The DeKalb County Board of Commissioners can’t delay a vote to increase water and sewer rates to 2025 without it adversely affecting a series of projects that are planned over the next seven years, and costing ratepayers even more, according to county staffers.
DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond has proposed raising rates by more than 19% over three years to fund improvements to the long-neglected water and sewer systems.
If the board approves the rate increases this year, DeKalb could issue bonds worth about $200 million, said Maria Houser, the county’s director of consent decree and environmental compliance. If commissioners wait until January, when incoming CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson is sworn in, the value of the bonds will be cut in half because the delay will add another year that existing bondholders need to be paid, staffers said.
“We pay now or we lose the system,” Watershed Management Director David Hayes said. “This is something that cannot be deferred any longer.”
DeKalb’s fiscal year is the same as the calendar year. Delaying a vote until 2025 will make some of the projects more expensive if the county is still paying for them in 2033 instead of 2032, Chief Financial Officer Dianne McNabb said.
Cochran-Johnson, who takes office Jan. 1, said she supports the rate increases. She told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Thurmond should have instituted them earlier.
“It should have been done eight years ago and that’s why I’m angry about it,” she said.
On the AJC’s “Politically Georgia” podcast, she said, “I’m here to own it, because it’s time.”
The board of commissioners is scheduled to vote on the issue Tuesday. If approved, rates would increase by 6% over each of the next three years, beginning in March 2025.
Revenue from the bonds would fund upgrades to the tank that stores drinking water at the Scott Candler Water Treatment Plant. The rate increases are also needed to cover watershed department operating expenses, McNabb said.
The proposed increases alone will not fund the DeKalb water system’s immediate needs. Infrastructure improvements will cost $260 million in each of the next few years, Hayes said.
The county plans to issue more bonds and apply for more loans to make up the difference, McNabb said.
When Thurmond took office in 2017, the county had just imposed a moratorium on water shutoffs as it worked to fix a system that was generating erroneous and outrageously high bills. The moratorium ended in 2021. The following year, DeKalb increased water and sewer rates by 6%, but kept them flat last year, instead using federal grants and loans for infrastructure repairs.
DeKalb plans to add a major water transmission pipeline for the first time in 50 years, in the northern part of the county. It would be a 25-year project with an estimated cost of $650 million, the watershed department said earlier this year. Replacing all DeKalb’s aging water pipes by 2050 will cost $4.4 billion, according to the county.
The county is under a federal consent decree that mandates $1 billion worth of improvements to the sewer system by 2027. If the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency steps in, rate hikes could be even worse, Commissioner Ted Terry said.
“We do this our own way or a federal consent decree will force us,” Terry said.
The rate increases would bring the average DeKalb water and sewer bill from $70 per month to more than $83 per month in 2027.
The county disconnected water service last year to nearly 4,700 customers, or 2.3% of the total base. Alongside the rate increases, county staff this week proposed a customer assistance program, including sliding-scale bills for households with incomes at or below half the area median. According to this year’s U.S. Housing and Urban Development data, that means a family of four would qualify with an income of $53,750 or less.
David Wheaton, an attorney for the Legal Defense Fund, said the customer assistance program should be paid for with water and sewer bill revenue, not from the county’s general fund. The Legal Defense Fund and the DeKalb Water Watch coalition are also requesting shutoff protections for low-income households that have seniors, people with disabilities or children.
“This would set DeKalb apart and make it one of the most progressive jurisdictions in the Deep South when it comes to water affordability,” Wheaton said.
— Staff writer Sara Gregory contributed to this article.
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