Columbia group criticizes council after water rate increase: ‘You can’t spin this ineffectiveness’

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Columbia group is unhappy with the City Council after it unanimously passed a water rate increase at its Monday night meeting.

Julie Ryan, of the COMO Safe Water Coalition, feels like the City Council failed to hold public utilities accountable for failing to make progress on several projects that were part of a 2018 bond issue that voters passed. This includes not purchasing any land for a new water tower in southwest Columbia and slow progress on water treatment plant upgrades that she believes should have been completed three years ago. 

“Council has given them a rate increase and what are we going to see from it? We're going to see less work that's getting done and they're just getting the rate increase and they're going to be able to use it for other things. And we don't really feel confident in that,” Ryan said. 

Ryan says that the COMO Safe Water Coalition is supportive of rate increases when they lead to improved water quality. However, she feels that the only reason for the rate increase was due to the city's inability to complete projects efficiently. 

“The problem is that they had some of the funding to complete these projects and they sat and they sat. And so then they had to shuffle some money around in order to accommodate the increase in construction costs for the water treatment plant,” Ryan explained. “Why are we having to then, as the ratepayer fund, their inability to execute projects in a timely manner that shouldn't be on us?” 

Even with the rate increases Ryan is still not confident that Columbia can complete the water projects in the 2018 bond. 

“The problem right now, too, is as we set this precedent to get done more work at the water treatment plant that does need to get done, they're going to have to go out for another bond,” Ryan said. “I don't know anybody right now in good conscience who could support voting for another bond when they clearly haven't been executing and accomplishing the projects done with that.” 

The council had discussed the rate increases for the fiscal year 2025 budget this summer and heard public feedback over several weeks. The city had approved rate increases in 2022 and 2023.

According to the council memo, the water rate increases go as follows:

• 4% increase in base fees
• 4% increase in residential tier 1
• 4% increase in commercial tier 1
• 4.5% increase in Airport
• 4.5% increase in summer tier 2
• 10% increase in summer tier 3
• 10% increase in irrigation summer

Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe addressed the reason for the rate increase during Monday’s City Council meeting. 

“Looking back when we did the pause and I see now what it did to the debt coverage and the fees we had to pay the two hundred and seventy-four thousand, and so I’m thankful too for the communication that we did outward facing about the need for this and the process of it coming to council, multiple work sessions and this coming to us,” Buffaloe said. “I also want to highlight, that I was really appreciative of staff for putting together the bill calculator where you could go in and put yours to see what the impact would be for your proposed bill. I think that was really useful.” 

The water bill calculator, which can be found here helps estimate how much a resident’s bill will be affected by these changes. For most residents, the cost increase will be small. 

“I had somebody in the first ward reach out to me and they were worried about it, staff helped me show them they were going to have a 94 cents increase and they were like ‘Oh this is less scary,’” Buffaloe said. 

The mayor also addressed the city being called out for not staying on top of its projects. She asked city staff to help keep the council more informed and notify them when an issue arises so they can proactively work to fix it. 

However, Ryan believes city leaders not being more informed in the first place is part of the issue. 

“You can't spin this ineffectiveness. I don't think we're going to see the things we want to see. I don't think we're going to see things get done.  And I think that unless we continue to keep coming to council and pointing this out,  I don't see anybody on council taking ownership,” Ryan said. “That's one thing we asked for. Have one of you on council take ownership of this and say, ‘Hey, I want to make sure that we are following this through and I want to do that on behalf of my council members. I want to make sure that we're seeing this.’ I really don't think we're seeing that. I think we're hearing sometimes City Council members saying, oh, yes, we need to make sure that that's happening.”