The Town of La Ronge has been given the green light to raise water and sewer rates by 209 per cent over the next five years.
The town made the application to the Saskatchewan Municipal Board because it no longer wants to subsidize 49 per cent of the sewer and water services.
Mayor Thomas Sierzycki says no one wants to pay more for these services, but if the town hopes to address longstanding infrastructure issues, the move has to be made.
“Less taxpayers’ dollars will be going directly for the compensation and subsidization of water rates. We can, then, invest into projects such as those gensets that we talked about for power and water in outages. All of the infrastructure underground that’s aging, as it breaks down, we can definitely start replacing things.”
Sierzycki says even with the rate hike, water and sewer rates in La Ronge will still be competitive with other Saskatchewan communities.
Monthly sewer and water bills for residential customers in the town are currently $55. By 2019, they will be $170.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has called the planned rate hike “astronomical”, “very unusual”, and “completely out of line” with what it normally sees.
According to the Saskatchewan Municipal Board’s website, one of the main considerations for the board in reviewing municipal sewer and water rate hike applications is “that the revenue generated by the utility is sufficient to offset all expenditures”.
It goes on to say that “social or economic policy should not be factored into the rates. There are other mechanisms a municipality can utilize if they wish to subsidize a user than to adjust the utility rate to a lesser rate”.
The last sewer and water rate increases in La Ronge were in 2007.