Leavenworth city staff presented the draft 2026 utility rate study and solicited feedback from the City Council on proposals that would front‑load capital costs for water, sewer, stormwater and solid waste over the next several years.

The study as discussed shows steep increases in the early years — a cited planning example used in the meeting was an 18% aggregated rate increase in 2025 followed by 15% in 2026 and additional large increases concentrated in the early part of a six‑ to ten‑year capital plan — driven primarily by major near‑term water projects and borrowing to catch up on deferred infrastructure work.

Council members and staff repeatedly returned to two core concerns: how those aggregate percentages translate to typical customer bills and how to make the case to ratepayers. Councilmembers asked staff to provide easy‑to‑read “user scenarios” (residential low‑use, high‑irrigation, small business, restaurant, hotel and multifamily examples) and a one‑ or two‑page summary that shows year‑by‑year bill impacts for representative customers. Staff agreed and pointed council members to tables in the executive summary (for example, a table labeled ES‑15 in the packet that shows proposed typical residential monthly bills) and to a detailed capital project list in the body of the report.

Staff emphasized the capital nature of the increases: operations and maintenance were not the primary drivers, whereas immediate capital projects and catching up on decades of deferred replacements were the main fiscal pressure. The discussion noted that the city has been underfunding replacement of water and sewer mains for decades and that the utility plan assumes both borrowing for immediate projects and setting aside local capital (staff cited an illustrative goal of approximately $600,000 per year across utilities for ongoing replacement funding).

Council members pressed for transparency on which specific projects would be funded by the early increases and what would be postponed if the council chose to smooth increases over more years. Staff said the detailed project lists are in each utility’s section of the report and offered to present a guided walk‑through of the document and to return with the consultant (Kevin, not present at the meeting) for a follow‑up session focused on capital schedules and alternative phasing.

The meeting included a technical point about customer classes: the study applies different percentage increases across classes (residential, commercial, multifamily), so an “18%” across‑the‑board number is an aggregation. Staff pointed out that a typical residential customer using 4,000 gallons or less would see a smaller percent change in many scenarios than the all‑classes aggregate. Staff and council discussed the appearance that multifamily accounts pay substantially lower base sewer charges per unit in the current structure; staff explained it's related to how infrastructure and service are allocated per meter and service line rather than per occupant.

The council did not take any formal action on rates at the meeting. Staff said the consultant contract will be closed out after the council accepts the final document; accepting the study does not obligate the council to adopt the proposed rates. Staff committed to send an accessible spreadsheet of the capital projects and the sample customer scenarios requested by councilmembers and to schedule a follow‑up study session with the consultant for a detailed walk‑through.

The meeting closed the utility discussion with direction to staff to return with simplified bill scenarios and clearer links between the proposed increases and the specific capital projects they would fund.