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ECUA Seeks Water, Sewer And Sanitation Rate Increases
July 26, 2013
The Emerald Coast Utilities Authority is looking for a rate hike for the next fiscal year.
ECUA wants a 1.93 percent increase for both water and sewer service. That would amount to about $1.08 per month for the average residential customer, or about 50 cents per month for a customer with water but no sewer service. For a large commercial customer, the increase would be about $8.16 per month.
The increased water and sewer revenues would go toward infrastructure improvements.
ECUA is also looking for a sanitation fee increase of 14 cents per month for residential customers. The increase is a direct reflection of a 3.5 percent increase in the tipping fee at the Perdido Landfill that will take effect on October 1.
A public hearing to discuss the increases will be held August 29.
Comments
12 Responses to “ECUA Seeks Water, Sewer And Sanitation Rate Increases”
For all of these people who yell about these increases why don’t you first ask your ELECTED ECUA board member why haven’t they been increasing these rates at a smaller increase over time due to aging infrastructure instead of seemingly all at once, second realize and understand that your TAXES do NOT pay for the Authority your bill does and third due to the public opinion of caring for the environment the Authority has regulations governing it from DEP as well as the EPA that sadly require MANPOWER and RESOURCES!!!!!
No increase….you have that property down town Pensacola….Sell it and use that money. You need to do an internal audit and evaluate your organization and eliminate fluff from your operations. Do all that then if you still need it…ask for an increase. We are tired of ECUA and the rest of the Local Governments nickel and diming the tax payers.
I preface this by saying that I’m not an employee of ECUA, I’m only a customer. I want to address regulated and unregulated utilities and businesses in general. I do understand how markets work. I do understand the effects of deregulation and the risks involved. I do understand the flow of capital. Let’s look at an alternate scenario (the scenario that everyone seems to want). What if these utilities/entities decided to become financially distressed. Or better yet, let them become insolvent. Heck, let’s let them pay the customer to take the product or service. How would that benefit the ratepayers? Or, is it more reasonable for them to maintain high credit ratings (such that borrowing cost are low and access to capital is ensured), invest in infrastructure (such that reliable service is maintained), and in the case of an investor-owned utility, provide reasonable returns to the shareholder (such that investors will inject capital into the organization and keep them alive). These entities are monopolies, but they’re regulated. These entities cannot reject service. They have an obligation to serve. These are some of the trade offs of being a regulated utility. In a completely deregulated environment, if margins slip or returns fall below an acceptable range, the company will divest operations. Not sure about you, but I like water. I’ll find an extra $1.22 per month. Not a bad deal. Heck, if if comes down to it, I’ll cancel my cell phone service. Psych, I’m just kidding, everyone knows that cell service is way more important than water!!
You know the ECUA answer to what the $7.6million sale of the old plant site is:
Without that sale the increases would be much more.
It sucks when your $7.6 million land sale hits the news the same day that you’re pretending to be poor.
I would think the money you get from selling your infrastructure might pay for some infrastructure improvments.
@Mark,
The 2011 Annual Report is on their website at this link: http://www.ecua.fl.gov/news/reports
Is there any way to find out what they made in profit last year? Is that not public records?
How much you want to bet that they want the increase only to show an increase in profit for the next year.
I always like how they try to minimize the cost to the customer… but as we all know they will continue to ask for increases over and over far beyond the inflation rate… my ECUA bill has more than doubled in the last 7 years and we have less people living in my home now over that time period…I have not received a pay increase, in fact I have had to take pay cuts, over that time period… So, yes ECUA even the smallest increase is hard to take for the average customer… Its consumer death by a million tiny cuts…
you have to consider the new cng trucks which cost 50grand a piece more and will have to run 10 years to make up the fuel diff.
Need cash now!!
@Broke, Over the years they have also installed automatic meter readers so they eliminated jobs there and they set up automatic flush valves that eliminated the jobs of guys that went around in trucks every other week flushing out the end of lines.
It would be my guess that they are too heavy in upper level management and advertising.
Advertising for ECUA and Gulf Power are stupid concepts IMO. Unless they do it to buy the opinions of people that work in media incase they need a cover up?
ECUA is also about to collect 7.6 Million dollars from selling the Old Stinky property down town. What are they planning to do with that money?
Jump on the Bandwagon with Gulf Power and the the rest of the Monopolies that provide us with services. How can “WE’ say no to an increase? Either pay it, or do without.
Where exactly are we, the consumer, supposed to come up with these increases? They dropped the twice a week pick-up which should have doubled their profit….Seems the only thing not increasing is wages.