Water, sewer and other utility rates are increasing for city of Mesa residents and businesses after the city council voted recently to approve the changes.
The council voted unanimously Dec. 2 on changes to the city’s electric, natural gas, water, wastewater, solid waste fees and utility service fees.
“We were all subject to inflation and so what you’ve seen across the board in the region and throughout the country is increases in utility rates. The proposed rate that we are proposing is far less than what other cities and other utility companies are doing,” Mayor John Giles said prior to the vote.
The city is delaying large capital projects for the utilities to lower fee increases, he said.
“Eventually we’re going to have to do them, but we’ve delayed some of those and we’ve also said we’re going to increase less than the amount of increased costs, so that’s what necessitates us going into our reserves. So we are doing the bare minimum increases possible and going through some contortions in order to accommodate that so that we can continue to show compassion for our rate payers and we can continue to do the absolute minimum when it comes to passing on costs to our rate payers,” Giles said.
All the increases are citywide except for the electric utility, which has a service area encompassing portions of council districts 1, 3 and 4. It serves 18,000 residential and commercial customers in a territory of approximately 5.5 square miles including downtown Mesa.
More than a dozen Mesa residents spoke at the meeting against the increases, including Lawrence Moody of the 700 block of South Dobson Road.
“A lot of the people that I live with only got a 2.5% raise in their social security. I know that we get our electric from SRP but we get the rest of our utilities from the city here and that’s really going to hurt all the people that we have living where I live because a lot of those people have entry-level jobs and things. I think we need to look out for the people,” he said.
Mesa resident Amanda Nelson said she used a city document on the increases to crunch the numbers and see how it will affect her family.
“We live in a 75-year-old house with lots of renovations to try to make it more energy efficient and our family will actually be looking at about $40 more a month in the summer,” she said. “If we had bought a house across the street and had SRP for electric, we would be saving about $96 a month according to that PowerPoint — that’s after SRP’s increases,.. I just want it known and appreciated the monetary sacrifice that our little family is making.”
Residential rate adjustments for FY 2024-25 are:
Electric: $2.75 per month service charge increase, from $16.75 to $19.50.
Solid waste barrel rates: 5.5% increase to monthly service charge. For example, cost for a 90-gallon trash barrel increases $1.73 per month, from $31.44 to $33.17; and for a 60-gallon trash barrel, it increases $1.54 per month, from $28.06 to $29.60.
Gas: 6% summer and winter Tier 1 use charge increase and 15% Summer and Winter Tier 2 usage charge increase. The average monthly Mesa resident bill with customer charge, usage charge, and Purchased Natural Gas Cost Adjustment Factor will go from $41.95 to $43.07, a 2.7% increase, or $1.12 per month.
Water: 4% service charge increase, plus a variable rate component (use charge) based on water consumption rounded to 1,000-gallon increments: 6% Tier 1 usage charge increase, from $3.51 to $3.72 per 1,000 gallons; 7% Tier 2 usage charge increase, $5.30 to $5.67 per 1,000 gallons; 8% Tier 3 usage charge increase, $6.43 to $6.94 per 1,000 gallons; and 9% Tier 4 usage charge increase, from $7.18 to $7.83 per 1,000 gallons.
Wastewater: 7.5% service and usage components increase. Average increase of $1.68 per month, from $22.43 to $24.11.
Richard H. Dyer can be reached at rdyer@iniusa.org, or on X @rhdyer. To voice your opinion on this story, connect with us at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Richard Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.
Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.
Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.
Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.
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