Comments (26) | Add a comment
Water authority workshops to look at rate hikes
Tools
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
The Southern Nevada Water Authority will have three public workshops next week on a proposal to raise rates to fund water infrastructure and pay down debt.
In a unanimous vote last month, the authority board selected three rate hike options to send to its member utilities for consideration.
Valley residents can get more information about the proposals and provide input during the workshops. They will be Monday at Sedway Middle School, 3465 Englestad St. in North Las Vegas; Wednesday at Becker Middle School, 9151 Pinewood Hills Drive in Las Vegas; and Thursday at Miller Middle School, 2400 Cozy Hill Circle in Henderson. All the sessions are from 5 to 8 p.m.
Public input will be accepted during the workshops. Comments can be submitted on the authority's website, www.snwa.com, through 6 p.m. Feb. 22.
The website also has a calculator so customers can figure out how the options might affect their bills.
The board is slated to pick one of the three options at its next meeting, scheduled for 9 a.m. Feb. 29 at the authority's headquarters on the seventh floor of the Molasky Corporate Center, 100 City Parkway in downtown Las Vegas.
Authority officials say they need to raise rates to replace revenue lost when the housing bubble burst and the economy crashed. The valley's wholesale water supplier used to depend on connection charges from new homes and businesses for nearly 60 percent of the money it used to build infrastructure and pay down construction debt. That revenue stream has all but run dry.
The first rate hike option would be to increase the monthly commodity charge from 30 cents to $1.06 per 1,000 gallons of water used. That translates to an average monthly increase of $9.88 for the typical single-family home, but residents could trim that by reducing water use.
The second option would establish a flat infrastructure surcharge based on the size of the customer's water line: $5 a month for the average home, $36 more for a small retail store and $2,200 for a large resort.
The third option is a blend of the first two and translates to $5.65 for most homes, $31.04 for small stores and $3,855 for large resorts in the first year.
Trending topics:
Comments
Terms & Conditions
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The Review-Journal does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please use the Report Abuse button.
Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 24 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
LAS VEGAS RESIDENTS WAKE UP..THE WATER RATES IN THE FIRSE PLAN IS TO RAISE EVERY 1,000 GAL USED BY 76 CENTS. THIS IS AN INCREASE FROM THE TIER 1 OF 1.16 TO 1.92, TIER 2 FROM 2.08 TO 2.84, TIER 3 FROM 3.09 TO3.85 AND TIER 4 FROM 4.58 TO 5.34..YOU DO NOT REALIZE THIS BECAUSE YOU ALREADY ARE PAYING 30 CENTS MORE FOR EACH AMOUNT USED IN EACH OF THE TIERS, BUT THEY SNEEKIDLY PUT IT AS A CONSUMPTION CHARGE. SO THE REAL PRICE OF WATER IS: 1) 2022, 2) 3.14, 30 4.15, 4) 5.64...DO NOT LET THEM FOOL YOU INTO THINKING YOUR WATER WILL ONLY GO UP LESS THAN 9.00 PER MONTH.......
The Las Vegas Water Authority should postpone the drilling and construction of 3rd intake pipe and not keep raising the water rates. There are thousands of vacant homes who are not using any water and a lot have move out of Las Vegas so it is not an immediate need to build a 3rd intake pipe. This intake pipe construction lacks planning and foresight as evident by the lose of the tunnel they built last year who got flooder with water and had to be closed and sealed wasting about $40 million. Now they'll charge this losses to the struggling consumers including those thousands who can't find a work. The water district management does not mind if they mismanage the funds of the water district as they are not accountable to anyone. The general manager, Pat Mulroy, has held the position since 1999 but never had any performance review even once to see if she's managing the water district efficiently. She should be fired and replaced by someone who will run the district efficiently and not charge the consumer rate increase everytime they incur losses because of poor management. Most of Las Vegas working families are struggling and we are getting squeeze further by these rate increases by water, power and gas utilities.
From .30 to 1.06 for every 1K gal? ....so...take your last bill and multiply it by 3.53 and that will be your new water bill....that is until we start paying for the new pipeline that the water district is going to build no matter what. At that point you can multiply your new revised bill again, but this time by about 5....its coming
It is more a time to look at where the Water District spends it's money. With so much of LV closed down, why not close "the Springs Preserve". That will save a lot of money. Review a decrease all the employees that make over $150,000 per year at the Water District. This would save another ton of doe. Water is a basic need for us. They should not have such a strong hold on their wishes to "get rich" off the public. Nobody should expect a raise in water rates at this time and until the District quits it's spending, building huge buildings for themselves, and just look at the expenses when they travel. People, wake up.
Big Government at work....the picture that comes to mind is 5 guys leaning on shovels, the background is traffic back-up as far as the eye can see. The only visible obstacle is something in the roadway that needs to be scooped up with one of those leaning post shovels and thrown off the road. The need is there. The resource is there, the problem is obvious, as is the solution. The problem is in the execution. As in all executions, the executioner does not want to be known.
Mulroy is the poster child for the "New Nazi Movement" Indoctrination is the key to success. A post below blasts the Springs Preserve as folly, which it is. How about the catastrophe at Lake Mead called the third straw. has it burned thru a Billion $ yet? If not it is very very close.
Second only to air as essential to life water to these people has become their key to the Gold. Explain to me how a power starved cougar like Mulroy has gatherd the power to shut off a persons water for unpaid bill. remember..No Water, No Life
If the bureaucratic drones at "Water Works" can flush 30 or so million down the toilet on their "Mulroy's folly" called Springs Preserve, they can starve before they get a raise as far as I am concerned. A thorough house cleaning is in order at that mismanged monstrosity!
As the article states........."In a unanimous vote last month, the authority board selected three rate-hike options to send along to its member utilities for consideration."
@ vegaslee: Since a Stockholder and a Shareholder are both interpreted as owners of shares of a company or corporation, and SNWA buys and leases shares to Individuals, Businesses, Towns, Cities, and Countys, and Jurisdictions within the state, essentially these shareholders have a vested interest in the corporations decision making, and Profit Margin. And YES, they DO have Board meetings.
I thought water was free.