(Okoboji)– Water rates in Okoboji will be going up following action taken by the city council Tuesday evening. However, City Administrator Michael Meyers says the average customer shouldn’t be affected…
“The city council tonight passed an ordinance that will increase water rates in the city of Okoboji by three percent over the next three years. However as part of that they’re also going to dial back the water meter fee that we currently charge our customers. And so the increase in water fees will be offset by a reduction in the meter fees. What it does for the city is it allows us to increase our unrestricted water revenues but at the same time the average resident or the average customer is not going to notice any increase in their water bill whatsoever. In fact for a commercial and other large users, they’re probably going to see a decrease over the next three years. So I think it’s a really good way for us to kind of get some more flexibility in our water fund because we’ve got some really important capital projects that we need to help fund with our water plant and also with our underground infrastructure, so it’s going to allow us to produce some more revenues that we can use for those projects while not necessarily impacting the average customer.”
The meter fees were put into place years ago to help fund a program to replace outdated meters. Meyers says most of those meters have now been replaced, allowing the city to reduce those fees.
Meyers says they’ll review the new rates after three years…
“Yeah, I think it’s pertinent that we take a hard review of this after the three years. The reason being is that some of those capital projects with the water plant will be done but at the same time then we need to start looking at our underground infrastructure. And at the exact same time, we still have long term debt on the water plant that we’re paying off. At that same time we’re going to see a big reduction in that debt principal and then three years later after that point we’ll be done paying that debt. So there’s a lot of moving parts and we just want to pause at that point, think about it strategically, and make a good decision.”
There were no comments on the rate adjustment at a public hearing Tuesday evening. The council then voted 5-0 approving the initial reading. Motions to waive the 2nd and 3rd readings and to adopt the measure also passed unanimously.
