Council directs draft of 'Water Wise' incentive for low‑usage and fixed‑income residents

The Kamas City Council on Aug. 11 directed staff to prepare a draft ordinance creating a "Water Wise" incentive program to give credits to households that use low amounts of potable water, particularly households on fixed incomes.

Council member (speaker 2) walked through a spreadsheet of the city's water revenues and customer tiers and said, "we had a $130,000 increase in revenues," a figure the council used to discuss the program's potential fiscal impact. Council members debated threshold options shown in the attorney's draft (examples used in the materials were 5,000 gallons and 3,000 gallons per month), how long a household would have to meet the threshold (monthly or consecutive months), and whether the billing system (Cassell) can automatically calculate credits. Mayor (speaker 4) summarized the direction: leave numeric values blank in the draft for council selection and ask staff and the vendor whether monthly, quarterly or a 3–6 month consecutive average is feasible.

Councilors pressed for guardrails to limit unintended giveaways to commercial or industrial accounts and suggested splitting any credit between water and sewer where appropriate. Speaker 6 recommended an example credit be presented split between water and sewer ("$10 for water, $10 for sewer") so the budget implications are clear. The council also asked staff to include a leak exception and a disqualification for accounts with shutoff notices, and to display the program's annual fiscal impact during the budget review process. Staff will return a draft ordinance and fiscal analysis for council review before any adoption vote.