(Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri))
By Lynn Horsley, The Kansas City Star, Mo.
Dec. 11--Kansas City's water chief Thursday called for significant rate increases for at least the next five years to tackle a huge maintenance backlog.
Bernardo Garcia, director of the Water Services Department, told the City Council's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that sewer rates should rise 15 percent annually and water rates 10 percent annually over the next five years. Those are needed, he said, to pay for $3 billion worth of work to address old pipes, sewer overflows and thousands of leaks.
If the council endorses the multiyear increases, the average sewer and water charge for a residential customer will increase from about $50 per month now to about $88 per month by 2015.
"We're fiscally challenged in the Water Department," said Garcia, who noted that reserves were down, water sales had dropped with recent rainy years and costs had escalated.
Despite the proposed rate increases, Garcia said the water and sewer rates should stay very competitive with or even lower than charges in adjacent cities. He said the recommended increases would be "affordable and sustainable" and would not discourage people or businesses from moving to Kansas City.
Kansas City is negotiating an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency to deal with overflowing sewers in a program expected to cost $2.4 billion over a few decades. Garcia said he hoped the 15 percent annual sewer rate increases would pay for it.
However, he said, if Kansas City must speed up its sewer upgrades, the city could be forced to raise money faster with annual sewer increases as high as 25 percent.
Garcia also gave the committee a detailed plan for how that money would be spent. In the next five years, he envisions spending $244 million on 96 sewer projects and $222 million on 136 water projects.
Committee members were generally receptive to Garcia's presentation and said they might even endorse multiyear rate increases, although they could not bind future councils to those decisions.
To reach Lynn Horsley, call 816-234-4317 or send e-mail to lhorsley@kcstar.com.
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