The Graham City Council is considering increases for the water and sewer rates and approved a first reading of an ordinance that would implement those raises in October.<\/p>\n
The city council met Thursday, May 14 and heard a presentation from Graham City Manager Eric Garretty regarding the proposed changes as the city is underway on its budget planning process.<\/p>\n
The proposed ordinance increases the charges for water base and volumetric charges by 7% and the sewer base and volumetric charges by 3%, while also adding a $30 capital surcharge with sewer rates to offset the cost of the wastewater treatment plant rehabilitation project.<\/p>\n
\u201cCouncil is being asked to review this ordinance earlier than normal in the budget cycle, as there are major changes to our rates. The planned acquisition of new debt for the sewer plant rehabilitation will necessitate the imposition of a capital surcharge on our sewer customers in order to make the debt payments,\u201d Garretty said.<\/p>\n
The city manager said the $30 capital surcharge is a maximum if interest rates hold steady and that the number could drop to between $20-25 before adoption of the ordinance from the city council.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public is reminded that council must have three readings of this ordinance and the public hearing before the new rates are adopted. Once again, I want to emphasize today\u2019s agenda item is not a final action, and you\u2019re not asked to pass that $30 surcharge as a final action,\u201d Garretty said.<\/p>\n
Garretty said having the surcharge marked on wastewater bills for customers is important.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we first started talking about this debt and I gave you some examples of it, I think it\u2019s important to establish a fee category of the capital surcharge so that customers clearly see on a bill what they\u2019re paying for with that portion of their bill is exclusively dedicated to the cost of rehabilitating the wastewater treatment fund,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the proposal sets a maximum allow charge for sewer services not to exceed $69.27 per month and sets a rate for new residential customers at $65.11 per month until a usage history is established.<\/p>\n
The city manager said the 7% increase also impacts the city\u2019s wholesale water customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat affects Fort Belknap Water Supply Corporation and the Graham East Water Supply Corporation, and they do have the ability to appeal this rate to the Public Utilities Commission if they so desire,\u201d Garretty said.<\/p>\n
At the request of the city council, city staff will work on a rate structure that splits out the wholesale and bulk water rates as well as commercial and residential sewer rates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think doing a study (and) looking at splitting out the residential and commercial, we can incorporate that in the fall. (Willdan Financial Services) still owe me the supplemental rate study on the current contract that we\u2019re doing to get these rates going, and I\u2019ll just extend that contract and just give them another task to deliver something to us. We\u2019ll come back and take a look at that,\u201d Garretty said.<\/p>\n
Last month, the city council approved contracting with Willdan Financial Services for a water and sewer rate study to determine a rate needed for future debt payments, studying the outside of the city rates and causes of decreases in revenue.
If approved by the city council, the new changes would take effect Oct. 15, 2026.<\/p>\n
The council approved setting a public hearing regarding the increase to the water and sewer service charges for 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 9 at the City Hall Council Chambers at 608 Elm St.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those that cannot attend the public hearing can submit a comment in writing no later than noon Monday, June 8 to: City Secretary, City of Graham, 612 Elm St. Graham, Texas 76450.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In October 2025, the city implemented new 7% increases to water and sewer rates after adoption by the city council in August 2025. The rate increase came following a 2024 water rate study that recommended a 7% per year increase in the rates through 2029.<\/p>\n
The water and sewer funds are enterprise funds for the city that are supported solely by the rates that are charged for those services.<\/p>\n
The city manager emphasized the city borrowing $12 million to do emergency repairs to the wastewater treatment plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich is primarily doing the electrical and building a new building that will include an indoor space for the electrical, so our electrical isn\u2019t out there rusting and causing all the problems in the weather,\u201d Garretty said. \u201c…We\u2019re going to do everything possible to make that initial $12 million go as far as possible, but you got that preliminary design report that we paid for and for better or worse, if you believe that number, they\u2019re telling us there\u2019s $36 million for the work that needs to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another three to four years the city might have to increase the capital surcharge to accommodate other debt to complete the next set of repairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what a burden that is on the ratepayer, but it\u2019s our lone sewer plant. We don\u2019t have any other alternatives,\u201d Garretty said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Graham City Council is considering increases for the water and sewer rates and approved a first reading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-199252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}