After an outcry from Derby businesses owners who saw their sewer bills for next year skyrocket, the city’s Water Pollution Control Authority adjusted its budget Wednesday.
But residential users expecting the same treatment shouldn’t hold their breath.
Rates for businesses were revised downward from $6 per average daily gallon to $3.66. Households will still have to pay a flat fee of $250 — up from $150 — plus 74 cents per average daily gallon.
Members of the WPCA decided to redo their budget after merchants, commercial building owners and mixed-use property owners loudly complained that their sewer bills had increased dramatically — with no explanation from Derby City Hall.
Example — Michael Paine, the director of operations for 24 Wendy’s restaurants in Connecticut, said his sewer bill in the Derby Wendy’s had increased from about $1,800 to $22,000 in 30 months.
In addition, Derby business owner Thomas Harbinson pointed out that the WPCA budget was stuffed with capital expenses — items government usually bonds for a pays off over a period of time.
The revised rates and budget are posted below. Article continues after the document.
Revised Derby WPCA 2012 – 2013 Budget and Rates
Readers of the Valley Indy’s Facebook page weren’t happy about the news. Neither was Hawthorne Avenue resident Christine Robinson, who said the sewer bill for her house had gone from $387 to $784.
Immediately after the meeting had adjourned she bluntly told WPCA she just wouldn’t pay it.
None of them said anything in reply.
“I’m not paying it,” she repeated. “If the businesses in this town can get a break or recalculated, why can’t I? I’ve just about had it with them.”
Alderman Barbara DeGennaro made the same point during the meeting itself.
“I just don’t understand the difference that you’re treating people,” she said. “If you’re going to consider a reduction I believe you should look at reducing everyone’s fee.”
WPCA member James Gildea had similar thoughts.
“Is there a way to do this where commercial just goes up slightly and residential goes up slightly?” he asked.
The WPCA had indicated in early August that residents could see their rates reduced — but that didn’t happen. In the end, members of the WPCA were OK with the residential rates they are charging.
WPCA member John Saccu said that an “unintended consequence” of the first budget laid the burden unfairly on commercial users, which is why those were adjusted.
He said the average residential sewer bill in Derby under the revised budget will be in line with the state average.
“Everybody’s paying too much anyway, for everything,” Saccu said. “From a sewer standpoint, the average is $360 or so a year, which is pretty close to the state average, which happens to be a dollar a day” to have sewer service.
“I think that’s pretty reasonable,” he said.
After the meeting, WPCA Chairman Leo DiSorbo said the new rates were fair.
“The actions we took makes the billing more fair and equitable, spread across all the users,” he said.
Asked about the unrevised residential rate, he said: “It could be cast as unfairly to residential, but as I said, we tried to spread it across everybody the best as we can.”
Gildea said after the meeting that “it’s a fine line to walk.”
“Businesses drive your town, they drive your tax rate down, so you don’t want to create an environment where you’re discouraging business owners from doing business in Derby,” he said.
Gildea said that long-term the authority needs to work to differentiate types of sewer users better and charge them accordingly.
“We have to look at the types of sewage that’s being discharged and the amount of work that goes into treating that and create tiers so that those folks whose sewage requires greater effort to treat it are paying a greater share,” he said.
He brought up the issue during the meeting as well and DiSorbo agreed. “That’s where we want to go with this,” he said.
Click the play button on the video below to see a brief discussion about it. Article continues after the video.
Mayor Anthony Staffieri also sat in on Tuesday’s meeting and said after that the new rates “more equally distribute whatever increase is necessary.”
“At the beginning when they (first) increased the rates, they didn’t think it out well,” Staffieri said. “Now they are thinking it out and they’re doing a great job at it. It’s going in the right direction.”
He also suggested some of the criticism was politically motivated. DeGennaro and Aldermanic President Ron Sill, who had also called for a downward adjustment to residential rates, are Democrats.
“It’s because there’s an increase,” Staffieri said of the criticism. “Just like there was an increase for our property tax.”
He went on: “And some of these people haven’t made any comments in regards to that, but with this here, which is a smaller increase — and every increase hurts, small or large — but the property tax was even higher and these people aren’t complaining about that.”
There was one thing everyone did agree on Tuesday: Derby’s sewer system needs work.
The need for infrastructure repairs is what prompted the WPCA’s initial budget request of $3,227,921, which would have been an annual increase of more than 40 percent. A revised budget passed Tuesday totals $2,511,365, an increase of about 11.2 percent.
DiSorbo said he still hopes a referendum to fund the repairs — at a total cost of between $12 and $15 million — can be put on the ballot for the November election.
