City studies adjustments in sprinkling rates

Higher property taxes for urban forestry, street and light maintenance operations aren’t the only possible cost increases on the horizon for Kalispell residents this budget season.

City leaders are reviewing discounted “sprinkler rates” residential water customers get each year and discounted collection rates some commercial solid waste customers get for second and third garbage pickups each week.

A shorter season for sprinkling rates is being considered and could have people paying a little more for the same water and sewer services.

Kalispell offers sprinkling rates of $1.55 per 1,000 gallons of water for eight months a year, from March to October.

That discounted rate only applies to water used above a baseline calculated from people’s water use during November, December, January and February. It compares to normal in-city water rates of $2.43 per 1,000 gallons.

During sprinkler season, residential customers also do not pay sewer charges for the water they use beyond that winter baseline, saving them a $4.78 per 1,000 gallons sewer charge.

One idea behind the sprinkling program is that additional water use each summer — for watering lawns and gardens and washing cars — does not make its way to Kalispell’s wastewater treatment plant.

Questioning if eight months of discounted sprinkling rates each year is appropriate in a place like Kalispell with its short summer, city leaders are considering shrinking the sprinkling season down to just four months and calculating the winter baseline from six months of water use.

With the city’s bimonthly billing and different billing cycles for the east side and west sides of the city, the sprinkling season would be May, June, July and August for the west side and June, July, August and September for the east side.

During an informal work session Monday, members of the Kalispell City Council took differing views of the proposed changes.

Council member Jeff Zauner called it “insane” to offer eight months of discounted sprinkling rates in Kalispell and questioned if the city has even four months of summer. “I don’t see the logic or purpose of the old method,” he said. “I totally support the new recommended alternative.”

Bob Hafferman took a different view, pointing out that anyone who uses lots of water in those shoulder seasons on the chopping block stands to pay more for that water and face some additional sewer charges.

“I’ll be totally opposed to this because there’s a lot of people including some of the people now going into gardening who will be really penalized by having to pay higher rates for water that does not go through our wastewater treatment plant,” Hafferman said.

Other council members asked for a better breakdown of how the changes could affect peoples’ utility bills. Public works staffers plan to analyze that and bring the proposal back for additional consideration by the city council.

PROPOSED adjustments to solid waste collection charges would gut the discounted price structure for commercial customers who get more than one garbage pickup each week.

Second and third pickups are factored into the price structure at a lower cost than just one pickup a week.

If changes being considered by the Kalispell City Council take effect, those additional pickups would cost the same as one pickup.

For example, a commercial customer with a 400-gallon trash container presently pays $411 a year for one pickup a week, $704 a year for two pickups a week and $1,047 a year for three pickups a week. Under the proposed changes, the charge for two and three pickups would increase to $822 a year and $1,233 a year, respectively.

The change would affect about 150 commercial customers and generate an estimated $19,000 in additional revenue each year for the city’s solid waste operations.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.