Philadelphia scales back requested water rate increase, to 10.2%

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Creative Commons Licence

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Contributed date

May 13, 2021 - 5:54pm

Critical Commentary

The Philadelphia Water Department scaled back its requested 17.6% two-year rate increase after City Hall reduced the amount the department contributes to the city’s pension plan.At a City Council budget hearing, Water Commissioner Randy E. Hayman told councilmembers that his agency had reduced its proposed rate increase to about 10.2% over the next two years — 3.6% this September, and 6.4% in September 2022. Over two years, average bills would increase by $6.82, from $66.73 to $73.55, or 10.2%.The five-member Water, Sewer, and Storm Water Rate Board is expected to make a decision on the rate proposal by June 16.

Councilwoman Cindy Bass said the pandemic was no time to raise rates, citing a March 17 Inquirer article reporting that about 154,000 customers have fallen behind on payments, or nearly a third of the Water Department’s 496,000 accounts. 

Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration plans to use the $1.4 billion Philadelphia is receiving from the federal stimulus package in the next two years to balance the city’s budget, not help out the water department, which generates revenue independently of the city’s general fund. Water Commissioner Hayman said the water department needed additional money last year to meet increasing costs and the constant need to upgrade and repair the city’s aging water, wastewater and stormwater systems. The Water Department withdrew its rate increase request last year amid the pandemic, but reinstated the request this year.

It's important to highlight the hits being taken by both city employees (as funding for the city's pension fund is being reduced from PWD) and by residents of Philadelphia, and especially the 1/3 of PWD customers who have fallen behind on their bills due to COVID-19, due to inadequate funding for updating and maintaining the city's water infrastructure. The question is which agents should be held accountable for this abysmal governance? Federal funding for water infrastructure in the United States is nominal compared to other developed countries, as rising water rates and water inaffordability is wide-spread among big cities in the United States. Simultaneously the Kenney administration in Philadelphia is refusing to use COVID-19 relief funding from the federal government, which consists of nearly $1.4 billion, to fund PWD so that they won't have to raise water rates at a moment in history where hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians are struggling to afford basic necessities, such as access to clean water, and will continue to struggle due to COVID-19. 

Source

inquirer.com

Cite as

Andrew Maykuth, "Philadelphia scales back requested water rate increase, to 10.2%", contributed by Morgan Sarao and Alison Kenner, The Energy Rights Project, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 13 May 2021, accessed 28 March 2024. https://energyrights.info/content/philadelphia-scales-back-requested-water-rate-increase-102