The Warrenton Board of Aldermen is preparing to vote on 4-percent rate increases for the city’s water and sewer system. The rate increases have been an annual policy of the board since 2017.

City finance officer Dana Belaska explained that the rate increases were factored into what the city has budgeted to pay back bonds to upgrade its sewer system.

The average impact on in-town customers would be an extra $1.91 per month for residential properties, Belaska said. That would bring total payments up to an average of $50 per month, based on average usage of about 4,000 gallons per month.

The average monthly payment for commercial customers would increase by $6.80. That would bring the average monthly total up to  $176 per month, based on an average commercial usage of 15,700 gallons per month.

For out-of-town customers, rates for water and sewer service are set at about double the rate for in-town customers, said City Administrator Brandie Walters.

The rate increases will be voted on in July, and would go into effect on Aug. 1, Walters said.

The board of aldermen has passed a 4 percent rate increase every year since 2017. If this year’s rate increases pass, Warrenton’s water and sewer service rates will have gone up by more than 20 percent compared to five years ago.

Part of the rate increase also affects the city of Truesdale, which has a contract with Warrenton to provide sewage treatment (Truesdale has its own water system). The city of Truesdale is charged in-town sewer rates for all of its residences, but is charged out-of-town rates for its commercial businesses, including the Coca-Cola plant.

City officials have previously explained that the annual water and sewer rate increases are partly due to gradual cost inflation, but are also to help Warrenton pay back bonds on long-running sewer system improvements.

Warrenton voters approved up to $15.5 million in bond funding in 2014 to expand and upgrade the city’s sewer system. Bonds are a type of loan that the city repays using taxes or service fees.

Warrenton has been using the bond funds to install larger wastewater lines across the city, as well as installing or replacing systems at the city’s sewage treatment plant on Willow Road. About $9 million in bond funding had been spent as of December 2020, when aldermen authorized issuance of an additional $5.5 million of the voter-approved bonds, which will pay to complete a new sewer main across the west side of the city.

Warrenton officials are already planning for future improvements to the sewage plant once the current bond-funded upgrades are finished. The treatment plant requires a capacity upgrade to accommodate future growth, and city leaders have discussed a plan to ask voters to approve new bond funding in 2023.

Walters told The Record that continued annual increases to water and sewer rates will be an ongoing necessity to pay for the upgrades.