Sewer rates could be going up in Newport Beach

Sewer bills in Newport Beach could go up about $2 a month next year — the first such increase in more than a decade.

City staff plans to bring the matter before the City Council July 25 for the second time in as many years. The ordinance, if approved, would be finalized in September, with new rates effective Jan. 1, 2018.

Rates would continue to increase incrementally through 2022.

Sewer rates have not been adjusted since 2006. A structural deficit has grown in that time, requiring a $3.5-million transfer from the general fund to the wastewater fund last year.

Water conservation efforts in response to the drought also drained revenues, shorting the fund by about $259,000 in 2016 and about $506,000 in 2017, said George Murdoch, Newport’s Municipal Operations director.

Most residential wastewater customers pay a fixed charge of $4.50 per month and a use charge of 35 cents per hundred cubic feet of water used (a hundred cubic feet, or HCF, equals 748 gallons).

The proposed rate structure raises most residential fixed fees to $6.38 per month, with the per-HCF rate increasing to 38 cents. It continues to raise rates over the next four years, peaking in 2022 at $8.60 in fixed charges and 51 cents per HCF.

But it does drop the $2-per-dwelling unit surcharge for apartments and other buildings that have more than one unit attached to a meter, and a $10 large-meter surcharge for meters 2 inches or greater, rolling those into the fixed charges.

For the typical residential customer with an average wastewater use of about 12 HCF, the new rate structure would increase the monthly bill from $8.63 to $10.89. A commercial customer with a 3-inch meter and average monthly use of about 238 HCF would see the bill go from $97.71 to $101.55.

The relatively few city residents who are city wastewater — but not city water — customers would see a comparable increase. About 700 to 850 Newport Beach customers are served by the Irvine Ranch and Mesa water districts.

Without rate increases, the wastewater fund would lose all its reserves and then some in three years, according to city projections.

In January 2016, the City Council gave its initial approval to higher rates, but reversed course a month later after splitting on a proposed rebate program to cover the cost of the increases. It again rejected staff’s rate request that March.

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