At their October 24 meeting, the Selectmen voted 2-1 for new water rates effective January 1, 2014. The new water rates, and examples of how they will affect water bills at various usage levels, are shown in the attached table. Chairman Joe Roach was the lone vote against the new water rates as proposed by Selectman Heitin. A 25-minute video replay of the meeting can be seen at: http://www.sharontv.com/gov_replays3.html.
The new water rates are still structured in a way that preserves most of the incentive to conserve. However, the Selectmen chose to increase the quarterly fixed fee from $15 to $20, which will do nothing to encourage water conservation. They also left the top block rate for excessive, non-essential water use unchanged, and they passed over the opportunity to increase summer rates more than winter rates in order to encourage water conservation in summer when it matters the most.
The net effect of the changes is that the heaviest water users will see a much lower percentage increase in their water bills than those who conserve.
Although the new rates will generate higher revenues, they will still fall short of fully funding the cost of operating and maintaining the water supply system, as detailed in Sharon's $100,000 Water Master Plan. This revenue shortfall is made more acute by the fact that the Water Department has already fallen behind the maintenance schedule in the master plan, which came out over three years ago. Also, the $820,000 borrowed in 2012 must be repaid from future revenues, which will make it more difficult to fund future maintenance according to the schedule in the master plan.
Full-cost pricing, i.e. water rates that generate enough revenue to cover the full cost of supplying the community with water, is a core principle of the Massachusetts Water Conservation Standards. See: http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/eea/water/water-conservation-standards.pdf (page 17 of 75).
Because the new water rates will not generate sufficient revenue, another round of water rate increases can be expected within the next year or two. Stay tuned to see if the Selectmen will continue to underfund the Water Department, and make changes to the rate structure in ways that favor heavy water users despite the benefits of water conservation to every Sharon resident (i.e. lower long-term costs, better drinking water quality, and a healthier environment).