Tom Harbinson opened up the sewer bill from Derby’s Water Pollution Control Authority for his Roosevelt Drive business Monday and was shocked.
The bill for his company, IDA International Inc., jumped 56.5 percent from last year, from $935 to $1,463.
In the same period the WPCA’s budget went up from $2,256,739 to $3,227,921, or 43 percent, Harbinson pointed out.
“That’s kind of a shocking jump,” Harbinson said.
Harbinson posted a note about the increase on the Valley Indy’s Facebook page.
While the bill isn’t a major expense for his business, the increase caught his attention.
“It’s just concerning that costs would go up so dramatically,” he said.
Harbinson wasn’t the only one concerned.
Many Derby residents received their new sewer bills last Friday and Saturday.
Several residents contacted the Valley Indy via e-mail or Facebook asking why their sewer bills went up.
Meeting minutes indicate the average residential sewer bill increased by $100.
The Valley Indy attempted all week to contact members of the city’s Water Pollution Control Authority, the group that put the tax hike into effect. Several members wouldn’t comment or return phone calls, but WPCA Chairman Leo DiSorbo gave an interview to the CT Post, which can be read here.
While the increase wasn’t done in secret — the WPCA advertised and held public hearings on their plans and discussed it at length during many public meetings — residents are wondering why the group didn’t at least put a note explaining the increase in the envelope with the new bills.
It’s not exactly standing-room only at meetings of the WPCA. The authority members set their yearly budget at the same time the city and school district officials hammer out their high-profile spending plans.
So this year’s sewer increase came as a surprise to many Derby residents.
“We’ve had lots of calls, lots of complaints,” Marcy McGuire, a Water Pollution Control Authority administrator at City Hall, said Monday afternoon. “They want an explanation of how their bills have gone up.”
The explanation, according to city officials — the WPCA had to take on some large projects that had been put on the back burner in cash-strapped Derby for far too long.
McGuire handed out a piece of paper with a three-paragraph description of some capital projects the WPCA is undertaking in the next year.
But the document, posted below, lacks important information, such as what the projects cost.
The capital projects include: improvements to the Roosevelt Drive Wastewater Pumping Station, sewer improvements between Route 8 and Cemetery Lane, and a new pumping station on the city’s east side.
Article continues after the document.
Mayor Anthony Staffieri also said he’s been hearing complaints from residents.
He said the jump in most people’s bills is due to the infrastructure improvements, which he said “address the issues that need to be addressed” and would have only grown more expensive with time.
It was now or never, the mayor said.
“Band-Aids have been put on just temporarily fixing everything,” the mayor said. “Unfortunately, Band-Aids after awhile keep getting bigger and bigger.”
Staffieri said he’s been telling those who have complaints that they should bring their concerns — and their sewer bills — to the next WPCA meeting, scheduled for July 16 at 7 p.m. in City Hall.
The sewer bills arrived at the same time as car tax bills and a property tax jump. Some Derby residents, particularly on Derby’s east side, are seeing major property tax hikes due to revaluation.
“It just happens to fall on a bad time,” Staffieri said of the timing of the new work coming at a time when the economy is in the doldrums.
The mayor referred more specific questions to DiSorbo and WPCA member John Saccu.
Meeting minutes from the WPCA are available online.
The minutes are hard to follow unless you’re a member of the WPCA, but they seem to indicate members of the authority have been contemplating the improvements described since March, when an engineer told them the city could save millions by doing some of the work at the same time the state is making improvements to Route 34.
Click here to read the minutes of that meeting.
Then, at an April 12 meeting of the authority, “discussion was on the possible increase of fees by 40% to cover future capital projects,” according to the minutes of the meeting.
Minutes from the WPCA’s May 3 meeting attribute $835,000 of the $971,182 WPCA budget increase to a bond payment that “will pay for the design of the pump station, the Route 34 project, Hawthorne Ave sewer replacement and for a new vactor truck.”
“The residential user will see an increase of approximately $100.00,” the May 3 meeting minutes go on to say. “Commercial will see an increase from $3.36 per average daily gallons to $6.00.”
The $3.23 million budget for 2012-2013 was then adopted at the authority’s May 22 meeting without discussion, according to the meeting minutes.
Click here to read all the available WPCA meeting minutes online.
What outstanding indebtedness does the WPCA have?
Banks (Goldman Sachs comes to mind) have pushed sophisticated instruments onto governmental authorities (like interest rate swap contracts) – enabling the unsophisticated people with the power to generate future revenue for Wall Street to avoid increases in current budgets – but with the possibility of strangling the community down the road with $10s of millions in contractual obligations in the form of derivative contracts.. G/S et al know that nobody shows up at these meetings and they have crafted contracts that nobody but an investment banking lawyer can begin to understand. Dangle some “free money” to close a current budget shortfall and getting a signature comes easy.
Minor clarification figures I provided to reporter on WPCA Sewer Metered Bill. 2011: $935.02, 2012: $1401.83. Increase of $466.81, or 49.9%
2012-2013 Budget adopted by Derby’s WPCA on 2012May22 was $3,227,921. http://electronicvalley.org/derby/GOVERN/WPCA/2012/2012-05-22WP-Minutes.pdf
2012-2013 Budget adopted by Shelton’s WPCA on 2012Apr11 was $2,494,800. http://cityofshelton.org/index.php/propadm859garbagetrashrefuse/doc_view/4553-water-pollution-control-authority-04-11-12-minutes
How does size of Shelton’s system compare to Derby’s? One would think it is smaller. Is there a metric ($ / gallons treated) to compare City to City’s performance?
