Polson sewer rates may rise again

Public hearing set for June 6

Polson sewer rates will rise again if the Polson Commission votes to approve the proposed hike at its June 20 meeting.

But leaders must hold a public hearing first before the decision can be made, so customers can express their views.

The hearing will be held at the June 6 Commission meeting.

If the resolution passes, ratepayers will begin paying the second tier of a scheduled three-level step up rate hike that begins accruing charges in July. Customers will not be billed for the hiked fee until August.

Customers will face an average of $14 per account, said Mark Shrives, Polson City manager. But the fee will vary widely depending on the amount of household use each ratepayer incurs.

City leaders developed the three-tier rate hike system in 2014 after the Commission faced the task of asking Polson ratepayers for what they believed at that time would be a 300-percent increase in their monthly water bill to pay for the design and construction of a new water treatment system that was mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency to be replaced by 2018. 

Customers received their first hike in 2014, and was about $40 per bill on average, Shrives said.

But this hike will be much smaller, Shrives said, and customers will not be paying as much as first expected because city leaders altered the construction of the system, which is expected to cost less than first anticipated.

The details of the latest, second hike were laid out at a May 16 Polson Commission meeting as an agenda item to introduce the new resolution.  

Agenda item details are public and can be found on the City’s website under the Commission agenda PDF.

A third and final rate hike is scheduled to be presented to sewer customers near the completion of the sewer system replacement in early 2018, Shrives said.