WILTON — Selectmen unanimously approved new sewer rates Tuesday to help pay for the first phase of upgrading the waste-treatment system and plant.
Their decision followed a lengthy public hearing attended by less than a dozen residents.
Clayton Putnam, superintendent of the water and sewer departments, presented rate hike options covering phase one of the upgrade to the system and plant built in 1978.
The option recommended by the department and chosen by selectmen reduces the minimum rate of $64.24 to $59.24 for operations and maintenance and adds $53.33 for debt for a total of $112.57 per quarter for minimum users.
Rates for usage above the minimum amount rise to $2.02 from $1.01 for each 100 cubic feet after the first 1,000 cubic feet discharged. A customer using 2,000 cubic feet, for example, would pay $132.81.
About 70 percent of the 944 ratepayers in the department use 1,500 cubic feet or less, he said.
The other option proposed was to keep current rates while adding $53.33 per quarter for the debt on a 30-year loan for the nearly $4.6 million project. The loan amounts to an annual $201,397 payment for 30 years.
The department has kept rates down with no increase since 1988, he said.
The rates could change if voters approve contributing $30,000 per year for the project at the annual town meeting in June.
The town supported the initial loan for building the treatment plant by contributing $30,000 per year from 1978 to 2008, Putnam said. The town’s contribution would bring the rate down to $104.62 per quarter for minimum users.
The cost to taxpayers is estimated at $11 per $100,000 property valuation, he said.
The new rates reflect the needs for only the first phase of the project. Selectmen set a public hearing for April 17 to discuss phase two of the project, which will be presented to voters in June.
If voters accept phase two, a second rate hike of about $45 will bring it to an estimated $675 per year. If voters don’t accept it, state and federal agencies will probably step in and require action, he said.
“If we’re forced into it, we wouldn’t have the loan/grant money,” he said.
Putnam encouraged residents to attend the April 17 hearing.
abryant@sunjournal.com
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