According to this article in yesterday's Macomb Daily, the Shelby Twp. Board of Trustees voted on Tuesday night to raise the rates they charge us for water and sewer service by almost 10%%.
This is the second consecutive year that the Board has given their residents this kind of a "Christmas present". Last year at their Dec. 15, 2009 meeting the Board approved a 9% increase that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2010.
Tuesday night's vote means that the Shelby Twp. water rates will rise from $2.873/100 cu.ft. to $3.157/ 100 cu. ft. - an increase of 9.9% that will go into effect on January 1, 2011 [details here on pages 110 and 111].
What is driving the latest 9.9% water rate increase here in Shelby Twp? By comparing the information provided by the Shelby Twp. DPW to justify the 2010 and 2011 rate increases, it appears to me that the cost of water purchased from Detroit is anticipated to rise only about 5.7% in 2011. However, revenues associated with new construction are estimated to be down by about 14.9% in 2011 and must be made up by the existing water customers to help cover the fixed operational costs of the Shelby Twp. water department.
With this latest increase, Shelby Twp. residents will be paying a water rate that is 1.65 times higher than their neighbors in Macomb Twp. [source].
This is the second consecutive year that I failed to anticipate a last-minute water rate increase when I prepared the annual budget for the Manors ("fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me").
What this rate increase means to our Association's budget is that in 2011 (as in 2010), we will again spend about $3,000 more on water for lawn irrigation than we would have otherwise spent and will therefore have to find offsets elsewhere in the budget to cover any overage in the budget's water line item.
