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Kanosh council reopens water-rate discussion, staff to return with proposal
Summary
Council members reviewed a draft proposal to change Kanosh's water billing from tiered blocks to a base allocation plus a per-gallon charge intended to discourage heavy users and build local revenue for maintenance and capital projects. Staff will refine the proposal and return next month.
Kanosh town council members spent an extended portion of their meeting reviewing a staff-drafted proposal to adjust the town's water rates and billing structure. Councilors said they want a rate plan that better funds operations and creates a reserve for capital projects, including the town well and potential tank replacements.
Council discussion centered on moving away from the current block-tiered billing toward a model that sets a base rate including a set number of gallons and then charges a per-gallon fee after that; the per-gallon rate would increase with higher usage tiers. A council member said the goal is both revenue stability and discouraging large-volume use that stresses the system.
Staff presented preliminary numbers: the town currently collects an average of roughly $14,000 per month during high-use months (June'September), and a back-of-envelope calculation showed that if every connection used only the current base allocation, the town would receive about $6,100 per month. Council members said the disparity underscores the effect of upper-tier usage on revenues and that the electric department has subsidized water operations in the past.
The draft proposal under discussion reduces the base allocation from 10,000 to 8,000 gallons and proposes raising the base fee from $21 to $25, while converting subsequent tiers into explicit per-gallon charges. Council members raised several technical questions about the draft rates and asked staff to ensure second-tier and upper-tier per-gallon values are not set below current rates.
No final rate ordinance was adopted. Council members asked staff to refine the proposal, reconcile it with the town's water impact fee study and the recent upper-tier changes enacted in 2023, and present a more complete draft at the next meeting for a formal vote.
Council members also discussed operational items tied to metering: adoption of radio-read or cellular-enabled water meters (AMI/automated metering) and potential purchases of an ATV or electric bicycle to make meter reading and field work more efficient. Staff said that some funds have been earmarked for meter upgrades and that a phased implementation could bring remote reads online for a subset of meters first.
