JAY – Selectmen raised the targeted revenues for the sewer department in the next fiscal year, although the exact impact of that decision may depend on whether the town changes the way the revenue is generated.
Selectmen told Sewer Department Superintendent Mark Holt to raise $356,000 through sewer rate revenues to help cover a preliminary operating and maintenance budget of $535,000, in the next fiscal year. In the current fiscal year, the department has attempted to raise $331,000 to cover the department’s operating and maintenance budget of $544,000. The difference between the sewer rate revenues and department budget is raised through taxation.
Holt noted that the increase would equate to a $22 increase in the current sewer rate, to $312 per unit. Selectmen approved rate increases of $40 and $25 in 2009 and 2008, respectively.
However, that calculation only applies if the town continues to calculate sewer rates through the current system. The selectmen and a sewer committee have been looking into switching the method of fee calculation from a per unit system to one based on water usage. Selectmen unanimously voted to support the change at their Dec. 21 meeting, but altering the sewer ordinance, which would have to change to put the new system in place, requires approval at a town meeting.
In the new system, each customer would pay a minimum usage fee for a certain amount of water usage per year. Those who use less than that amount of water would pay the minimum fee. Those who use more would pay a certain fee for each cubic foot of water used beyond the minimum.
The sewer committee, formed of residents and selectmen both on and off of town sewer and advised by Holt and town officials, will be meeting to decide how to set up a water usage system. Among other decisions that will have to be made, the committee will need to determine is town departments, such as the town office or schools, should be billed for sewer services.
Selectmen and Holt are interested in seeing the sewer rate rise to a point where the town would be eligible for grant money. Holt said that the department has no major improvements scheduled for the next five years, but that the treatment plant and pump stations will eventually need to be replaced. Currently, U.S. Department of Agriculture grant money becomes available if the average sewer bill in the town of Jay was $420, and users would need to be paying roughly 100 percent of the cost of operating and maintaining the system.
“I’d like to see us, within the next five years, get up to the level where we can get grant money,” Selectman Chair Stephen McCourt said Monday.
The grants can be substantial; Holt noted that Livermore Falls received roughly $2 million in grant funding for their treatment plant work 10 years ago, as part of a grant/loan package through the USDA. However, he also said that the $420 figure was a “moving target,” and that 10 to 15 years ago it would have been around $350.
Holt also said that the department would do its best to hit the targeted revenue of $356,000, but that if the rate system did change there may be some guesswork involved.
“This first year, we might come in a little higher than that, and we might be a little lower,” Holt said. “We’ll use the best numbers we can get.”
In addition to setting the target revenue for the sewer department, selectmen also approved the appointment of four members of the community to the sewer committee, two on and two off of the town’s sewer system, giving that committee 11 voting members.
In other business, selectmen approved appointing Melissa Burnham to the Planning Committee as an alternate, while accepting, with regret, the resignation of Al Landry from the Comprehensive Planning Committee.
A closed town meeting, conducted via referendum, will take place on Feb. 16 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the town office. Voters will be asked to choose a selectman to take the place of Steve Barker, who resigned late last year. Running for the remaining year and a half of the term are Tim DeMillo, George Doiron and William Harlow, a former selectman of the board. Absentee ballots for that referendum are now available.
