Jacksonville’s Utility Budget is forcing an increase in water and sewer rates for the upcoming year. Utility Superintendent Sally Long presented the FY21 operations budget for city utilities on Monday night. Long told the Jacksonville City Council that they are an enterprise fund that must have enough revenue from water and sewer rates to maintain operations, and that the utility department is not tax funded.
Long says that they do the budget earlier than other departments to set the new rates before the calendar turns each year to set the upcoming rates. Long says the city will see an increase this year: “Really, I guess the bottom line is the minimum water bill will increase $1.75 from $35.65 up to $37.40. The average water bill which we categorize as 5,000 gallons [of use], will increase $2.62.”
The utilities’ capital improvements budget will be approved with the rest of the city’s appropriations budget in the month of January.