Rate study finds 46 percent commercial spike
The water rate study commissioned by the Water Authority of Western Nassau County recommends that the authority implement a 46 percent commercial water rate hike, portending a major change in water rates the board set in May.
The recommendation on the commercial rates was revealed during a discussion of the water rate study draft from Dvirka & Bartilucci at the Tuesday, July 8 meeting of the water authority’s board of directors, as the water authority continues to keep the study under wraps.
Marianna Wohlgemuth, the Town of North Hempstead representative on the water authority board, asked water authority Superintendent Michael Tierney if he anticipated “pushback” among commercial users to a 46 percent increase.
“We’re always going to get pushback,” Tierney said.
Water authority board Chairman John Ryan then asked a Garden City Life reporter present during the rate study discussion to leave the room, saying the meeting was an executive session preceding the board’s regular public meeting.
Wohlgemuth objected and Ryan conceded the point. But a few minutes later, Ryan said the board was about to discuss contracts related to the study and again insisted the reporter leave the room.
After the executive session, Wohlgemuth said a 46 percent increase in commercial service would prompt the board to amend the 8.41 percent increase it approved in May for residential and commercial customers when it also approved its $15.47 million 2015-16 budget. She said the cost of servicing commercial customers currently exceeds the revenues the water authority is receiving from them.
“If you have a commercial customer that’s being charged 46 percent more on their bill, the residential customer rates would go down,” Wohlgemuth said. “Effectively, the commercial users are going to start paying the actual cost of service. Right now, we’re subsidizing the commercial users.”
She said commercial users are also underpaying for indoor fire sprinklers, according to the Dvirka & Bartilucci study.
Water authority officials have also said the rate study recommends eliminating volume discounts currently afforded large commercial users.
During the public meeting that followed, New Hyde Park civic activist Marietta DiCamillo criticized the water authority for a heavily redacted version of the study she received in response to a Freedom Of Information Act request for it.
“This is really a disgrace, guys,” DiCamillo said, brandishing the 19-page report and its 20 pages of appended data.
Statistical charts and details of the water authority’s $58.86 million five-year capital plan comprising the copy of the study DiCamillo received were already public information.
Ryan said the rate study would be finalized by September and would be available to the public then. “We would hate to do this in haste,” he said.
Both Ryan and Tierney declined to discuss any details of the draft study after the meeting.
“We released the statistical information that’s entitled to be public,” said Vincent Minerva Jr., the water authority board attorney.
Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, recently said analysis in the draft study should be disclosed along with statistical information.
Ryan said the board intended to incorporate public feedback from its customers in the final version of the rate study.
Tierney said the information contained in the study in its current form is incomplete. “There are still missing pieces in this report,” he said.
Wohlgemuth said information on various fees for the study, including water service turnoff and service reactivation fees, was not included in the study.
The only rates left unchanged for the water authority’s 2015-16 fiscal year are the controversial fire hydrant fees currently set at an annual rate of $936 per hydrant. Sources say the draft study recommends increasing those fees to more than $1,000 per hydrant.
The hydrant fees have been a contentious issue between the water authority and local fire departments that want to see the hydrant fees lowered.
The water authority’s service area includes New Hyde Park, Floral Park, South Floral Park, Floral Park Centre, Bellerose, Stewart Manor, Elmont, and parts of Franklin Square, Garden City, Valley Stream and North Valley Stream.
Tierney has said the he plans to meet with the fire department chiefs to discuss the hydrant fees after the final version of the Dvirka & Bartilucci study is received.
While Ryan said the study would be finished in September, William Merklin, vice president of Dvirka & Bartilucci said completion of the $60,000 study depended on revising it based on feedback from the water authority board members. He declined to give a time frame to finalize the study.
“We can’t finalize it without their input,” Merklin said.
Water authority officials have said a public hearing on the Dvirka & Bartilucci study will precede the board acting on the study’s recommendations.
