Government
BY MARK FADDEN & DON MUNSCH
Residents see March water price increase
Council considers fee to help maintain roads Fort Worth officials are evaluating options to fund street maintenance in the city. One option is a street maintenance fee to address the insufficient street maintenance funding for the city’s 8,100-lane-mile street network. The details Officials said a street maintenance fee is a monthly fee proportional to traffic genera- tion and has the following characteristics: • Based on vehicle trips by land use • Ongoing fee for system use • Dedicated to transportation purposes • Charged on utility bills and applied to all developed properties Officials said if the city were to adopt a street maintenance fee, projected revenues could be $66.1 million.
New rates in effect
Previous average rate for water: $30.37 New average rate for water: $36.87 Previous average rate for wastewater: $44.47 New average rate for wastewater: $60.45 ALL RATES BASED ON 5,000 GALLONS OF USAGE PER MONTH
Roanoke residents may have noticed they are paying 30% more for water and wastewater rates after City Council approved a rate hike at the Feb. 13 meeting. City officials said in a council agenda memo the rate adjustments are necessary for the city to ensure long-term financial stability for its water and wastewater operations, with particular consideration given to projected rate increases from the Trinity River Authority, which contracts with the city for wastewater services. The city purchases water from the city of Fort Worth. Zooming in Chris Ekrut, chief financial officer with NewGen Strategies & Solutions and a consultant to the city, said his information showed that specific to sewer, Trinity River Authority represents 64% of the city’s wastewater budget. The wastewater cost
SOURCE: CITY OF ROANOKE/COMMUNITY IMPACT
increased 72% year over year from $2.13 million in 2023 to $3.67 million in 2024, Ekrut’s presentation showed. Further, Ekrut’s presentation states, while reserves can be used to mitigate increases, “aggressive action” is needed. “We are in a good financial position right now relative to our reserves,” he told council. “We can use some of those reserves to phase into a rate increase. ... We have to start climbing this hill.”
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