The Mayor and Council will consider implementing a new rate structure for city water and sewer service together with new service rates, beginning in early 2021, as part of Fiscal Year 2022 budget deliberations.
This is a change from the previously publicized process. Presentations and public hearings on the rate structure have been postponed.
The city hired a consultant to develop a new structure, under which the Mayor and Council would set customers’ water and sewer rates based on property type, such as single-family, multi-family or nonresidential.
If approved, the new rate structure, and the new rates, would become effective for FY 2022, which begins July 1, 2021.
The city’s current water and sewer rates are tiered based on meter size, with no differentiation between property types. Fees go toward payments to repair and replace aging water and sewer pipes and other infrastructure vital to providing these services, and for required payments to the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission related to a regional wastewater treatment plant. For more on water and sewer rates, see page 371 of the FY 2021 budget, at www.rockvillemd.gov/budget.