It’s somewhat back to the drawing board for the city of Sedona and its consultants regarding wastewater rates. 
The purpose of the meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 13, was to give notice of intention to increase wastewater rates in accordance with state law and to set a public hearing date.

At that time the Sedona City Council would consider adoption of a final ordinance changing the city’s wastewater rates and rate structure. However, following two and half hours of discussion, council chose to take a step back and have the consulting firm of Willdan Financial Services provide additional data before moving forward. 

The direction given by council is to move forward on parallel tracks. The first track is to refine the analysis of the proposed water-based rate to see if the city can address some of the outliers that create more significant disparity in current rates versus proposed new rates. The other track is to take a cursory look at what a revised flat rate system would look like. In other words, instead of a variable rate based on water flow, customers would pay a flat rate per equivalent residential unit. 

The purpose of the study is twofold: To ensure the city collects enough revenue to operate the system and to apportion costs to the various rate payers appropriately. Unlike many municipalities, the only utility the city owns is wastewater. Had council approved the notice of intention to increase wastewater rates in accordance with the consultant’s recommendations, a future public hearing date for no later than Tuesday, Oct. 22, would have been scheduled. But for now, things are on hold.

One of the areas the consultants were asked to provide recommendations on was the best fit for the city regarding continuing with primarily a fixed monthly rate structure or a variable water usage-based rate structure, a report states. With the various concerns that were discussed with the consultants, the model they presented was based on their recommendation of a water usage-based rate structure. Council concurred with this recommendation during a meeting in late March. Since that meeting, the consultants focused their presentation on this type of rate structure.

“The direction we’d given to the consultants was to look at a rate structure that would create equity between all the various accounts,” City Finance Director Cherie Wright said. “Sometimes it’s a little bit of a shock of what that represents in those numbers.”

The biggest concern council had with the plan presented by consultants Pat Walker and Kevin Burnett was that a large percentage of residents would see their monthly bill spike dramatically. Under the proposed plan, hundreds of customers could see their bill go up by 50% or more.

“Are we willing to have 50 percent of the people — or 600 or a 1,000 — of our residents paying double what they pay now or not?” Councilwoman Jessica Williamson asked. 

Councilman John Currivan asked City Manager Justin Clifton, considering the nuances of the plan that was proposed and the concerns that many would likely see their bills be much higher, is it worth doing?

“My overall assessment is no,” Clifton said. “I think the goals were the right goals going in. I think the analysis was right. I think council was right in saying we like these goals and how it applies to real people. But frankly, while there is a larger population of accounts that save, those that are burdened are greater in numbers and greater in disparity in what they will pay than what I had anticipated.” 

Clifton said that when considering everything, it doesn’t pass the gut check.  Councilman Bill Chisholm said he doesn’t want to give up on this effort and that going to a volume-based payment system is the best way to go.

“But I don’t think we’re there yet with what’s being proposed tonight,” he said. “I’m personally struggling with abandoning the project because of the inequities. I think we can do better, which is not a negative comment on what we’re trying to do now.”

He added, “I think a lot of great work was done but the way it sits this second, it’s not something I’d want to pull the trigger on and say let’s go ahead and sell it to the community.”

Ron Eland can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 122 or by email at reland@larsonnewspapers.com