Queen Creek council to decide on water rate hike

The Queen Creek Town Council will soon be settling the question of a proposed 15% water rate hike for residents.

At its upcoming Wednesday, July 16 meeting, the council will be holding a public hearing and vote on the proposed hike.

The rate hike, first introduced to the council during its Feb. 19 meeting, is meant to offset costs of providing water to the rapidly growing town. Queen Creek has not instituted a water rate hike since 2010.

“We always talk about being fair, and gosh, we would love to be able to put prices down rather than up,” Council Member Robin Benning said at the February meeting. “But the reality is for our residents there’s a structural deficit and we need to figure out ways to reduce that deficit to the greatest extent possible, and unfortunately, if that means raising rates — there’s no magic pill, we have to do that.”

If approved on July 16, the new rates will be effective on Aug. 15 and will be reflected in residents’ water bills beginning with the Oct. 7 billing cycle.

During the past 10 years, the town’s water utility has grown to a service area of about 70 square miles — larger than the town’s boundary — and has 40,000 accounts.

In June 2023, the town’s water utility was operating at an $11.4 million deficit. The deficit grew to $16.7 million as of June 2024, according to staff documents.

The rate hike is forecast to raise revenue by $4.3 million in the next fiscal year. The 40,000 residential accounts will account for 67%, or $3 million, of the increased revenue. More than half the residential accounts, 25,000, will see an increase of between $3 and $6 a month.

Even with the increase, most Queen Creek residential customers will be paying less than residents in neighboring cities.

Based on a staff report, an average monthly water bill for Queen Creek customers will rise from $34.26 to $39.40. That’s still lower than Tempe at $45.42, Gilbert at $52.78 and Mesa at $62.66.

Over the past year, Gilbert and Tempe have raised their customers’ water and wastewater rates.

This will be the second public hearing the council has held on the proposed hike.

Under state statute, a municipality looking to increase water or wastewater fees must adopt a notice of intent that sets a public hearing on the matter at least 60 days later.

While the notice of the hearing was posted on the town’s website and included in water bills, the town failed to publish it one time “in a newspaper of general circulation within the boundaries of the municipality not less than (20) days before the public hearing date,” according to the statute.

As a result, the council vote on the issue had to be pushed to July, but the scheduled May 7 public hearing was still held and council voted to add the second hearing. No member of the public spoke at the first hearing.

The council meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at Community Chambers, 20727 E. Civic Parkway.

The town has set up an online calculator to help residents estimate their new water rates, at https://bit.ly/41qV25d.

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