David Zemens | Rochester City Council

I received an email late last week from a resident concerned about the recent increase in his water bill. He was also concerned about the “minimum charge” that is levied on water service, which in fact imposes a base fee for water and sewage service. This minimum charge is imposed even if the customer uses less water than the minimum usage amount.

The city has maintained a minimum usage amount for both water and sewer for many years. For each billing cycle there are a considerable number of customers who use less than the minimum, but are charged the base rate.

The current minimum water & sewage bill is now $75.74. As you may be aware, there are many fixed costs associated with our water delivery system. These include administration costs, infrastructure maintenance costs, meter readings etc. Those costs are largely the same regardless of the usage by any particular household. The minimum charge is designed to take these factors into account as they are fixed and not directly associated with the amount of water consumed by most customers.

In my estimation there is justification for a minimum charge to our water customers. However, at this point in time I am not clear on just how much this minimum bill should be . The city council has already decided that the topic of a minimum water charge will be discussed at our Goals & Objective meetings that begin in January of 2010. At this time the council will deliberate and decide what minimum charge, if any, should be levied to keep our water delivery system properly funded.

I would recommend that anyone who desires to have input on this matter contact any member of the city council to express their feelings. Contact information for all council members can be found at the city website.