Water Cost Increase

According to a report in the 8/9/14 Wilmington News Journal a consultant to the city council's water committee, a $10 per month surcharge is the recommended method to raise the required funding for continued operation of the city water department.

When it was pointed out during the council meeting that this placed an unfair cost share on senior and small family users, the committee chair Mark McKay stated that they didn't want to hit big users of water to hard because it might scare away potential businesses. In effect, such a system would cause the small and often low and moderate income user to subsidize the large users.

Examples. Mrs. Smith lives alone and uses an average of 4,000 per month. She pays $5.84 per one thousand gallons or a total of $23.36 plus a $1.40 fixed cost. The $10 surcharge would cost the lady an equivalent increase of $2.50 per 1,000 gallons.

ABC corporation uses 100,000 gallons per month and the $10 surcharge would cost the company an equivalent increase of ten cents per thousand gallons.

There is a better approach to increasing revenue that would that, at best, cost the utility bill payer nothing or, at worst, a much smaller increase in user cost then the surcharge idea.

Paul Hunter budhunter@frontier.com