During the Oct. 27, 2020 Board of Trustees meeting, the Board approved an ordinance adopting changes to the Town's utility fees based on the findings and recommendations of the recently completed Utility Rate Study. The Board selected the option they believe has the least impact on most customers and incentivizes water conservation.
Utility Rate Study
Town of Erie financial policies require the Town to have a formal Utility Rate Study performed on the utility fund (water, wastewater, and storm drainage) charges at least every five years. The last such study was conducted in 2014. In 2019, the Town contracted with Raftelis Financial Consultants to perform the formal utility rate study for water, wastewater, and storm drainage monthly customer charges, water and wastewater tap fees, raw water dedication fees, and storm drainage impact fees.
Assumptions
The key assumptions of the 2020 study were as follows:
- Residential growth: 400 taps per year
- Target Reserves: 90 days of operations, plus 1 year's depreciation expense
- Debt Service Coverage; as required by the respective debt covenants
Goals
The goals of the study are to determine the revenue needed to cover annual operations and maintenance costs and capital improvement projects, meet debt service requirements, provide for sufficient operating reserves and maintain the utility's self-sufficiency over a 5-year period.
The Utility Rate Study included all utility customer classifications (Residential, Commercial, Irrigation, and Multi-Family). The summary brochure addresses changes to the Residential & Multi-Family classifications.
2021-2025 Utility Rates