Derby residents will not have to pay an additional $256 when their sewer bills arrive in September.
That’s because the city’s Water Pollution Control Authority voted unanimously Aug. 12 to defer the first round of collections until next year.
The annual payments — roughly $256 for residential users — will start next year, and then continue for 30 years.
The money — separate and in addition to the annual sewer use bill — is needed to pay for $31 million in repairs and upgrades to the city’s sewer system.
Derby voters approved the repairs and borrowing in November 2014.
Construction Delayed
The money will pay for new pump stations, some larger sewer lines and upgrades to the water pollution control plant.
Construction on one of the repair projects was supposed to start in 2014. However, a shovel has yet to break ground on any of the projects, officials said.
The WPCA had a repair job ready to go just after the referendum. A contractor was supposed to repair the “dewatering system” at the sewage plant.
But, after the referendum, the contractor backed out of the job. A second contractor wanted more money to do the project, WPCA officials said.
With the project’s construction timeline delayed, the first payments due next month can also be delayed, Derby City Treasurer Keith McLiverty told members of the WPCA.
The city borrowed $6 million in January, then gave it back, McLiverty said.
Eventually the city borrowed just $2 million this year for sewer repairs. A $70,000 payment on that debt is due April 2017.
McLiverty said the WPCA had a choice — collect a full $256 fee from residents now and keep it in the city’s bank account for almost two years — or just push the first payment from residents a year.
“We’re all trying to get this project done cost-effectively and on time,” McLiverty said. “The question is, do you whack somebody with $256 when you don’t need their money until (fiscal year) 17 – 18?”
It was a question McLiverty posed several times in different ways during the 30-minute meeting:
- “The philosophical question is, ‘Is the money safer in your pocket, or better off in (a resident’s) pocket.”
- “Work’s not being done other than engineering and design right now. Why should you tax the people when you don’t have to make a payment for almost 22 months from now?”
- “We borrowed $2 million in June. We’re now in August. There is only $200,000 expended from that, and that’s all engineering money. That’s all. There is zero construction (being done) with that $2 million.”
Audio from the meeting is embedded below.
Playing Politics?
Republican Mayoral candidate Richard Dziekan issued a statement Aug. 13 questioning the timing of the WPCA’s decision. A municipal election is scheduled for November. Dziekan is challenging incumbent Democrat Mayor Anita Dugatto.
“I just hope her reasons weren’t political but the timing is, indeed, suspect,” Dziekan said in a prepared statement.
Sam Pollastro, Dziekan’s campaign manager, said delaying WPCA bills a year was obviously motivated by the upcoming election.
Pollastro said Dugatto’s administration has “done nothing” but blame former Republican Mayor Anthony Staffieri for “kicking the can down the road and sweeping stuff under the rug.”
Now she’s the one kicking the can, Pollastro said.
“The mayor doesn’t want this tremendous tax burden to hit right before the election,” he said.
Pollastro said Derby residents approved the sewer referendum because voters were told the sky was falling — and yet no work has started.
“What happened to the sense of urgency this administration had last November, when we we in dire straights and this needed to get done?” Pollastro asked. “They cried wolf over a parking garage, O’Sullivan’s Island, sewage treatment and to date, nothing has changed.”
Mayor Reacts
Dugatto said the timeline for the project changed once the bidders for the “dewatering” project bailed.
She pointed out her administration put the $31 million referendum out to voters because it was the right thing to do. The sewer referendum languished before she took office, she said.
“We haven’t kicked anything down the road. We went to the residents for approval. We got the project funded,” Dugatto said.
She said the “dewatering” project has to be put out to bid again. That’s the delay.
“Construction has not started, so we don’t have to collect the money right now,” Dugatto said. “But it’s still coming. Put the money that you were going to pay under your mattress, because you are going to need it. Perhaps the extra year to prepare will be less stressful on people. But that’s not why this is happening.”
Some Sewer Work Progressing
During the Aug. 12 WPCA meeting, McLiverty made two statements deflecting criticism.
“I don’t give a hoot about being political right now,” he said. “This is purely financial. If your first payment (on the debt) now isn’t due until the second to last month of fiscal year ’16-‘17, the question that I ask is ‘Why would we tax in 15 – 16?’”
The WPCA still has immediate access to $2 million to go toward sewer work.
The WPCA indicated they are considering doing one or two pump station repairs and upgrades “in-house.” Part of the $2 million could go toward those projects, which are still in the design phase at this point.
“There is still $2 million for work. We still have the cash available,” McLiverty said. “Deferring the payment doesn’t stop the work.”
Carolyn Duhaime, the chairman of the WPCA (an appointed body), said the delays aren’t the end of the world.
“Things taking a little bit longer than originally anticipated are because we are, indeed, watching out for the (sewer) user,” she said at the end of last week’s WPCA meeting.
