August 10, 2022 |
In Rawlins, City Hall will submit a grant this week seeking nearly $7.5 million to update and improve the water delivery system from the springs south of town to the treatment plant. The governing body passed a resolution at special meeting on July 26th to apply for the grant, but the numbers used in the motion were not correct.
Pictured above: File photo of Rawlins City Hall. Photo by Cali O’Hare/Bigfoot 99.
The motion passed 6-0 with Vice Mayor Jacqueline Wells absent. The city’s publicist Mira Miller said a special meeting will be held tonight to tweak the language in the motion and get the numbers right. Miller said differences in the number is insignificant, but it is a matter of tying up loose ends.
The nearly $7.5 million grant will be used to replace the wood stave pipeline and spring boxes in the Sage Creek basins as well as to conduct repairs and maintenance to the 32-miles of pipeline delivering source water to the treatment plan south of the city. The money will come from federal American Rescue Plan funding, or ARPA, funneled through the State Land and Investment board.
ARPA, considered one of the most progressive pieces of legislation ever passed by congress, provided $350 billion in emergency funding for state, local, territorial, and Tribal governments to remedy this mismatch between rising costs and falling revenues because of the outbreak of coronavirus in 2020 and the consequences of governmental responses to it. Each state, including Wyoming, received $500 million.
Even with $7.5 million of the ARPA money to repair the city’s neglected water infrastructure, Rawlins’ residents will likely see their water bills increase by the end of this year or early 2023.
Earlier this year, the city hired a widely used and highly regarded rate analyst to review and evaluate water consumption, costs, and other data. Carl Brown will then deliver his recommendations to city council in a detailed report with suggestions and options.
Brown was recommended by the Wyoming Association of Rural Water Systems. He has conducted 330 rate analyses for municipalities since 2005. Miller said Brown could deliver his final product by next month.
Rawlins has seen only one small water rate increase over the last ten years. Now the city faces a funding crisis as it tackles to rehabilitate a system that has been neglected.
Brown’s work appears to make the rate setting from year to year fairly painless for successive councils after the initial adjustment.
According to Brown’s website, Getting Great Rates, following the initial set of rate adjustments, a municipality monitors the system’s financial performance. If it tracks as predicted, no changes will be needed for the rest of that year. At budget preparation time for each successive fiscal year, the system’s financial performance is compared with the projections in Brown’s report. If revenues and expenses are on track, rates and fees would follow incrementally as recommended in the report.
According to a statement from the city this week, the primary goal of hiring Brown is to make sure rates are structured in a fair way.
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