Island Sewer, Water Rates Expected To Double

By Ryan Schlehuber

Mackinac Island residents and business owners should expect to see their sewer and water rates double this year, according to Department of Public Works (DPW) Director Bruce Zimmerman, to overcome a department deficit.

Mr. Zimmerman informed the Mackinac Island City Council at its regular meeting Wednesday, March 30, that the Board of Public Works intends to recommend a rate increase to what he said would be at a fiscally responsible level. Water rates charged for actual water usage, known as the commodity charge, would be raised from $1.25 per 1,000 gallons to $2.50 and the sewer rate would be raised from $2.25 per 1,000 gallons to $4.50.

The new rates are expected to be set for at least six years, which, according Mr. Zimmerman, would get the DPW out of the red.

The DPW, which has a budget exceeding $1.6 million, must make up a $1.2 million deficit that has been building over the last two years, draining its cash reserves. The Board of Public Works has been reducing the user fees and millage since 1998.

"We got a little carried away with ourselves," said Mr. Zimmerman, "but what I want people to know is that the idea was to decrease rates to reduce, chew up, use up some reserves that were beginning to build up at a pretty alarming rate."

This year, he said, those reserves are exhausted.

In 2000, the Board of Public Works decreased rates twice, 15 percent in June and then 25 percent in July, something it regrets now, said Mr. Zimmerman.

"We shouldn’t have done that," he said. "I apologize for the style that we used with reductions. We should’ve been more gentle."

City Alderman Michael Hart asked Mr. Zimmerman if rates could be raised only 50 percent to ease the shock to the community, but Alderwoman Ellen Putnam, who is also the DPW clerk, said it will take an 80 percent increase just to break even.

Mr. Zimmerman said the rate increases have nothing to do with the city’s six-year building moratorium that went into effect last summer after the DPW discovered its water and sewer treatment capacities were reaching their capacities owing to rapid housing development.

"We’re asking for a rate increase because we want to build up our capital improvement fund," said Mr. Zimmerman. "We’re not trying to build a new wastewater plant, we’re not trying to build a new water plant, and we’re not trying to build a new dump. We’re trying to make our books solid."

Mr. Zimmerman said the DPW may have taken on too many big projects in the recent past that fed the department’s deficit .

In 2002, the wastewater treatment plant was upgraded, a $226,000 project. Also, a sewer line was installed from the composting piles to the wastewater plant to eliminate the need to haul leachate waste by motorized vehicle. That project set the DPW back $285,000. In 2003, equipment at Biddle Point pump station had to be replaced owing to damage during a lightning storm.

The 100 percent rate increase for water and sewer was recommended by Clyde Dugan, a rate expert from Lansing, who was hired to assist in structuring a rate increase that would recover the $1.2 million deficit the DPW faces. Mr. Dugan retired from the Lansing Board of Water and Light this past summer.

Mackinac Island Public School Honor Roll

Third Nine Weeks Eighth Grade: Darcy Brodeur-Bunker*, Fuller Cowell, Arial Leeper*, Shay Mosley, Danielle Wightman

Ninth Grade: Woody Beardsley, Karlena Mosley, Kyle Sweet*

10th Grade: Kristi Kamphuis 11th Grade: Tyler Finkel*, Sam Kamphuis*, Miranda McMahon, Ben Mosley, Jason Pettit

12th Grade: Jamie Andress, Emma Chambers

*Denotes all A’s