Archive: News

On December 6th the Village of Lansing Trustees was faced with a Bolton Point water rate increase of $0.12/1,000 gal. and an additional $0.10/1,000 gal. to be earmarked for a capital reserve.  They did not approve.no  The rate would be the amount raised by the Bolton Point Water Commission, with town and village water rates set on top of that.  In order for the rate increase to go into effect all five municipalities that partner in Bolton Point would have to approve it.  The Towns of Ithaca and Dryden and the Villages of Lansing and Cayuga Heights had gone along.  But the Town of Lansing said no.

"Personally I'm very disappointed in the rate increase we are seeing," Lansing Town Supervisor Scott Pinney explained at the November Town Board meeting.  "4.5% is going to the general operations increase.  The rest of that is going to a capital fund project , which at this point is not defined.  Put these together and you get a 17% increase in one year.  I feel in this economy it is unrealistic to have that large of an increase."

The Town had just come off of a lengthy budget process in which it passed a budget that will reduce both the tax levy and the tax rate for Town property owners.  Pinney said that the increase was speculative because the water commission didn't have reliable statistics on capital needs.  He noted that replacement of a major water tank that had outlived its estimated life span was postponed in the eleventh hour after a consultant told the commission it could last another two years.


"We were ready to move forward with replacing the water tank for $2.7 million," Pinney told his board.  "It came out that we really didn't have the money.  There would be a huge increase in taxes to pay for this tank.  I asked, 'Can't we extend that by one more year until we could better afford this tank?'  It turned out there was no engineering study on the tank and there was no internal study on the tank.  The only reason we were paying $2.7 million to replace the tank was that it's life expectancy had run out.  So we hired an engineer to inspect the tank and they guaranteed the tank was good for a minimum of two more years.  They may inspect it again next year and find it's good for another two years.  So the point at which that tank needs to be replaced is really unknown right now."

Pinney asked Town Highway Superintendent Jack French what the actual life of water mains in Lansing is.  French said that natural occurrences such as mini-earthquakes or pipes laid around naturally corrosive materials can cause spot problems, but that in general Lansing water mains can last long past their estimated life span.

"We've dug up water lines that have been in the ground for 25 or 30 years that are still like new," French said.  "There are places where it is close to material in the ground that does rot the pipe out in 15 years.  The one on East Shore Drive was put in in the 1930s and it has had no leaks this year."

The Town Board voted unanimously against the proposed rate increase, but not before Deputy Supervisor Connie Wilcox noted that it would go back to the water commission, which she said would likely propose the same rate again.  She said that it could lead to an unending loop that would be the equivalent of a stalemate.  Both Wilcox and Pinney are on the water commission, as is Village of Lansing Mayor Don Hartill.

Hartill told his board Monday that he agrees with the Town's vote.  He says that he is against the increase because the proposed capital fund has no specific mission.  He says the commission should be able to operate from a fund balance that is generally predictable from year to year, and that Bolton Point is cash-strapped now because of artificially low rate increases in the past.

"I pushed very hard at our last commission meeting to simply either itemize what you're going to spend and increase the rate accordingly, or on average what we've seen in the past is you have that kind of fund balance with funds available to buy trucks, replace pumps or whatever you need.  It was not accepted, but this capital projects fund was," Hartill said.  "So we're back to square one."

Square One means that the water commissioners will have to come up with another plan which may or may not include a lower rate increase.  They will still have to fund equipment, trucks, the new tank and transmission mains.  But the combination of the uncertainty of what and when those capital projects will happen and a disappointing economic recovery have made them a hard sell, at least to the one municipality that voted against it.

Hartill notes that water bills are fairly low, but the principal of the issue is significant in hard economic times. 

"The cost to a homeowner is not a lot," he says.  "The typical water bill here in the Village in a single family dwelling is about $40 per quarter.  This will increase that to about $45 per quarter."

Cooperative Municipalities have been known to pressure recalcitrant members to vote for things they don't necessarily think are best for their communities.  The Town appeared to give into that kind of pressure when the county-wide health insurance cooperative was being formed not long ago.  But when it came down to getting on the band wagon or driving its own, the Town chose not to participate, deciding it could get a more favorable rate elsewhere.  Town Councilmen and women have worried on several occasions in public meetings that they are seen as uncooperative because of votes like this that impact the will of other municipalities.  In this case no one board member hesitated to vote no, and the board had trouble even seconding the motion to vote on the increase.

If that November vote was any indication, the water rate increase will be an even harder sell.  The question is, what amount of water pressure will it take to approve a rate that sets the commission back on a workable fiscal course while satisfying struggling ratepayers?

Without knowing what Bolton Point's water rate is, the board could not set the Town water rate.  Two and a half weeks later the Village of Lansing was in the same boat: it could not set its sewer rate, because that charge is based on the water rate.  Village Clerk Jodi Dake noted that there is no hurry, because they don't change their billing until April.  That may be more problematic for the Town and some other municipalities that operate on a January to January fiscal year.  They will have to wait to change their rates until the next billing quarter -- if the water commission rate is resolved by then.

Or perhaps not.  The intermunicipal water aggreement states that the rate simply doesn't change unless all five municipalities approve it.  That means at this point, at least, there is no rate increase.

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