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Wrightsville Beach
Friday, March 29, 2024

Town water rates could go up

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Wrightsville Beach’s water and sewer budget is $500,000 over what the town can afford, and town leaders are in favor of increasing residents’ rates instead of dipping into the town’s reserve fund.

“We would be foolish to not have some kind of increase,” Mayor Bill Blair said, although he requested town staff carefully calculate how small the increase could be while still covering costs.

“We don’t want to kill the residents,” he added.

The board of aldermen met with town staff April 19 for one of Wrightsville Beach’s final workshops aimed at balancing the 2016-17 budget. The aldermen only needed to make up a difference of a few thousand dollars to balance the general budget, but balancing the water and sewer budget has proven more difficult due to expensive projects that current rates can’t cover.

Rates were last increased two years ago, but Blair said they’re still relatively low.

Town manager Tim Owens offered several options for how the rate increase would be implemented. Under the scenario the aldermen chose, residents would pay about $7 more per month. A resident who used 6,000 gallons of water would pay $152.56, which Owens said was very similar to what Cape Fear Public Utility Authority customers pay.

Larger businesses would pay more — up to $2,952 extra per year, but Owens said only the Islander Condominiums and Seapath Towers fell into that category.

The rate increase would generate about $400,000 a year in revenue, although that estimate could be off if higher water rates cause residents to use less water, new public works director Bill Squires pointed out. But if correct, that increase would pay for the town’s $791,315 in water and sewer projects in two years.

Those projects include modeling and assessing the town’s water and sewer system, which will help staff and leaders determine the system’s future. Owens also strongly recommended upgrading sewer lift stations that don’t perform well during busy times and installing automated water meters. The town has already committed to at least $300,000 of that work, he said.

While the town is paying to fix its own system, a separate, much larger expense is looming. Wrightsville Beach could be required by contract to pay between $15 million and $18 million in the next few years for repairs made to Wilmington’s sewer lines following a 2005 sewage spill.

A bond referendum might be necessary to pay the bill, Blair said, because no typical rate increase could create that much money.

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