Black Diamond CAO Sharlene Brown and Urban Systems planner Kris Nelson explained at a March 17 council meeting the current utility rates would cause a financial shortfall for the Town.
“The increase is a matter of playing catch up with rising costs from the Sheep River Regional Utilities Corporation (SRRUC),” Brown said in the meeting.
SRRUC, a partnership between Black Diamond, Turner Valley, Foothills County and Longview, is a corporation which operates at-cost and operates the supply, treatment and transmission of potable water.
Those costs are shared among the municipalities, who each pay for their usage.
Foothills County Municipal Manager Harry Riva Cambrin, who oversees SRRUC, said that while actual rates by volume for water went down, consumption has increased, causing the increase in cost to service the communities.
The utility provider determines its costs and each municipality under it determines how they will meet those costs.
Black Diamond's rates for water were last increased in 2018, and sewer in 2019.
“The cost of SRRUC continues to increase and the cost of operations continues to increase, which is why we have to go through this process,” Brown told council.
For 2021, the rates would go up 4.5 per cent.
“It sounds like a lot, but it works out to very minimal on metre-side and flat-rate consumption sides," she said.
Brown said these are the first rate adjustments in a few years.
“Now that we're going into 2021, actual rates haven't been adjusted in those two-year time periods,” she said. “So we're looking at a very minimal increase going forward, starting for May 2021 if council approves it.”
Nelson’s presentation showed the average single-family residential user would pay approximately $4.26 more on their bill every two months in 2021.
High-use commercial rates could see an added cost of approximately $76.61 bi-monthly.
He went on to indicate that the current rates would create a shortfall of approximately $73,000. That would have to be made up from the Town’s operating reserves, which are intended to account for incidental costs such as water leaks or pump failures.
The utility should be user-pay, rather than drawing from reserves and taxpayer funds, said Brown
“Using the operating reserve to offset the rate on normal expenses doesn't make sense, because the utility should be paying for itself," she said. "“Power, electricity, all of those pieces are going up and our rates have been inconsistent on the water side."
Council voted unanimously to pass first reading of the bylaw, post it to the Town’s website for public consultation, and to discuss it further at the regular April 7 meeting.
The draft, and Nelson’s presentation, can be viewed at town.blackdiamond.ab.ca under the Draft Bylaws section.
