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December 3, 2009

TCEQ ups Jacksonville bill by $10,000

By Nathan Straus

nstraus@jacksonvilleprogress.com



Jacksonville city officials got a shock when they opened the city’s annual invoice from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

The city’s water system fee, which had been about $3,060 in the past, came in at $13,239.70.

Director of Water and Sewer Utilities David Brock said the city was informed of a potential rate increase based on the number of water connections in the city, but officials had no idea the increase would be so drastic.

“We contacted TCEQ, and they said they had not raised the rates in several years and needed to raise them to meet expenses,” Brock said.

According to a press release from TCEQ, the agency had to ensure that sufficient funds would be available to cover the costs of its water program activities in fiscal year 2010.

“The fee increases will ensure that the agency is able to continue its water-program activities at the current level,” the release stated.

Brock said the overall fee is determined by the number of water connections a city has. Formerly, Jacksonville’s fee per connection was about 50 cents. It is now $2.15.

TCEQ officials said Jacksonville falls into the fee range of more than 160 connections, which means the city maintains one of the cheaper levels of the Public Health Service fee structure. If Jacksonville had under 25 connections, it would pay $100 total. If the city had 25-160 connections, it would be charged $175. These fees became effective July 30 and were mailed in November.

Jacksonville had 6,158 water connections at the time the bill was figured — at $2.15 per connection.

When city officials heard of a possible increase they increased the budget from about $3,060 to $4,500. Brock said because the actual increase amounts to more than $10,000, he will need to move money from other departments.

“I’ll take $5,000 from electric and another $5,000 from the chemical account,” he said. “If we’re careful we’ll be OK.”

Jacksonville’s chemical and electricity budgets are about $100,000 and $450,000, respectively. Brock said normally the city has a small amount left over from these accounts. But an especially hot and dry summer could pose a problem because more chemicals will need to be used, he said.

The plus side is people will likely buy more water, however.

Brock said though this latest bump will not find its way to consumers, future bills may if no method of mitigation presents itself.

“We will maybe take some items and cut them if we have to,” he said. “That is $10,000 worth of equipment we may not be able to buy. It is a pretty serious expense.”

The fees assessed to the water system connections go toward water plant inspections, salaries for those in the public health portion of TCEQ, research and training, Brock said.

“I would imagine there are some cities that will really struggle with this. I am sure Tyler is struggling with this right now,” Brock said. “You do not want to wait a long time to raise rates and then do a big raise. You usually raise them by 5 percent or less in increments.”

According to TCEQ, the Public Health Service Fee was last amended in 2001 to the previous per-connection calculation. Systems paying a flat fee had not seen an increase since 2001, and the formula for calculating these rates had not changed since 2001.

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