Water rate increase approved

Madison residents will have an increase in their water rates come Oct. 1.

Madison Utilities Board members voted unanimously to increase the rate from $3 to $5 at last night’s meeting.

The rate, which was proposed by Madison Utilities General Manager Ricky Pounders, was originally supposed to be an 8 percent increase, but that number was reduced by 4 percent because Pounders said revenue had increased since his original proposal.

The City of Madison and Madison City Schools, however, will keep their 10 percent discount and will not be affected by the hike.

“The city and school system have always been more than cooperative,” said Larry Vannoy, district 6 council representative and director of the board. “The schools are already having a hard time and by adding a 10 percent increase wouldn’t be appropriate.”

To make up for the discounts, roughly $20,000, Pounders said that amount would not be an issue and they would just reduce the budget in another area to make up for it.

Pounders said the increase was a necessity because it would help fund other projects.

“Without it (the increase), we would be seeing limits on the building of capital work,” Pounders said, “and that would limit the growing of the city’s infrastructure.”

The Capital Budget and Operations and Maintenance Budgets were also approved at the meeting. The five-year average is projected to be $9.5 million and the summary from Pounders to the Board projected a capital budget of $4,363,510 for Fiscal Year 2011, which would be a 9.3 percent increase over FY10, but lower than the five-year average. The Operations and Maintenance Budget is projected to be $11.8 million, which is an increase of 4.58 percent compared to the FY10 budget, but less than the FY09 budget of $100,000, according to the documents.