A recent water rate study for the City of Collinsville revealed that a possible bill increase may be necessary for city residents.
The city held a town hall meeting last Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Annex Building to discuss the results of the recent water rate study conducted by the Texas Rural Water Association (TRWA).
TRWA representative Louis Booth led the discussion with a presentation given to the handful of people in attendance. The water rate study, which TRWA conducted for free, covered data from the past three years. Its purpose was to assess the average of water used and wastewater treated so that the city could see how much money it needs to make to cover the cost.
The results of the study revealed that, after years of refraining from increasing water rates, the City of Collinsville can no longer support the current rates it is charging its citizens.
“Basically, for the past 15 years, people have had really cheap water, and now it’s catching up to us,” incoming mayor Chase Guidera said.
Collinsville runs on well water that is supplemented by Two-Way Special Utility District (SUD), which charges the city for its services. Booth explained that all water expenses fall under two categories: fixed expenses (expenses that exist whether you pump water or not) and variable expenses (costs tied directly to the production and distribution of water).
Currently, the total expenses for water rates (fixed and variable expenses combined) is $739,847. The average water sold is 76,143,433 gallons. The total expense for wastewater is $768,572 with 76,143,433 gallons of wastewater treated.
Today, Collinsville residents are paying water rates of $3.28 per 1,000 gallons. TRWA is proposing that this rate (variable expenses) does not change as this is about what it’s costing the city to produce and distribute water throughout town.
Citizens have a minimum for water use, which is currently $28.51. TRWA is proposing $30.55, an increase of $2.04 on the fixed expenses side, to ensure the city is covering its costs. That increase, spread out over all customers, is an annual average of about $32,730 in additional revenue for the city’s water fund.
For wastewater, the current minimum is $32.50. TRWA is proposing $47.85, an increase of $15.35. This would yield a possible additional revenue of $174,253.
Additionally, the city has been providing $89,651 worth of free water/wastewater in citizens’ minimums. That will no longer be the case. This means the total water bill increase for Collinsville residents would be around $20-$22.
The revenue generated from this increase would enable the city to replace lines that are failing in the infrastructure, fix leaks that are happening and have the equipment and personnel to do so.
“It’s not like the city is trying to buy a mansion or pad somebody’s pockets,” Booth said. “It’s simply to be able to continue doing their job.”
The city’s current public works budget of $29,500 is simply not enough to keep up with the maintenance and repair required for today’s needs.
“Our biggest issue, especially over the past few years, has been the cost of clamps, the cost of new pipe, the cost of tools – literally everything that we have been using in order to keep a system distributing water and a sewer system collecting the sewer has doubled and tripled in price since 2021,” Booth said.
Some citizens in attendance expressed frustration with the city for not having taken action sooner. Citizen Daniel Larance with L5 Irrigation cited city mismanagement for the need to increase water rates.
“When the city fails to enforce Texas state codes and TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) laws, and then water’s being wasted, and now we’re asking citizens to pay for this when the city is the one who let the developers scoot by and not go by code and not enforce these, it shouldn’t be our fault,” Larance said.
When asked to clarify, Larance gave an example of faulty sprinkler systems in town wasting water, as well as 85 houses in Collinsville that “didn’t even have the proper irrigation set up.”
“Instead of going back to the developers… the city would use our tax dollars to pay another third-party company to come over here and inspect it. They still never fixed it, those houses are still the same. If employees aren’t trained right and executing the job they were elected for properly, that’s your fault and not mine,” Larance said.
While City Administrator Dannielle Talley agreed there had been a problem with some of the houses in town, she said it had been addressed and refuted Larance’s claims that tax dollars were used for this purpose.
“We did not use tax dollars, Patterson (Water Supply) paid for that,” Talley said.
After a nearly 40-minute discussion in which he alluded to unspecified favors done by people “well-known in the city” that bypassed Texas laws and codes, Larance’s issue ultimately came down to one main point.
“All I’m saying is, if mismanagement didn’t happen, that number you’re showing us would be less, would it not?” he said.
“No,” Booth said. “You will always have to increase water but that doesn’t have anything to do with the management of the city. That increase is just the cost of doing business today.”
Talley explained that changes have already been made at the city level to improve the way public works are handled present-day and for the future.
“We now have a city engineer that works with every developer; we have a city planner today. We have these things in place. We have changed inspection companies. The city has changed,” she said. “You continue to hold the past against us. You don’t take into consideration the changes we have made.”
Larance asked if the city had a plan for the future so an increase like this wouldn’t happen again. Booth explained that this possible increase was a one-time course correction.
“We can correct our course here, then every year come and put this year’s number into the expenses and see what the numbers are saying,” Booth said. “Maybe next time it’s only a 20-cent increase. That’s how we go forward, that’s how we get better from here. Every year this has to be re-addressed by whoever’s on the council. Hopefully when these guys pass the baton on to the next person, we’re passing that information. As long as you do that, nothing will ever get out of control.”
As this gathering was simply a town hall meeting and not an official city council meeting, no action was taken.
Source: Freepik.com