City officials and aldermen are set to have the new budget completed in the next month and City Administrator Jim Arndt says the increase is necessary.

"As the years go on and our expenditures go up while our revenues do not, we need to try to make sure we keep up at least," he said.

Arndt said that the increase was proposed last year, but left out of the budget at the last minute.

The last increase came in 2007 and Arndt said the city is averaging about 1.3 percent worth of water and sewer rate increases per year.

Arndt said the hike will inject about $40,000 into the fund that has struggled with debt as well as state-mandated upgrades to the waste water treatment facility.

Arndt said there are still more much-needed capital improvement planned for the waste water treatment facility, some are mandated by the Department of Natural Resources.

In September of this year, aldermen approved an ordinance that increased the cost of new customer water deposits from $100 to $200.

At the time, Arndt cited a $157,836.54 deficit in the water and sewer fund largely in part due to customers not paying water bills.


Additionally, Arndt said in September that water fee collections were 4 percent below budgeted projections, interest was down 86 percent, equipment repair costs were up 34 percent and water engineering service costs were up 57 percent. Overall water system repair costs were also up 55 percent.

Following the deposit rate increase, aldermen also approved a water and sewer spending freeze, vowing to shut off any expenditures within those departments unless absolutely necessary.