Public Works will request no increases in water and sewer rates for the next fiscal year, July 1 to June 30, 2003.
The city increased the rates slightly on July 1. The city implemented a major increase the previous year after several years without increasing the rate.
“We’ve been able to do things better and more efficiently,” Public Works Director Mike Adams said, so the department can work with the current rate.
“I now believe that we’ve got the bare minimum we need in order to adequately maintain and operate the systems (water and wastewater),” Adams said.
The large increase in July 2000 caught the city up to where it should have been, Adams said. The rate reflected the actual cost of providing water and sewer service to Sweet Home and made up for several years with no rate increases to cover increasing costs.
In other areas of the Public Works budget, Adams identified, last week in a budget meeting, $200,000 to be set aside again this year for a water treatment plant intake structure in Foster Dam.
The project was budgeted last year but never undertaken, so the funds have been moved forward for 2002-03.
The city will not spend the money on the intake structure until Adams knows the city has property available for a new water treatment plant.
He is waiting on the Corps of Engineers to go through its environmental assessment process to clear property in the Wiley Creek Park area for a new plant.
The City of Sweet Home’s water treatment plant was constructed some time in the 1930s and is deteriorating. In some places, water leaks through the concrete walls of the structure.