The Abridged version:
- At Wednesday’s West Sacramento City Council meeting, members set a ceiling for how high they can increase utility rates next spring.
- By 2030, water and sewer rates could rise as much as 61%.
- The final decision on rates will come in March, with increases hitting bills by May.
After a lengthy discussion on the city’s aging utility infrastructure, the West Sacramento City Council instructed staff to move ahead with the process of raising rates for water and sewer services.
Hours into Wednesday’s meeting, the council voted unanimously to set a ceiling on the rate increase, which would go into effect in April. Come May, customers would see their water and sewer bills go up as much as 20%, followed by yearly increases that add up to 61% by 2030.
Members expressed concern for what the increased rates could mean for consumers, especially low-income West Sacramentans.
“This is going to be rough in the coming years,” Mayor Martha Guerrero said.
“The next two years are going to be horrific for people living in the kinds of situations where a dollar, two dollars, five dollars makes a huge difference,” Council Member Dawnté Early said. “I don’t take this lightly at all.”
But Guerrero said that the city must get the infrastructure projects done.
Those increases aren’t set in stone. The final vote will come at the March 18 City Council meeting, at which members could decide on a lower rate or institute the cap. The city will soon notify ratepayers of the intended increases, and they will have the chance to provide feedback.
Options for raising West Sacramento utility rates
For years, West Sacramento has had some of the lowest water and sewer rates in the region. But with tens of millions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure maintenance and repairs needed in the next five years, officials need to significantly raise revenue to avoid costly emergencies.
To address that need, city staff brought four possible scenarios for raising rates to the council on Wednesday. Each choice provided members with a different rate that would get passed along to payers, as well as different levels of debt incurred and adjusted lists of prioritized projects based on urgency of the repair.
- A “low” scenario that raised rates 9% each year for five years but provided less money for capital projects.
- A “mid” scenario that leveraged more debt and a 54% rate increase over five years for more infrastructure funds.
- A “full-ask” scenario that raised rates 75% over five years and provided enough funding to meet the need for all identified improvement projects.
- An Environment and Utilities Commission recommended scenario that was similar to the “mid” scenario but raised rates 61% over five years to fund more priority projects.
The council voted to make the commission’s recommended scenario the ceiling, ruling out the “full-ask” scenario.
For the average consumer, that could mean May brings an almost $12 monthly water bill increase and a roughly $9 monthly sewer bill increase.
Both the “mid” and the commission’s recommended choices were described as “workable” by city staff.
“We are getting a lot of what we need on the front end, while still maintaining a healthy rate,” said Jai Chahal, capital projects director for West Sacramento.
The new rates will come in the spring. Until then, current rates remain in effect.
Daniel Hennessy joins Abridged from the California Local News Fellowship. He’s a reporter covering Yolo County.