At Monday’s Greenville City Council special budget session, voting was split between the council about increasing water and sewer rates.
Councilman James Wilson, along with other members of the council, did not want to increase water and sewer rates because of the recent added $4 for trash pickup.
At Monday’s meeting, Councilman Al Brock said he believes the community has to understand that the city is struggling to keep basic services like sewer, water and trash operating because of the requirements to upgrade all of those systems by consent decree from the Environmental Protection Agency, but the timing of increasing both water, sewage and trash is difficult all at once.
Mayor Errick Simmons disagreed with Brock and said the council needed to increase the water and sewer rates because the city is federally mandated to complete more items in the EPA’s decree.
“EPA consent decree has gone up to $65 million and we still got more sanitary and sewer evaluation work to do,” Simmons said. “We just had the flood of 2019, where we’re looking at 14 sewer failures and 30 street failures and not including some of the lift station issues and the wastewater treatment plant that we know was budgeted in and grit chamber that is about $5 million.
“Now the city is seeing that the wastewater treatment plant is going to about $13 million dollars to get some of this stuff done,” Simmons said. “Steve Osso, public accountant for the city, is saying a total increase will be $4.79 on the bill for both water and sewer. That is going to give us a little room to do some of this stuff the city is federally mandated to do by the federal government.”
Councilwoman Tasha Banks agreed with Simmons and said that things need to be done around the city and going this route will help get it done.
For water section 1 ordinance, a motion was made and seconded by Councilman Bill Boykin and Councilwoman Tasha Banks to increase water rates by $2.08 on the minimum water bill.
Boykin, Banks and Vice Mayor Lurann Thomas voted “yes” to increase the water rate. Wilson, Brock and Councilwoman Lois Hawkins voted “no” to increase the water rate. Simmons had to break the tie and voted “yes” to increase the water rate.
For water section 2 ordinance, a motion was made and seconded by Boykin and Banks to increase sewer rates by $2.71 on the minimum water bill. Boykin, Banks and Thomas voted “yes” to increase the sewer rate. Wilson, Brock and Hawkins voted “no” to increase the sewer rate. Simmons had to break the tie and voted “yes” to increase the water rate.
The motion was made and seconded by Boykin and Banks to increase the water and sewer rates, together not separately, by $4.79 on the minimum water bill. Boykin, Banks and Thomas voted “yes” to increase the water and sewer rate as one on the water bill. Wilson, Brock and Hawkins voted “no” to increase the water and sewer as one on the water bill. Simmons had to break the tie and voted “yes” to increase the water and sewer as one on the water bill.
Simmons stressed that the current administration has been prudent in looking for other sources of state and federal funding as well as grant funding.
“We want to find other sources so that we don’t have to increase rates on our elderly, poor and other folks with fixed incomes,” Simmons said. “When you increase rates under a federal mandate, you are still placing a heavy burden on our vulnerable population. We strongly regret that.”
