{"id":20229,"date":"2018-03-28T23:34:05","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T03:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20229"},"modified":"2018-03-28T23:34:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T03:34:05","slug":"average-home-water-bills-set-to-rise-100-for-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/average-home-water-bills-set-to-rise-100-for-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Average home water bills set to rise $100 for the year"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Average home water bills in Aurora are set to rise $25 per quarter this year.
\nCouncil is expected to sign off this week on the 2018 Water, Wastewater and Stormwater Budgets, which will see rates rise for wastewater and stormwater services, and a slight dip for regular out-of-tap water services.
\nThis year will see the retail water rate go down by just over 12 per cent to $2.01 per cubic metre, but the wastewater rate will rise 33.3 per cent, for a combined impact of 9.2 per cent on the tax bill.
\nThe average household uses 62 cubic metres of water per year and, using these metrics, the household will see their bills rise by $25.61 for each quarterly bill.
\nPart of the pressure is the ever-increasing bulk water rate from the Region of York, from which Aurora\u2019s water is purchased. Their bulk water rate is going up by 11.3 per cent, along with a 7.5 per cent increase for wastewater.
\nThis year\u2019s water budget will see some juggling in the three different areas to achieve the correct balance. According to the report before Council by Town Treasurer Dan Elliott, last year\u2019s water budget included \u201cerrors in forecasting\u201d where wholesale costs for water were overstated by more than $1 million. On the other hand, wholesale costs for wastewater were understated by more than $1 million.
\nIn short, Aurora residents consumed less water than purchased by the municipality but the municipal purchase still needs to be paid for.
\n\u201cPeople are buying less water. That means there is less contribution to pay for these operational costs, so that puts an upward rate pressure on the budget,\u201d said Mr. Elliott. \u201cThe more customers does the opposite and they almost outweigh each other, but the growth of more customers does put a downward pressure on the water rates, and a downward pressure on storm rates.
\n\u201cWe have wholesale costs continuing to increase, however while the [Region] rates are increasing , household demand per household is actually decreasing and there are a number of factors there. Despite growth, our water consumption is not actually growing all that much as household demand is decreasing. Our fixed costs, I believe, are in good order. The growth has been adding pressures to us from a staffing perspective, so this budget is asking for two new staff, an additional mechanic in fleet maintenance area, our shop is having difficulty maintaining the entire fleet and keeping things operational and ready for the day\u2019s activities. We\u2019re also requesting a full time status conversion of an existing full time contract in our financial services area to support the water administration. With growth and real estate activity, there are a lot of factors that are driving the need for staffing there.\u201d
\nLooking at the numbers, Council questioned the long line of bulk water rate increases handed down from the Region of York, including Councillor Michael Thompson who said while this was once said to only be a short-term measure, the finish line keeps getting pushed.
\n\u201cSince I have been on Council, the wholesale rates have been increasing nine or 10 per cent every year,\u201d said Councillor Thompson to Mr. Elliott. \u201cWhenever we gave gotten the outlook\u2026 It seems every time we get closer to the taper down point, the Region comes back and says we still need to keep it around that nine or 10 per cent. Are you confident the current forecast calling for it to taper down in the next few years will actually happen?\u201d
\nBut Mr. Elliott said he was confident that his forecast aligned with the Region\u2019s forecast \u2013 and that was as far as he would go.
\n\u201cWith great respect, the Region puts out their forecast and I only convey it to you as factually as I can,\u201d he said. \u201cIt seems that they predict a waning down. In the meantime, they are through their five year update program, they find more costs down the road or the cost escalations are through the roof\u2026 and I have experienced the same thing in our own shop.
\n\u201cThe rate is being driven primarily from their own contributions to their reserves and looking after their infrastructure, but also upstream from them is the Region of Peel and the City of Toronto doing the same thing with their wholesale rates. It is a tumbling effect. Fortunately for us, we\u2019re pretty much near end of our full cost recovery approach with the exception of stormwater. We have some work there to do, still.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Average home water bills in Aurora are set to rise $25 per quarter this year.
\nCouncil is expected to sign off this week on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5gh","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 15:21:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}