Severance council approves modest water and wastewater rate increases

The Severance Town Council voted Tuesday to raise water and wastewater rates and to adjust the stormwater fee as part of routine annual fee-setting.

Town Manager Mr. Wharton presented resolution 2024-44R and said, “we are proposing a 5% increase for water rates, a 4% increase for wastewater rates, a 25¢ increase for stormwater fee, and no increase for the transportation fee, leaving it at the existing $15.50 monthly fee.” Wharton also corrected a pricing error in the published packet, noting that the per-kilogallon figure should read $8.41 rather than $8.45.

Councilmember Myers noted he had concerns in earlier discussions about the transportation fee but said his questions were resolved and he would support the stabilization. After a motion to approve the resolution with the correction to $8.41 per k-gallon, the council approved the measure on roll call.

Separately, staff presented resolution 2024-45R adopting the town fee schedule; again, the corrected $8.41 water per-kilogallon figure was noted and the council approved the fee schedule as presented.

The council did not change the monthly transportation fee ($15.50) and staff emphasized enterprise-fund accounting rules if the council chooses to provide bill credits in other programs discussed earlier (management and the town attorney cautioned that credits must be accounted for so enterprise funds are not inadvertently shorted).

Next steps include updating the official fee schedule and publishing the corrected per-kilogallon figure in the adopted documents.