass the ordinance to increase the water rate to 15 percent, and after a few more moments of silence Councilwoman Ruby Williams seconded the motion. Councilman Stephen Andrews was the lone “nay” against the increase. “We’ve told these folks to conserve water (usage),” Andrews said, “… and now revenue is down because people are conserving water and they’re going to be penalized by raising the rate 15 percent. I think we should do a better job basically managing our own revenue string and our budget. We just need to do a better job on our end before we pass all this stuff on to the citizens. They’ve been taking a hit not only with city water (rate increase), but by the appraisal district and other things as well.” Andrews expressed his disappointment that it had to be done the way it was done. “I wasn’t going to support it (increase),” he said. “I just felt like we could try to do it (increase revenue) a different way.” After the meeting, Mayor Brown said he hated it had to be done this way, but, “we had no choice but to raise the rates.” Residents and businesses will see the increase on their bills within the next 30 to 60 days. Before Tuesday’s meeting, the current water rate for a three-quarter inch meter was set at a base rate of $14.57 at $2.61 per 1,000 gallons. Now, the base rate will go up to $16.76 at $3 per 1,000 gallons. Sewer rates remain unchanged at a base rate of $15.37 at a rate of $2.23. |
