SEWER BILLS

Well the sewer bills are now being sent from the town after the council voted to break off from Violia (indy water) and do our own billing. I have recieved a few calls from citizens stating they believe their bill went up. It should be the same as before only spilt into two pieces. The split will require you to go to the town to pay the sewer bill or use your own envelope but it will save the town money by doing it ourselves and hence reduce costs to tax payers which was one of my campaign topics.
Below I will try to give an example for you to use to see if your bill is correct. The one thing that we can not control in the reading of the meters by indy. They read, usually, every other month so you may see fluctuations in your usage. Usages are stated in 100 cu ft units. Both indy and the town have a base rate plus charges for usage.

Indy water charges $8.12 base rate and the town $22.18. Indy then charges $1.82 per cuft of usage and the town charges $4.00. (yes i think the $4 is high but it was set up when the plant was built and has been that way for a while). I am trying to find ways to bring down the rates but am getting resistance, mainly because the plant that was built was bigger then needed for the town size. It was built to handle around half again the size it has now and it was planned for future growth which has not happened. If we can get growth then that would put more users/payers into the system and reduce the costs to everyone. I am trying hard to work on economic and residential growth to help this out.

So here is an example of a bill.

if you use 5 water units, that is 500 cu/ft. your bills should be about like this:

Indy water = $8.12 base + ($1.82 x 5 units) = $17.22 + taxes

Cumberland sewer = $22.18 base + ($4 x 5 units) = $42.18 + taxes.

In addition the this the council voted in favor of a storm water sewer fee for all residents and businesses based on impervious surfaces. (the residential fee is around $5/month). This money will go to help pay for improvments to the storm water drainage system. I did how ever vote against this fee since we are already paying huge sewer fees.
So your sewer bill would be 42.18 + taxes plus the storm water fee of around $5 so =47.18

You can just use the formula above and input your usage units to see if the bill is correct.

Joe