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HOLBROOK — The Holbrook City Council held a discussion regarding a proposed sewer, water and sanitation rate increase that will be decided during a special meeting and public hearing to be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 19.
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The proposed increases include a 25 cent increase per 1,000 gallon water rate for residential, residential out of city, commercial and commercial out of city and 25 cent increase per 1,000 gallon wastewater for residential and commercial. Also under consideration is a doubling of sewer retap fee from $250 to $500 with the sanitation rate to up a dollar for each trash toter for senior or non-senior. There will also be an increase in the water adjudication fee from $1 to $5 each month.
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A Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment has been built in for these rates. So each January the city will look at the CPI to determine if the rates need to go up. The CPI will only affect the actual water, wastewater rate and sanitation rates, not the adjudication rate or the sewer retap rate.
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Interim City Manager Cher Reyes outlined for the council the costs sustained by the city that requires the noted increases. “The 2-inch meters are costing $1,500 to replace and we just recently had to replace one at the BIA dorm. We need to replace over 100 water valves throughout the city at a cost of $700 each, which is $70,000. Fire hydrants need to be replaced. We should plan on five per year at a cost of $1,670, which amounts to $8,350 annually.” Reyes went on to explain that the two hydrants on Hopi Drive are missing, which was a concern when the Magnusson Hotel caught fire. She said that the city has replacement hydrants for those.
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“We need a new well at Sun Valley,” she continued. “We need a better spot and better water out there and that’s going to cost between $150,000 and $200,000. We also need to refurbish or restore the one storage tank at Sun Valley and I guessed $50,000 but that might be a high number. We need a newer backhoe for the water/wastewater department. I have bid out for one of those but what will happen is the street department will get the new one and the old one will get passed down to water/wastewater.
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The increase on the adjudication fee will allow the city to break even on that cost. According to Reyes, “Right now the city pays $66,920 for adjudication and we’re only collecting $20,000, which is the loss of $46,882 dollars. If this rate is increased to $5 per household, this will generate $108,000, which will cover the attorney’s fees and court costs and, as you all know, those fees are going to continue to rise.”
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She noted that sanitation needs new 20 and 50-yard bins. “Our bins all have holes in them, they’re rusted out. Their just old. A 50-yard bin costs $7,300 and a 20-yard is $4,494.”
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According to Reyes, Well No. 5 needs a lot of work and she will be bringing the totals on that cost at a later meeting and Well No. 3 is in need of restorative work estimated at over $40,000. Added to that is the cost of lift station maintenance. “We need to look at a different option for the treatment plant for getting rid of our solids; especially if we come up with a master plan for the Petroglyph Park. A belt press or fan press.” Reyes said that the cost for a fan press would be $309,855.
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“It currently costs us $500 to do a sewer retap. But we’re only charging the citizens $250 so we need to increase that fee to at least cover our cost.”
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Reyes went on to explain that the fees currently being collected are insufficient for maintaining and improving the infrastructure. The proposed increases would provide $71,000 for water wastewater per year and about $22,000 for the sanitation department.
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“In this rate increase, we are also getting rid of the summer rate. So it would just be a flat $2 per 1,000 gallons. The sewer would still be based on the average from Dec. 15 through March 15.” The last water increase was in 2011 and for sanitation it was in 2003.
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Reyes noted that in investigating costs for trash pickup in the surrounding cities that Winslow charges $28.95 for their toters but that includes an additional blue recycle toter. Show Low charges $14.38 and Taylor is charging $17. Holbrook currently charges $17.
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Councilman Richard Peterson stated that he would like the costs associated with Sun Valley to be separated from the costs for Holbrook so that Holbrook residents are not paying for improvements for Sun Valley. “Sun Valley utilities and Holbrook utilities are all together so there’s no way for us to know what Sun Valley is actually costing us,” explained Reyes, adding that that is something the council can request to be addressed during the budget process.
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Councilman Tim Dixon stated that with all the items noted as deteriorating over the years, he would like to see something in future budgets that would, “soften this in five or 10 years so that we’re not replacing a large amount of deteriorated hydrants or valves and so forth.”
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Councilman Adam Marsh wanted Reyes to clarify that the reason the retap fee was being doubled was because the current fee was not covering the actual cost. She confirmed that with the cost of manpower, the backhoe and the supplies it comes in right at $500.
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“Everybody’s house in Holbrook is getting from 50 to 60 years old and a lot of them have cast iron pipes so we’ve been doing a lot of retaps lately,” she explained.
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Reyes noted that Jason Foutz is also researching grants that may have the potential to offset some of the costs to replace or restore items.
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Marsh asked what the citizens could expect to pay in the future regarding the CPI. Vice Mayor Richard Peterson stepped in and stated, “The rate of inflation has been somewhere between 1.5 and two percent, but it could go a lot higher than that depending on the economy.”
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Reyes also noted that the increase in minimum wage and the continuing increase in the minimum wage in coming years would also impact the city’s budget as that cost makes up the majority of the budget.
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Mayor Phil Cobb noted that the increases being discussed were to maintain the existing infrastructure but this did not address any improvements. “I’d like folks to understand that there are some severe other problems out there as well.”
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Peterson noted, “Some years ago when we contracted our garbage pickup to Larson Waste they were doing it for a lot less than what we were charging but we kept the rate the same that we were charging the citizens with that extra money to go to cleaning up the alleys and so forth. How do we show that in the budget, the extra money that we are collecting for trash pickup?”
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Reyes explained, “We do not make money in the sanitation department. We still have to maintain one truck because Larson misses toters and we have to go out and dump them. Currently our sanitation truck is broke down and needs to be repaired. We charge the citizens $17 and we pay Larson $7.45, so we’re making $9.55. But out of that $9.55 we still have to pay three people’s sanitation rates, we have to take care of our truck, we have to buy dumpsters for the transfer site, we have to maintain the transfer site because that’s not making money out there so that $9.55 doesn’t go very far.”
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If approved, the rates will go into effect 30 days after the passage of the resolution.
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