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Columbia City Council OKs water utility rate hike

The outside of the City Hall in downtown Columbia

Columbia residents' and businesses' water bills will go up 4% starting Oct. 1, after the Columbia City Council approved the hike unanimously Monday night.

The 4% increase in base fees for water utilities is an element of Columbia's 2025 Fiscal Year budget, which is expected to be approved on Sept. 16. Monday's City Council meeting held the second of three public hearings for the budget.

City staff expect that the water utility rate hike will bring in $1.65 million in additional revenue for Columbia, according to a council memo. Residents with an average monthly water usage, around 8,500 gallons, are expected to pay an additional $2.58 per monthly bill, according to a sample bill presented to the council earlier this month.

The hikes come as city staff say they need additional funding to treat the water, pay off debt and cover pay increases for employees.

Julie Ryan, co-founder of the COMO Safe Water Coalition, wanted the council to address other promised infrastructure projects, like the West Ash Pump Station, before raising water prices.

"You're going to ask people to pay more on their water rates when nobody seems to be able to control how this infrastructure gets taken care of," Ryan said.

Columbia residents also had the opportunity to weigh in on the entire city budget for 2025, which will begin Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year. The budget lays out how the city plans to make and spend money in the next fiscal year, which runs from October to the end of the following September.

In the budget's current state, the operating expenditures and capital improvement projects exceed the city's expected revenue for the year by over $20 million.

City Manager De'Carlon Seewood made comments late last month about the potential for the city to face fiscal challenges with current trends in revenue and spending.

Seewood followed up on those remarks after public comment, saying he did not want to "raise the alarm" about cutting back on spending yet.

"The budget is a tool," Seewood said. "It's that guide that kind of tells you exactly where you're heading as you're looking at your revenue, at your expenditures and your ability to execute services. And there will be times when you look at it and say, 'Okay, maybe we need to scale back,' and say, 'Okay, we don't believe we're going to get here.' We're not at that point yet."

The Columbia Missourian is a community news organization managed by professional editors and staffed by Missouri School of Journalism students who do the reporting, design, copy editing, information graphics, photography and multimedia.
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