The city of Sacramento's Utilities Rates Advisory Commission has recommended raising water and sewer rates for the average bill by a combined total of $19 a month over the next three years.
By a 5-2 vote Thursday, the commission approved a recommendation by city utilities officials to raise water rates by 10 percent each of the next three years and sewer rates by 16 percent, 15 percent and 14 percent over the next three years.
The City Council has final approval over the rates and is scheduled to debate the matter Feb. 28.
The new rates would go into effect July 1.
Utilities officials said the added revenue would help them issue more than $300 million in bonds to pay for upgrades to the city's aging water and sewer systems, including revamping a water treatment plant north of downtown and installing water meters.
Rate advisory commissioners had delayed approving the hikes last week and followed through with the recommendations with two conditions.
The commission is requiring utilities officials to report back semiannually to ensure that revenue generated by the rate increases is being used for the infrastructure projects and not to cover labor costs.
Commissioners also asked that 11 percent of the revenue from the rate hikes be used to help low-income families pay their bills.
Under a voter-approved tax measure, 11 percent of the money from utility bills goes into the general fund budget, which pays for police, fire and other basic services. Commissioners asked that money from the new rates which would have gone to the general fund go instead into the low-income program.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Call The Bee's Ryan Lillis, (916) 321-1085. Read his City Beat blog at sacbee.com/citybeat.
• Read more articles by Ryan Lillis
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.