Palos Park council approves tiered water and sewer rate structure to bolster aging system

Palos Park officials voted unanimously June 8 to adopt a new tiered water-rate structure and to increase sewer charges after a presentation by Baxter & Woodman that, the consultants said, showed rising repair costs and the village’s share of Oak Lawn regional system improvements.

Mark Seafford of Baxter & Woodman told the council the study modeled a three-tier "inclining block" structure intended to encourage conservation and preserve the village’s water and sewer fund balances. He said Palos Park recorded 17 main breaks in 2025–26 — a figure Seafford said totaled roughly $29,000 — and that, under the current trend, the water and sewer funds would begin to fall below operating and capital reserve targets in 2027 without rate changes.

Under the proposal the council instructed the village attorney to draft ordinances amending village code provisions on water and sewer rates. The consultant presented tier bands and sample bills during the meeting: the presentation listed tier prices (presented in the meeting as 14.55, 14.95 and 15.52 for the three inclining-block tiers), an increase in the sewer volumetric rate from $2.00 to $2.60 per thousand gallons, and modest flat infrastructure maintenance fees. Sample customer bills the consultant modeled showed illustrative impacts for a small user, an average user and a large user; the consultant reported sample totals in the presentation (transcript figures: small about $91, average about $211, large about $457).

Council members debated the proposal’s local and regional components. Several members noted that most of the village’s largest utility expense is a pass-through cost paid to the Oak Lawn system (the Oak Lawn regional improvements are a multi-community project the consultant said costs on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars, with Palos Park’s proportional obligation described in the presentation). Council members also highlighted the village’s relatively low population density, which spreads fixed infrastructure costs across fewer customers.

The motions recorded in the meeting directed staff to prepare ordinances to: amend Part 10, Title 4, Chapter 1046 (water-rate provisions) to remove the minimum charge and implement the tiered structure; and amend Part 10, Title 4, Chapter 1040 (sewer-rate provisions) to update sewer volumetric and infrastructure fees. The clerk recorded the vote as unanimous: Commissioner Patan — yes; Commissioner Wade — yes; Commissioner Vincent — yes; Commissioner Poke/Pulk — yes; Mayor Milovich Walters — yes.

What happens next: the motions direct the village attorney to prepare the required ordinances; the council will consider those ordinances in a future meeting for final adoption and to set effective dates for the new charges.

Notes on figures and transcript clarity: the consultant’s slides and council discussion included several numeric line items and sample-bill totals as described above. Some amounts and vendor references in the meeting transcript were garbled or inconsistently transcribed (see audit notes); the article reports only the figures the consultant presented and flags ambiguous vendor/contract amounts elsewhere in the meeting coverage.