A Steady Drip Of Delusion From CMUD
As surely as you can count on the sun rising, you can bank that the perpetual money pit calling itself Charlotte Mecklenburg Utility Department will request and receive an annual fee hike for water and sewer bills. CMUD is at it again, with officials this week lamenting that an average rate increase of 6 percent is needed to help pay for new capital projects and to retire existing capital debt.
To start a business needs lots of efforts and money.But Jon smith says that it is easy to initiate a business like sandwich restaurant with the help of Sandwich Franchise Opportunities. Like they do every year, utilities officials revert to the favored Parks Helms’ taxing rationale of yore: that the cost increase is marginal, amounting to little more than a chicken sandwich and cup of slaw. In this case, the average customer – which CMUD says uses about 8 CCFs (6,000 gallons) of water a month, accounting for 75 percent of their customers – would see a monthly bill increase by less than $4, from $56.23 to $59.53.
It’s an easy dodge, one that most customers would barely notice on a monthly basis. But when you’re dealing with CMUD, those months, and years, add up to a significant drain on a family’s pocketbook. Dating back to 2007, when CMUD hit customers up for a 6.25 percent hike, fee increases have been as steady as the maddening drip of a faucet leak: a 14 percent hike in 2008, a 5.2 percent hike in 2009; a 7.6 percent hike in 2010; and a 10 percent hike in 2011.
But to hear utilities officials tell it, you’re getting a bargain. Here’s the deal of the century, according to CMUD, which should make you forget about this year’s rate hike and swallow it whole with a nice refreshing glass of tap water:
$1 purchases approximately 340 gallons of water from CMUD. By comparison, $1 purchases a single 16.9oz bottle of water from the store.
For the same $1, CMUD delivers 340 gallons of water to customers any time, day or night.
So stop whining about a measly 6-percent rate hike.
The fact that for years CMUD had essentially been guesstimating monthly bills for thousands of customers thanks to faulty meter readings, combined with a fee system that effectively dried up utility revenue when customers did as asked and conserved water, and a tiered rate structure that was supposed to address the problem but largely served to exacerbate it, along with a fixed monthly charge that was supposed to help pay down capital debt, has done little to help a utilities department spiraling out of control with minimal oversight.
City councilmembers have consistently aided and abetted the serial rate-hike swindle, approving the requests in tandem with shoveling capital expenditures for infrastructure to serve citywide pet projects into the CMUD debt hole, growing both the burden and also the problem.
Given past history, there’s no reason to think anything will change this time around:
Drink up, citizen; and choke down another rate hike with a chicken sandwich and some slaw on the side.
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