City councillor George Maroosis, seen here earlier this year, is the chair of the committee reviewing the very same water meter billing structure that council approved the adoption of this past Monday. PHOTO BY LIAM BERTI
Amidst all the discussion of creating a more fair and equitable water billing system for 2016, City Council finally approved the rates for the rest of this year.
After a long, well-debated debacle, the politicians reached a decision in May to implement a new billing structure that charges residents based on water usage.
On Monday night, the majority of council approved the adoption of those new rates, which come into effect September 1. Councillors Mike Anthony and Mark King were the only two to vote against the bylaw.
“My concern is the same as it was a couple months back: in the end, I think we ended up rushing to implement something we could have used a little bit more time on,” Anthony explained.
As of September 1 then, residential property owners’ bills will abandon the existing full flat rate charge and will be based on a 60 per cent fixed, 40 per cent variable volumetric cost recovery model.
On the other hand, the institutional, commercial and industrial users will continue to be charged based on the current basic connection fee with a minimum consumption fee.
For residential users, that means each property will be billed just over $31 in a flat charge each month for the fixed rate plus $1.45 per cubic metre of water used.
But the delay in getting the billing structure off the ground could cause other problems.
Originally, city staff made their assumptions based on the rates taking effect at the beginning of July.
However, in their final decision, council felt it pertinent to give North Bay residents a two-month buffer period to monitor their usage and adjust to the new rates before they came into effect.
Because of that delay, the city will still be charging customers based on the 2014 rates until September 1, which doesn’t account for the 2015 water and sanitary sewer budget hike.
That increase was pegged at a 3.68 per cent, or $721,129, increase over last year’s total budget, which the city had to dip into reserve funds for at the end of the year to offset their shortfall.
“This is an important bylaw because moneys do have to be collected in 2015 to be able to pay for the water and sewer operations of this city,” Coun. George Maroosis said during the meeting.
“We are now eight moths into the year and we haven’t increased the rates at all,” Coun. Tanya Vrebosch added. “We would be looking at a deficit […] I heard in the $2 million range if we didn’t pass this tonight.”
Meanwhile, a special Water and Sanitary Sewer Review Committee is in the middle of overhauling that newly adopted system and formulating a recommendation for council to adopt as early as January 2016.
After it was brought to light that residential sector was paying far more for their equal share of water than the ICI/multi-residential sectors were, Mayor Al McDonald catalyzed the review committee to reevaluate the situation and bring a new recommendation forward for council to vote on.
The data presented to council in May showed that the residential sector is paying approximately 73 per cent of the revenue required for cost recovery, but only accounting for 51 per cent of the water usage.
The ICI/multi-residential side, on the other hand, uses the other 49 per cent of the water, but is paying roughly 27 per cent of the cost recovery revenue
The committee, chaired by Maroosis, has held three in-depth meetings so far, during which they have determined that all users should be paying the same amount for a cubic meter of water and that billing based on the size of the property’s water meter fixture should determine the fixed portion of each bill.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing how the committee deals with the fixed costs on the residential side and how that balances out with the ICI/multi-res portion; that’s definitely where the biggest savings are in the process,” Coun. King weighed in on Monday.
“It’s just unfortunate that we are moving to the new billing cycle now and not seeing a change before 2016,” he added.
That committee has also taken on the role of communicating the transition plan to soften the blow to residents’ bills come October.
Already, with just over 2,000 of a possible 17,000 customers registered for the recently launched eServices portal, the councillors say they have received an overwhelming amount of emails and phone calls from residents who are seeing higher-than-expected figures on their mock bills.
“There has been a multitude of emails and a multitude of complaints,” Maroosis said on Monday. “But actually, this is a good thing because it’s better for us to be dealing with complaints now before people actually have to pay a bill.”
Maroosis also announced the scheduling of another open house meeting on Tuesday, August 11, for the less tech-savvy customers who might not be willing or able to learn the eServices system and see what they are up against with the new bills.
Customers will be able to talk to staff and run through their existing bills and answer any questions they have about the transition into the water meter billing.
