Brownwood News – The Brown County Water Improvement District #1 unanimously approved their 2018/2019 fiscal year budget at their board meeting Tuesday, and set water rates for both treated and untreated water they sell to local municipalities and retail water providers.
The budget for 2018/19 is set at $3,033,430, an increase of $4,400 from last year’s budget, or .15 percent.
“The budget committee has worked through the numbers,” General Manager John Allen informed the board. The first proposed budget would have called for a set rate of $3.94/1000 gallons, or a 4.74 percent increase for treated water.
“We did do some massaging on the budget,” Allen said. “We have no across the board cost of living increase, we have some merit raises.”
After approval of the budget, treated water rates were set at $1.6647/1000 gallons, a 0.92 percent increase from last year. Untreated water rates were set at $1.0011/1000 gallons, a decrease of 0.50 percent from last year. There are currently no untreated water customers serviced by the BCWID. Irrigation rates will be discussed in November 2018.
Brownwood City Manager Emily Crawford was invited to address the board regarding the rate increase and how that would impact the city.
“The .92 percent increase would require us to raise our rates to our customers by one cent, or we could absorb the difference, which is about $14,000,” Crawford said. “I believe the recommendation would be that the city absorbs that. I don’t think we will want to raise our water rate by one cent to our customers. We do appreciate the fact that the rate did not go up substantially.”
The City of Brownwood’s water rate will stay at it’s current rate of $2.38/per 100 cubic feet.
