A proposed sewer rate increase will wait until at least one more meeting for a vote by the Sherwood City Council.
The City Council on Monday night read an ordinance one time that proposes an 8.5 percent increase in sewer rates. Ordinances must be read three times before a vote is taken; however, the City Council can vote to suspend the rules to have an ordinance read more than once in a single meeting.
The ordinance will come up again at the next council meeting Dec. 22. The rate increase, according to the proposed legislation, would take effect Jan. 1 if approved.
"The 2015 budget at this point doesn't include that increase, in case it doesn't pass," Mayor Virginia Hillman said Tuesday. "They'll read it again next month. All we requested [Monday] night was to read it once and give people some time if they needed to do some more research on it."
The increase would add $1.60 monthly to the average residential sewer bill, raising the bill from $18.75 to $20.35 next year. Residential customers make up about 95 percent of Sherwood Wastewater customers, according to documents provided to the council. Sherwood Wastewater's last rate increase was in 2010.
The proposed increase would address operational expenses, which would include hiring an additional employee for routine line cleaning crews, utility manager Dennis Benson said last week.
A second phase of the increase, estimated at 17.5 percent, would come at a later date, Benson added. That phase would include closing the utility's South Treatment Plant, 2000 Stafford Road, and moving all treatment to the city's North Plant, 19 Algonkin Place. Revenue from the rate increase would be used to pay off the debt service on a loan to fund the capital improvements needed.
Sherwood Wastewater has about 4,500 residential customers and about 300 commercial customers. A portion of the city is served by neighboring North Little Rock Wastewater.
The proposed rate increase follows Sherwood voters approving a 1.3-mil property tax in the Nov, 4 general election to support the issuance of up to $6 million in bonds to construct a new public library. The new library, a branch of Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock, would relocate the 25-year-old Amy Sanders Library, 31 Shelby Road. The millage will add $39 to the annual property tax bill of an owner of a $150,000 home.
Metro on 11/26/2014