City of Vandalia water and sewer customers will see a slight increase in their bills following approval by the Vandalia City Council on Monday night. As part of the annual presentation of the city’s audit, the council heard from Tricia Elam of Timmerman and Company about the options for this year based on the city’s formula set by city ordinance and on the IMRF pension adjustment. The first option explained by Elam would have kept water rates the same and would increase sewer rates by 0.06%. The second option based on the IMRF adjustment would increase water rates by 2.94% and sewer rates by 6.61%. City Administrator LaTisha Paslay provided an example of what the increase would amount to for water customers at the 2,000 gallon level, their monthly city bill would go from $47.27 to $48.64, an increase of $1.47 a month. The increases were discussed with the water and sewer committee at a meeting last Thursday afternoon and alderman Bret Brosman reiterated that the committee did not make a recommendation on which option to go with at that meeting. It was brought up at the committee meeting and briefly at the council meeting that with the construction of a new water plant in the coming years to replace the current outdated plant, a larger increase will have to be looked at down the road and smaller increases now would make it less of a drastic increase when that time comes. A motion was made to go with the second option to increase the water rates by 2.94% and sewer rates by 6.61%. The vote resulted in a 3-3 tie with aldermen Bret Brosman, Russ Stunkel and Steve Barker voting in favor of the increase while aldermen Mike Hobler, Kenny Lewey and Joel Rebbe voted against the increase. Mayor Rick Gottman then cast the tiebreaking “yes” vote for the increase to pass. And Mayor Rick Gottman pointed to the upcoming water plant project and potential large increases for that as his reasoning to vote “yes”.
The increase will go into effect on October 1.
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