Will cost $1.50 a month for average home

A volunteer board that oversees Peachtree City’s sewer system will consider adopting a five percent increase this year and one for next year in light of declining revenues.

The average residential customer will see an increase of about $1.50 on their bill as a result, said Water and Sewer Authority General Manager Larry Turner. The average sewer bill is close to $30, he said.

The increase is proposed to begin in December.

WASA will have a public hearing on the proposal at its meeting Monday night, which starts at 6:30 p.m. at the WASA offices located on the west side of Ga. Highway 74 just south of the city’s baseball and soccer complex.

WASA has seen decreased revenues in recent months in large part due to lower water usage figures across the residential and commercial sectors. In September WASA reported it was about $150,000 behind its projected pace for rate collections.

Turner said while the authority plans to vote on enacting both increases, the plan is to analyze the situation again before the second rate increase goes into effect October 2009.

Should the drought situation change and the area get more rainfall, water usage could go up again and there might be room to reduce or eliminate the second rate increase, Turner said.

At last month’s WASA meeting, two WASA members voted to adopt a 10 percent increase this year instead of the split 5 percent increases: Jeff Prellberg and Tim Meredith. Voting in favor of the split increases were Wade Williams, John Gronner and Phil Mahler.

In June, Peachtree City residents at single family homes used a total of 58.1 million gallons compared with a year prior when 102.5 million gallons of water was used, according to WASA’s data. Commercial water use is down too, from an average of between 17 and 18 million gallons to just under 14 million gallons, the data indicates.

Last month WASA adopted its $6.45 million budget, which was a 2.68 percent increase over the previous budget.

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