From the Sidelines: The Sewer Fee 'Vacation' is More Like a Day Trip

It was reported seven months ago the the Montville Township Water and Sewer Department had built up a $4.8 million surplus because of overcharging by Montville's governing body beginning with rate increases established in 2009.

The Township Committee, clearly embarrassed by this over-abundance of riches, has been working on a plan to return this money to the people they took it from in the first place. First there was a lot of finger pointing about how this accumulation came to be. The Township Committee claimed the Long Term Financial Planning Committee gave them the wrong information (despite the fact that the Township Committee gets and is supposed to read an annual audit of township finances).

BTW, the Township Committee has been taking close to $1 million PER YEAR from water and sewer accounts for several years for tax relief. It is hard to believe they took this money without checking on the financial condition of the water and sewer department. The Long Term Financial Planning Committee blamed the bad information on the water and sewer department itself. They claim they got bad information about future expenses. As young people say today, "Whatever." 

The plan is to give sewer rate payers a "six-month vacation" from paying the fees and then they have established a new rate system which should avoid this from happening in the future. A whole lot of high fives and statements of glad tides went back and forth between the Long Term Financial Planning Committee and the Township Committee, but my questions (for now and I have plenty more) is what about the remaining $2.8 million and does the new rate system still have in it the almost $1 million they take for tax relief at the rate payers expense? Is it not a part of their plan to return all the money they took in the first place and will they stop using non-deductible rates to reduce fully deductible taxes ? Is that already incorporated into their new rate structure.

In 2005, Marie Cetrulo and I worked to reduce water rates and make it more a per gallon charge for use. At the time, we had a system that the user would pay a flat for the first 15,000 used per quarter no matter how little they used. We did a study that showed that a substantial number of users were in effect paying for water they never used. They fell below that 15,000 gals they were paying for. Now if I have it right, they have a flat fee for up to 100,000 gallons. I hope I have that wrong. That will just further compound the costs for low volume users. That still leaves the issue of what the real surplus was and why isn't all the money being given back to rate payers. How did the Township Committee arrive at this half (less than half) way measure?