Council approves FY26 water, wastewater and stormwater budgets; average customer to see about $10 monthly increase

The St. Albans City Council voted to adopt the fiscal year 2026 budgets for the water, wastewater and stormwater enterprise funds, staff said.

Sarah, the city’s presenter on the enterprise budgets, told the council the combined proposal would lead to an average city customer seeing about a 7.5% increase in their combined water, sewer and stormwater bill, “about $10 a month.” She said customers outside city limits would see roughly a 7% increase because the city’s bill includes stormwater fees.

Sarah said four priority items explain most of the budget change: a large increase in sludge removal costs tied to more frequent centrifuge breakdowns and limited market capacity for dewatering services; higher repair and professional services costs at the wastewater treatment facility; chemical costs that have largely stabilized after spikes; and an increase to budget stabilization lines. On sludge removal Sarah said the recommended sludge removal budget moves from $250,000 to $480,000 to cover operating experience and intermittent mobile dewatering costs.

To mitigate the impact of those items, staff proposed eliminating a vacant meter technician position that had been covered by public works staff, and using reserves in the water and wastewater funds to fund FY26 capital, Sarah said. The water fund reserve would fall by about $135,000 (leaving roughly $259,000) and the wastewater reserve by about $182,000 (leaving roughly $297,000) under the proposals presented. Capital spending in FY26 is smaller than in recent years, in part because several large, previously budgeted projects (for example, Lemna Drive and a vectored truck) were included in FY25 and are not repeated in FY26.

Councilors asked about the mobile centrifuge and whether the city would still need sludge removal if the centrifuge ran without downtime. Sarah said the city would still need sludge removal because tanks have limited capacity, but reliable centrifuge operation reduces the need for costly mobile dewatering. She also outlined capital items in the budgets including year two of turbidity meter and pump rehabilitation work, MXU/meter upgrades and an engineering project to inspect and investigate the trickling filter media in the wastewater plant. The stormwater fund includes the London Drive stormwater project and anticipated expenses for the Houghton Park underground storage project that voters approved in March.

A motion to adopt the FY26 water, wastewater and stormwater budgets was made by a council member and seconded; the council voted in favor and the motion passed.