Committee Moves Change to Utilities'Base Charge; Public Comment Divides on Vacant‑property Impact

Topeka — Oct. 21, 2025 — The Infrastructure Committee voted to forward an ordinance that would return the city's utility billing to a practice of charging a base charge only for active water and wastewater meters, rather than applying a readiness‑to‑serve charge to inactive properties.

Director Davis, the city's utilities director, told the committee the proposed change would take effect Jan. 1, 2026. Under the presentation, the base charge for inside‑city accounts below a 1‑inch meter would change from $18.22 to $19.12; the 1‑inch meter base charge would move from $21.94 to $22.84. Davis said the ordinance assumes the lost revenue from removing readiness charges on inactive accounts would be made up with a modest increase to remaining active customers.

Davis said the utility currently has approximately 1,767 accounts in a vacant or inactive status and that about half of those (962) carry a delinquent balance totaling $730,442.97. "So you can see ... the total of that delinquent balance of folks that have not been paying, as of this morning is $730,442.97," Davis said and asked the committee for feedback before staff presents an ordinance to the full governing body.

Council members discussed separating the policy change for active customers from any separate enforcement or collections approach for delinquent accounts. Councilman Neil Dobler said he favored the simpler approach of reverting to the pre‑2023 base charge and addressing delinquencies separately.

Two members of the public spoke. Joe Ledbetter, who said he participated in earlier discussions, defended the readiness‑to‑serve concept as a common practice among rural water districts and said it had generated substantial revenue in prior years; he warned the change shifts charges to active customers. "There's nothing illegal about this," Ledbetter said of the original readiness‑to‑serve approach and described it as intended to spread cost fairly across properties with meters. Pat Delap spoke in favor of the proposed ordinance and said municipal rules differ legally from rural water districts; he urged the committee to pass the change and address delinquencies by other means.

The committee voted to forward the ordinance for consideration by the governing body (committee voice vote; motion recorded as carried). The committee directed staff to continue to work on final ordinance language and left separate policy discussion of delinquent accounts for a later time.