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Pleasant Grove receives utility rate study recommending phased increases across water, sewer, storm and transportation funds
Summary
A consultant told the council the city faces rising costs from inflation, aging infrastructure and regulatory changes and presented two options of phased increases and structural changes across secondary water, culinary water, sanitary sewer, storm drains and the transportation utility fund.
A consultant told the Pleasant Grove City Council on Feb. 17 that the city must change how it charges for utilities to keep pace with growing capital needs, inflation and new state requirements. Keith Larsen of Bowen, Collins & Associates said Pleasant Grove faces “three major challenges: system expansion and new regulations, inflation, and aging infrastructure.”
Larsen presented two rate packages for each fund and stressed that day‑to‑day operations, debt service and capital projects must be funded. For secondary water he said current rates “fall short of project needs, and that deficit will increase significantly over time,” while culinary water carries large capital needs because many pipelines date to the 1950s. For sanitary sewer, rising treatment costs at the Timpanogos Special Service District were the primary driver for increases.
The study proposed moving many customers from flat, meter‑size charges to capacity‑ or volume‑based billing and creating tiered volumes for secondary water to comply with HB 242 and HB 274. Larsen showed an illustrative Option 2 that would change billing structure so average residential customers see a modest change while the highest‑use accounts bear larger increases. The consultant summarized a combined sample of Option 2 increases as: Secondary Water: ($0.47); Culinary Water: $6.39; Sanitary Sewer: $6.52; Storm Drain: $3.93; Transportation: $7.10—“Total increase: $23.47” per month for a typical user under that scenario.
Council members asked staff to return with more detailed spreadsheets and alternative structures that would protect long‑term residents on large parcels. City Administrator Scott Darrington said staff would work with the consultant and bring revised proposals back for further review. The study materials and underlying spreadsheets will be provided to the council for their review.
