The Powell City Council unanimously approved the city’s budget for fiscal year 2015-16 and approved a series of rate increases and ordinance changes impacting residents’ utility bills during its meeting Monday.

Budget

The city’s budget, ordinance No. 11, goes into effect July 1 and lasts until the end of next June. The budget passed unanimously without public comment or discussion from the council.

Just keeping the gears turning for the year will cost $21 million for the city and an additional $104,075 was approved on top of the budget for supplemental requests in May.

The budget plus the supplemental requests left the city with $121,000 to add to the reserves.

Balancing the city’s budget was contingent on approving the following ordinances which increased water, sewer and electric rates so that infrastructure maintenance and future replacement can be done without significant rate increases in the future.

Disconnecting water services

Powell residents who do not pay their water bill will have their water services disconnected now that Ordinance No. 13 was unanimously approved.

Services can also be terminated for failure to complete an application and pay the required deposit under Ordinance No. 16, which was also unanimously approved by the city council.

Increased ELECTRIC rates 

Electricity rates are increasing across the board for those who use electricity from the city of Powell now that Ordinance No. 14 was unanimously approved by the city council. 

 Ordinance No. 14 is for meter base charges and includes the following rates:

• Residential base charge: $27

• Residential energy charges: 10.6 cents per kilowatt hour

• Commercial base charge: $33.75

• Commercial energy charge: 11.5 cents per kilowatt hour

No more bill juggling

Juggling utility bills in order to keep services active while remaining behind on the bills will no longer be allowed with the passage of Ordinance No. 15.

Previously, residents who missed utility payments would specify which utility bill their partial payment covered — meaning nothing was fully paid and no services were terminated either.

The reason for the ordinance is because residents would go delinquent on their bills and receive a disconnect notice, then they would pay the water bill but not the power bill, Powell Mayor Don Hillman said when the ordinance was introduced on May 18.

“I can’t shut the sewer off, but I can shut the power off,” said Powell City Finance Director Annette Thorington on May 18.

The city does not shut off utilities in the winter, but it does lower customer’s consumption limit to just run their heat, Thorington said. If they try to use more electricity, it all gets shut off and reset, preventing use of TVs, microwaves and similar electric devices, she said.

 “With no ordinance, you end up writing it off, and that is not good either,” Hillman said. 

Councilman Josh Shorb was the only councilman opposed to Ordinance No. 15, the rest of the council approved its passage on Monday.

Water and sewer rates increase

Ordinances No. 17 and No. 18 called for a 4 percent rate increase for local water and sewer rates and both were approved unanimously by the city council without discussion.

Most residential homes have a 0.625-inch or 0.75-inch water connection and would be charged a base fee of $32.78 per month. After that, there’s a commodity charge of $2.90 for every 1,000 gallons of water used.

 Ordinance No. 18 calls for a minimum monthly fee of $14.24 for typical residential connections.