Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 4, 1995 TAG: 9505040068
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
But don't storm the municipal building yet. Members of Pulaski Town Council have not agreed on the amount of increases.
"Let me stress real quick: This is the proposed budget," Vice Mayor W.R. "Rocky" Schrader, finance committee chairman, said Tuesday night at the committee's first budget session.
"It hits the people too hard," he said. "So I think we will have to give it some serious thought."
Mayor Andy Graham said he wanted to see the water rate increase reconsidered after council completes its study of the proposed $5.1 million budget. The next budget session is from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday.
Councilman Junior Black reminded council that sewer rates had gone up 13 percent last year. "That's 23 percent in two years," he said.
A study by the consultanting firm Ernst & Young, which resulted in earlier water rate increases, recommended one more increase of 5 percent starting with the 1995-96 fiscal year. Town Manager Tom Combiths and Assistant Town Manager Rob Lyons said 7.5 percent is recommended instead to cover increased costs of electrical services and chemicals at the town's water filtration plant.
The budget also calls, as recommended by Ernst & Young, for the hiring of an additional filter plant operator.
Town Engineer John Hawley said the current eight plant employees must often work overtime when others have vacation, illness or are gone for other reasons. During a recent week, he said, he had one employee on vacation, another sidelined by a car accident, a third recovering from a back injury and a fourth with chicken pox.
He said the additional employee should allow this year's projected $16,000 in overtime costs to be cut in half.
Other water costs include filter plant improvements, water meter replacements and sludge disposal. A $446,644 Farmers Home Administration loan for capital projects included water line improvements, dam stabilization and repairs and improvements to pump stations.
Volume water rates as proposed would be $1.23 per $1,000 gallons up to 20,000 gallons; $1 more per 1,000 gallons for the next 680,000 gallons, and another 89 cents per 1,000 above 700,000 gallons. Corresponding rates for out-of-town users would be $2.45, $2 and $1.78.
Sewer fund revenue is expected to exceed costs by 10 percent, because of treatment charges and a necessary but expensive program now underway to locate and repair leaky sewer lines. There is also debt service on a $500,000 FmHA loan to rehabilitate corroded lines.
There are other reasons for a proposed sewer rate increase. Next year will be the first time in two years that the town will not get a $75,000 refund from the Peppers Ferry treatment authority from construction grants. Revenue is lower this year because a major industrial customer had a 20 percent decrease in gallons billed.
This year, $613,000 was budgeted for treatment expenses and it looks like the costs will be about $100,000 less than that. However, town officials warn, that may be because of an unusually dry spring season keeping water from seeping into leaky sewer lines and increasing treatment costs.
Actually, they say, it is too early to be sure whether the lower cost stems from the town's aggressive program to repair sewer lines or from the dry weather, which cannot be counted on next year.
Hawley said the repair of five major leaks will save the town an estimated $42,152 a year in treatment costs.
"We would like to help council get out of the business of predicting rainfall," Combiths said, and the way to do that is continuing the town's sewer inflow and infiltration program.
"The staff does not like to bring a sewer rate increase to you," Combiths said. He said it is the staff's hope that the short-term pain would result in long-term gains.
"Personally, I think you're taking a really easy way out here. I don't think you've taken as hard a look as you could have," Councilman John Stone said.
"We try to be conservative and put in there what history's taught us," Lyons said.
"Is it ever going to be stabilized?" Schrader asked of the sewer fund.
"You should live so long," Councilman John Johnston said.
by CNB