Hickory considering charge in lieu of raising water rate

Residents would pay $5 more per month

By Meg Sullivan

Hickory Hills may restructure its water billing to include an additional charge on residents’ monthly statements.

The city bills residents solely on their water usage, but is considering a two-tier bill for 2010, said Treasurer Dan Schramm. The proposal would add a $5 line charge each month, a move that would help the city avoid increasing the water rate each year, Schramm said.

The City Council will not vote on the issue for at least another month because the proposed new charge would not be issued until March 1, explained Hickory Hills Public Works Director Larry Boettcher.

The Justice-Willow Springs Water Commission purchases water from the Chicago Department of Water Management and sells it to Hickory Hills. Chicago has increased its water rate by 15 percent the last two years and will increase it another 14 percent in January, Boettcher said.

The Water Commission will in turn pass the increase on to the three towns it serves — Justice, Willow Springs and Hickory Hills.

“All we’re trying to do, instead of getting large increases each year, we’re trying to say, ‘Let’s get a fixed revenue stream coming in,” Schramm said.

Hickory Hills is divided into three billing areas and residents are billed quarterly. The current water rate is $4.45 per 1,000 gallons.

Officials hope to keep the water rate the same for residents and absorb the increase by adding the $5-per-month line charge.

Schramm said households each use an average of 30,000 gallons of water every three months. The projections for 2010 include 3,900 total water users in the city — 3,470 residential and 430 commercial, Schramm said.

“It costs about $850,000 just to operate the city’s water system,” he added, explaining that if officials keep the current billing system for next year the city would lose about $220,000.

Boettcher said the cost of water is and will be a major concern locally and nationally in the next few years, and that Hickory Hills is working with a 50-year-old water system that is costly to maintain.

“Water is going to be a big problem in the U.S., it will be like gold in 20 years. We have to worry about water losses. You’re not just losing water, you’re bleeding money,” he added. “We have a closed-loop system and we don’t have a water tower, so we see a lot of [water main] breaks.

“We have to decide what an equitable way to deal with these increases is. The city is leaning toward a $5 line charge, but since there is no urgency to push this through they are still in discussions because it would not be effective until March.”

Boettcher explained implementing a line charge would be done instead of raising the water rate each year. In the future, the line charge would only increase in conjunction with Chicago’s rate increases, he said.

Hickory Hills Mayor Mike Howley stressed that the only reason the council is considering the line charge is to keep the water rates the same for residents.

“If we implement the line charge, we would try and limit the annual water rate increase,” he said.

Howley said nothing can be done about rising Chicago water rates, but the line charge is the fairest way for Hickory to deal with the increases.

Officials noted if they raise the water rates from $4.45 to $5 to cover losses, large families with children would bear the brunt of operating costs because they use the most water, while other residents would see hardly any increase at all.

This is part of the December 17, 2009 online edition of The Reporter.

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