Chesapeake staff outlines utility-rate choices that would fund $8.5M–$73.5M in repairs; no vote taken

City Manager Lonnie Price opened Chesapeake’s May work session with an update on the water and sewer enterprise, telling council the agenda item was “a continued conversation on water and sewer of the public utility system budget” and that “no action [was] necessary today.”

Stantec consultant Andrew Burnham and Public Utilities Director David Jurgens summarized a rates and revenue review that updated a 2021 rate study and modeled three near-term options for the city’s retail water and sewer rates. Burnham said the city’s current five‑year plan (approved in 2022) calls for 2.9% annual adjustments through fiscal 2027, but warned that “we’re gonna be looking at indexes that are higher than the current 2.9% plan” starting in fiscal 2028 to reflect higher construction and materials costs.

Why it matters: staff said longer‑term indexing at about 4.9% annually would better match current cost pressures from higher chemical, pipe and general construction prices, and would fund far more of the utility’s backlog of critical projects. The three alternatives presented differed mainly in the size and timing of increases in fiscal years 2026–27: leaving the current 2.9% plan for those two years (Option A), adding 1 percentage point to make them 3.9% (Option B), or…