“I’d love to come here and ask for 2 percent across the board … but given our infrastructure needs, I can’t make that recommendation,” he told city council Monday at its work session meeting.
MORE: Fairfield to replace 2-mile stretch of water main along busy Ohio 4
Sackenheim presented the results of the GRW Engineering study on the city’s water and sewer system. Through 2020, the average annual water bill increase is $1.81 per month, while the annual wastewater bill increase is $1.48 per month.
By 2020 the average monthly water bill based on 5,000 gallons of use should be $22.78 per month. In 2020 the average sewer bill would be $29.76 per month. Around 95 percent of the city uses both utilities.
Infrastructure projects include repainting water towers, building a relief sewer extension on Ross Road, the Ohio 4 water main replacement project, and electrical and power upgrades at the wastewater treatment plant.
“Deferring maintenance, it just ends up costing a lot more, so we really want to get ahead of these and we want to do them on schedule,” said City Manager Mark Wendling.
Wendling said the public utilities, known as enterprise funds, are designed to be self-sufficient. However, that won’t be the case if rates aren’t increased, said Sackenheim. He said if there are not rate increases, then paying for the repair and maintenance projects “would erode all our cash reserves and then some” in the water and wastewater accounts.
The city could start seeing operational deficits in this year for the water department fund and next year for the wastewater department fund, according to Monday’s presentation.
Though the city is looking at a rate hike, Sackenheim is projecting the city won't drop too far based on historical rate increases of the annual city of Oakwood water and sewer rate survey. Fairfield is currently sixth out of 63 water and sewer providers in Southwest Ohio. Sackenheim projects the city would drop to 14th by 2020.
No Butler County community has a better water or combined water and sewer rate, according to the 2016 Oakwood survey. Only Butler County and Monroe are better in the county in sewer rates than Fairfield.
However, Mayor Steve Miller doesn’t think the drop, if any, will be as significant.
“Obviously, I don’t have a crystal ball, but when I look at some of these cities,” said Miller. “I would bet over the next five years we’ll do better than we’re projecting today. There’s not a city up there that’s not struggling like we are now with infrastructure issues.”
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