Mayor's Alternative Sewer Rate Plan

Here is an e-mail marked for "immediate release".

A rate table alluded to in the test inexplicably didn't move from the original to this format.

The e-mail and the words are the administration's not mine.



ENGLAND ANNOUNCES “ALTERNATE B” SEWER RATE PLAN

(New Albany, Indiana) Mayor Doug England announced this afternoon that he will be submitting an alternate sewer rate plan to the Common Council for consideration at its Sanitary Sewer Rate Workshop to be held on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 6:00 pm.

At a similar workshop held yesterday, Mayor England proposed a sewer rate plan that subsidized the sewer utility with $700,000 of EDIT and Riverboat funding, annually, for twenty years. The Mayor also indicated that he would slash $1.0 million out of the sewer utility’s annual operating budget.

But Mayor England has since expressed concerns about that plan. “It utilizes almost all of the EDIT and Riverboat funds that the City has available to fill other budgetary needs. There would be no money left for purchasing equipment, paving streets, or funding deficits in public safety—Police, Fire and Ambulance. The City would also have to stall or abandon several worthy projects including a new water park, a new Little League complex, and the Ohio River Greenway project, to name a few.”

Mayor England also noted that all of these projects must be kept on track, particularly as New Albany approaches its Bicentennial in 2013. “I think the people of New Albany and its future generations deserve better than simply saving a few dollars on sanitary sewer bills. Our legacy should be that we built a great City, and not just one where you simply could get by."

Under what has been dubbed “Alternate B”, the use of EDIT and Riverboat funding to subsidize the sewer rates would be scrubbed. But Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to fund the debt service for three projects contained in the Capacity Assurance Plan—Basin 14 Lift Station Upgrade, the Mount Tabor Lift Station Upgrade and the Jacobs Creek/Lewis Branch Interceptor—would be utilized. The amount required to fund debt service to be pledged from TIF would be approximately $240,000 per year. The “Alternate B” plan also slashes $1.0 million from the sanitary sewer annual operating budget.

The “Alternate B” plan would phase in a 23% rate increase, immediately, and 20% rate increase in 2012. The following table depicts the actual rates to be paid by the lowest to average users under the “Alternate B”









Finally, Mayor England said “I think we’ve come a long way from the 70% rate increase that was originally proposed. The ‘Alternate B’ plan keeps rates reasonably low and, at the same time, it enables us to invest in our future. It’s now up to the New Albany Common Council to choose a sanitary sewer rate plan that best serves the fiscal needs of the community.”