The New Whiteland Town Hall located at 540 Tracy Road.
New Whiteland residents will soon see a small increase in their stormwater bills.
The New Whiteland Town Council gave unanimous approval to raise the monthly stormwater rate by 50 cents on Wednesday. The increase raises the rate from $7.50 to $8 per equivalent residential unit, or ERU. One household equals one ERU, and commercial businesses are typically several ERU’s, based on capacity calculations.
This increase comes to gradually pay back some of what the town paid out of pocket for its utility in 2020 to fund a stormwater project to make several drainage improvements around town. The town decided to use its own money to pay for the project, instead of financing it, which ultimately saved money in the end, Town Attorney Lee Robbins said at the council’s Sept. 7 meeting.
The town dipped into the $4 million reserve it had from selling its water utility years ago to pay for it, Robbins said.
“In this case, that was the decision and the promise made at the time by the council that we would try to recoup some of that by charging to our sewer utility, a payment in lieu of taxes,” Robbins said.
The 50-cent rate increase was calculated by Matt Gillock, utility superintendent. He studied the town budget, revenue and how much is owed back from what was paid for the wastewater project, to come up with the rates. This was in lieu of paying up to $5,000 for a rate study, according to the meeting minutes from the Oct. 5 town council meeting.
