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Olanta council weighs utility and service rate increases amid budget planning
Summary
Mayor Michael W. Welch outlined budget pressures including IT subscription costs, a special election expense, police records and camera replacements, and proposed modest water/sewer and solid-waste rate increases as Waste Management raises its charges.
Olanta Mayor Michael W. Welch told the Town Council on March 5 that several operational and compliance costs are driving budget discussions and may require modest rate increases for residents.
Welch said IT services with VC3 run about $1,300 per month and several town computers need replacement. He also said the special election to replace a departing official cost about $8,851.11 and that the town must plan for similar election expenses tied to the vacancy scheduled for May 5.
On public safety systems, Welch said LawTrak is going out of business and the town is considering PoliceLogic, which he said is about $4,000 a year and stores files in the cloud. He also reported that the police department needs new body and in-car cameras and that car-mounted cameras are about $8,800 each without subscription or cloud storage costs.
Those cost pressures are folded into a broader discussion of water and sewer rates. Welch said one option would be to pass some costs to customers as roughly a $2-per-connection monthly increase; he also said audit-related charges could add roughly $4 for outside connections and $5 for in-town accounts and that higher electricity bills to run sewer pumps could add about $500 in operating cost.
Separately, Welch said Waste Management has notified the town of contract increases that would raise residential collection billing from $16.96 to $18.48 and commercial rates from $19.05 to $22.00, and that the town would likely implement increased customer charges beginning in July.
Council did not adopt a final rate schedule at the meeting; the budget is expected to be completed soon and council will consider these items as part of that process.
