PORT TOWNSEND — Rates for electricity and water would rise each year for four years under a proposal that utility commissioners will consider during a public hearing in April.
Jefferson County Public Utility District commissioners will hear details of the proposed rate increases at a public hearing at 5 p.m. April 6, with a Zoom link to be announced.
The plan, released by General Manager Kevin Streett last week, is based on the results of a cost-of-service study by FSC Group in December.
FCS Group found that expenses for water and sewer services in 2020 overtook revenues, and that while it’s expected that the 2021 budget for electricity will be $1.6 million revenue positive, a $400,000 shortfall from water services is anticipated, said Will O’Donnell, PUD communications director, in a press release.
At the current rates, the PUD would not meet the required ratios to meet its debt service beginning in 2023, O’Donnell said.
Under the proposal, electric rates would increase by 3 percent this year, followed by a 7 percent increase in 2022, and 3.5 percent increases in both 2023 and 2024, as well as adding an additional monthly $2.50 base fee, increasing annually, O’Donnell said.
If approved, residential electric customers also would have the $2.50 increased base fee each month for the remainder of 2021, with no increase in consumption charges below 1,600 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month.
Above 1,600 kWh, a new rate of $0.1143 per kWh would be assessed, and consumption rates would increase starting in 2022 for all levels, O’Donnell said.
For the PUD customer using an average of 1,000 kWh per month, the electrical increase would raise average monthly prices from $114.22 to $116.72 for 2021 for the base charge increase.
The cost would further rise to $125.24 monthly in 2022, $129.97 in 2023 and $134.85 in 2024 with the increase in consumption rates and the additional base fees, according to the PUD’s website.
Water and sewer increases would not affect Port Townsend customers, as that is provided and overseen by the City of Port Townsend.
The proposed water rate increase includes an average increase of 16 percent each year across all customer types in 2021, 2022 and 2023, with a 6.75 percent increase in 2024, O’Donnell said.
The average PUD water bill is about $40 a month, and the 16 percent increases amount to about $7 per month, which would be added to the base rate.
An additional $5 capital surcharge will also be added for water customers each month starting in 2022, O’Donnell said.
There would be no consumption increase for 2021 for most water users. But Kala Point customers would be brought up to be in line with the rest of the county through a hike per 100 gallons, from 25 cents to 27 cents under 5,000 gallons of water used in 2021, to 31 cents in 2022, according to the PUD’s website.
For the residential PUD customer using an average of 4,200 gallons each month per year, rates would increase from $37.83 currently to $44.83 per month this year, $52.78 per month in 2022, $61.06 in 2023 and $65.51 per month in 2024, according the website.
The PUD is not required to conduct a public hearing for the proposed increases, but the commissioners chose to so they can hear from customers, chair Dan Toepper said.
“We want to be transparent,” he said. “We know that it is a tough time right now for a lot of the people in the community and our customer owners.”
While the PUD has avoided increases in the past, statewide utility rates are having to increase to cover costs, Toepper added.
“This has been building for a while. We’re well overdue to really address our costs of service,” he said. “We have to be able to start to cover the costs of services that we provide.”
The rate increase has been in discussion for almost a year. During rate-design discussions conducted during meetings since the beginning of the year, commissioners preferred a phased-in approach rather than a steep initial increase, O’Donnell said, so Streett designed a proposal of smaller annual increases starting this year through 2024.
“Current water rates do not cover the day-to-day costs of providing the service nor the millions of dollars in capital improvements that we know our aging water and sewer systems need over the next few years,” Streett said. “On the electrical side, upcoming capital improvements are also a driving factor.
“Most outages in our county are weather related, but some are due to aging equipment that we cannot improve or replace without adequate capital reserves.”
The full rates for all customers can be found at https://www.jeffpud.org/rate-hearing-april-6th-increases-proposed.
Customers can submit comment in advance to the meeting by email to O’Donnell at wodonnell@jeffpud.org.
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Jefferson County reporter Zach Jablonski can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 5, or at zjablonski@peninsuladailynews.com.