2012-2013 Budget adopted by Seymour WPCA was kept same as previous year according to their 2012Jun4 meeting, however no numbers are documented. http://www.seymourct.org/pdf/Minutes WPCA 6-4-12.pdf
Looking at the 2011-2012 minutes of Seymour WPCA, it is noted that the rate was $3.50 per CCF compared to a State Average of $3.49 per CCF. http://www.seymourct.org/pdf/Minutes WPCA 6-7-11.pdf
The rate in Derby for 2012-2013 is $6.00 per CCF. Hartford is $2.35. Glastonbury is $2.75
All number 2011:
Shelton serves 24,000.
Derby serves 11,300.
Seymour serves 10,000.
http://rates.tighebond.com/(S(2dcipo55rfygtiyrh0ekf5uu))/Downloads/2011 CT Sewer Rates.pdf
Well first of all Tony hired his brother to work for WPC, so you can add about 60K right there. And we allow Orange (where those huge new houses are in the old corn field) to use our sewer system too. Shouldn’t we make Orange pick up the tab?
When Orange was allowed to hook into our already overburdened sewage system, Derby homeowners were given a “snow job” that lower rates would prevail. Derby had no business to take on Orange sewage when everyone knew that our sewage system was being treated by band-aid repairs for years, and needed massive upgrading.
With our unresolved water-treatment plant, and facilities sewage problems, someone in Derby “bought the Brooklyn Bridge” when they allowed Orange to tie into our major problem, well in advance of a special referendum to seek funds to pay for the necessary upgrade in November.
I’m unfamiliar with intricacy’s of Derby’s system, but typically there are engineering aspects to such decisions that I assume came into play in this case. As in Shelton’s south area near Rte110 Sikorsky, gravity feed dictates that sewer use goes to another Authority area (in Shelton’s case Stratford). Gravity feed systems dictate one side of the hill feeds into a certain system. That said, there usually is a hookup fee, an impact fee, and other such compensations. When sewer was installed in my neighborhood, the entire project cost was divided up among the benefactors based on a formula that included the parcel’s assessed value, number of bathrooms, street frontage, etc. Shelton’s Engineer held public hearings regarding such activity. I’m sure Derby’s “Engineer” could provide similar calculations for their project.
Stan. Is right. Hey Stan, which administration allowed this snow job?
And Tom, you really do need to know about our system because you are way too educated on this matter to even post anything. All of your knowledge speaks volumes to 2 or 3 people in this town, the rest obviously never bothered to attend the meetings and ask the right questions. In Derby everyone is related in one way or another so the nut is hard to crack. I just called Port O John and its much cheaper.
Steven Jones – 2 questions:
1. Who are you?
2. Where do you get your info?
None of the Mayor’s family works for the WPCA and the Orange sewage being handled by us is being paid for, handsomely, by Orange. These are the facts.
As Judy stated, not only are we being paid by Orange, that developer also repaired a major line in our system under and down 34 which Derby would of had to have paid for. The system in Derby is under capacity (per engineering reports) since the closing of Hull Dye/Farrel so Orange is just a proverbial drop in the bucket, and, as stated, Derby is being compensated. Thomas, great work on the research, and to others, its dangerous when you speak mistruths and innuendos as fact. I am asking for proof that lower rates were promised for Derby residents when Orange hooked into our sewer system.
Ken Hughes: The rumored lucative contract with Orange — verified by Judy Szewczyk, who said “The Orange sewage being handled by us is being handsomely paid for by Orange,” appears to the reasoning behind the rumor “that it would lower sewage usage rates in Derby.” We all now know that never happened.
Steven Jones: You sound like a disgruntled Democrat, as you always seem to have an ax to grind with Mayor Tony Staffieri, and his administration. You apparently overdid it, however, when you falsely stated that the Mayor’s brother was rewarded with a well-paying WPC job.
ken Hughes: The “rumored” lucrative contract with Orange, verified by Judith Szewczyk, who said “the Orange sewage being handled by us, is being handsomely being paid for, by Orange,”
appears to be the reasoning behind the rumor that it would lower the rates for Derby users.
We all now know that never happened.
Steven Jones: You must be a disgruntled Democrat, as you seem to have “an ax to grind”
with Mayor Tony Staffieri, and apparently even told a lie about his brother being rewarded with a WPC job?
Judy Szewczyk: I apologize if my comments may have been found to be disagreeable with your expertise. Please don’t take them personally.
Imagine my surprise when I received a, 10,600 sewer use bill for an 11 family house . I am taxed at a commercial rate because of the mixed use.If I get rid of the mom and pop corner store, my bill would go down to 3700. Now does that make sense to anyone? Town hall said it wouldn’t matter if I put the store on a separate meter- the building is still mixed use. Is this legal to make these changes in May to go in effect July of the same year? Sure glad I just spent all that money on water saving toilets and water conservation shower heads.