ANSONIA – A public hearing on new sewer rates is set for 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 25, over Zoom.
The hearing will allow residents to provide input on the first new rate schedule since Ansonia agreed to sell its wastewater treatment plant to utility company Aquarion.
Click this link to join the public hearing.
While the city has published a new set of rates for the public to comment on – Cassetti administration officials are also saying those rates will not be what customers pay because of money set aside from selling the WPCA to Aquarion.
The city’s sale of the sewer system included the establishment of a “rate stabilization fund,” which will apply credits to customer bills and aid in the transition, officials said. Officials have also referred to it as a “rate mitigation fund,” as it will make rate increases gradual instead of happening all at once.
The rates are scheduled to take effect on Dec. 2, the day the sale closes.
The proposed rates are:
$5.15 per 100 cubic feet for residential customers
$26.45 per month for flat rate customers (customers on wells)
In addition, there will also be a new monthly service fee. For most residential customers, the new fee is $26.45 per month.
The old rates were:
$3.73 per 100 cubic feet for residential customers
About $26.17 per month for flat rate customers.
While the new rates are more expensive, John Marini, the city’s corporation counsel, said most residents will pay the same costs they paid last year, thanks to the “rate stabilization fund.”
Marini said the credits will apply to both the consumption charge and the new service fee.
For the first year, the rate stabilization fund is intended to entirely cancel out the rate increase, with steadily decreasing credits in years after. Higher rates are scheduled to be phased in over the next 10 years.
Residents can expect to pay a 34 percent rate increase phased in over the next five years, with an average bill of $41.47 per month expected to become $55.71 by 2029.
Marini said the old “special project fee” – a $230 annual charge to ratepayers – will go away. The last of those bills was sent out in June.
The Valley Indy also reached out to Rita St. Jacques, the current sewer administrator, to confirm statements by Marini. She said she had not been included in any discussions of the new rates since the Board of Aldermen dissolved the city’s WPCA board in July.
The former responsibilities of the WPCA – which included setting rates and communicating with residents – are now Aquarion’s responsibilities. The terms of the sale limit how much the company can increase rates for five years.
City officials say that these rates are cheaper than what residents would have to pay if it had retained ownership of the plant. They point to faulty conditions at the plant, saying that repair costs would have to be passed on to residents if the city were to address them.
However, city employees with ties to the plant have disagreed, saying that the repairs needed aren’t as drastic as the city says, and that a for-profit company would charge residents more than a public board would.
Marini said that a residential advisory board – a city-appointed board consisting of residents and/or Aquarion employees, which can make recommendations but has no authority over Aquarion – will be formed after the Nov. 25 hearing.
That board can be dissolved by Aquarion after five years.
