Chandler Council to take 9% utility rate hikes to residents

By Jason W. Brooks
Mail | X: @JasonWBrooks2

No one signed up to speak during the Chandler City Council’s Aug. 10 afternoon work session on proposed utility rate hikes.

But since going out to ratepayers with a public input process was up for approval as part of Council’s Aug. 13 regular meeting consent agenda, one resident signed up to speak and voiced his opposition.

“If Council could help me find the trees that grow money, I might be able to do something” in paying proposed 2027 utility rates, Jim Rack told Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke and Council. “But the increases are starting to get a little ridiculous.”

Rack was referring to proposals released the week of Aug. 10 by the city for rates that would start Jan. 4, 2027. Monday’s work session was mainly used for public works and finance staff to explain some of the details to Council, which approved the start of the process at the Aug. 13 meeting.

By approving the Aug. 13 consent agenda, Council adopted notice of intention to increase certain water, wastewater, reclaimed water and solid waste rates, with a public input process to culminate with a public hearing on Oct. 15.

Hartke responded to Rack’s complaints, pointing out that Chandler still will have lower rates and milder increases than other nearby municipalities, specifically naming Gilbert. He said inflation on construction materials alone is 6%.

“We want to make sure our water lines, our sewer lines are in great shape, so that we are not having breaks, which are even more expensive,” Hartke told the resident.

The intent to raise rates calls for 9% increases to all five types of water rates — residential, multifamily, non-residential, landscape and industrial — as well as for reclaimed water, starting Jan. 4 of next year. Wastewater rates would rise by 6.5% and solid waste would go up by 4.5%.

During the work session, budget director Matt Dunbar and Public Works director Jeremy Abbott talked mostly about cost of service, detailing the many projects utility revenue pays for and how the cost of labor and materials has risen.

One of the projects Abbott touched on was the combination of roads in need of surface improvements that are in the same location as an aging water main. Water mains breaking has become a nearly monthly occurrence in the older-developed parts of the city.

“One of the things we’ll look at is if we have a low-quality pavement surface that’s projected to be replaced in the next few years, if we also have a high-risk main (for failure) in the area, we’ll coordinate and do all that at once,” Abbott said.

In a presentation last spring, staff mentioned not only the 9% rate increases proposed for January 2027, but also forecast that there might be a need for some level of increase to rates annually for the foreseeable future.

Dunbar said cost-of-service analyses, typically approached every five years in the past by cities of Chandler’s size, will be done more often, with Council approval.

“The next analysis will start within the next month or two and will be done by April or May of next year,” Dunbar said.

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