Rocky Top council OKs water, sewer rate hikes up to 3.3% for this year
Rocky Top water and sewer bills will rise at least 2.5% each as of July 1, and could go as high as the national consumer price index to be released on June 30, which is expected to be around 3.3%, under terms of an ordinance passed by the City Council on second and final reading last Thursday evening.
The vote was 3-0, with councilmembers Mack Bunch and Jeff Gilliam, along with Mayor Kerry Templin, approving the measure. Councilmembers Stacy Phillips and Zack Green were absent.
At 5:30 p.m., just before the 6 p.m. council meeting, the council held a public hearing on the proposed water and sewer rate increases, but no one showed up to voice any opinions about them.
City Manager Mike Ellis said the actual amount of the increases won’t be known until the federal government releases the June CPI on the final day of the month.
These increases will follow similar rises in water and sewer bills that took place last year as the city took steps to raise the rates to account for higher costs of providing water and sewer services that city officials believe are in line with consumer price increases in general.
Consumer prices have increased significantly over the past three years, city officials noted.
The newest Rocky Top water and sewer rate increases were approved on first reading of Ordinance 587, passed by the City Council on a 4-1 vote during the monthly meeting on May 16.
Gilliam made the motion to approve the higher rates, and the motion was seconded by Phillips. Bunch and Templin voted “yes,” but Green cast the lone “no” vote.
Green was the only councilmember to vote against bigger water and sewer rate increases last year.
On Aug 28, the council voted to raise water and sewer rates on average $30 to $50 a month for most customers beginning Oct. 1.
As with the first reading of that rate-increase ordinance on Aug. 17, the council voted 4-1 to raise the rates, after holding a public hearing that was attended by only one person besides the council and city staff.
Green, who was then also the only “no” vote on the ordinance, was also the only person to speak during the hearing in opposition to the rate increases.
“We live in an impoverished community,” he said at the time. “People can’t afford this.”
Templin has said the water and sewer rate increases are necessary to keep up with inflation, which is causing operating expenses to rise.
“This is not a significant increase,” he said in August. “But it is going to cost people more. It’s something we have to do to maintain the integrity of our system.”
Green argued at the time that the increases were not based on any professional estimates, but only on the calculations of the city staff.
He had asked that the rate increases be delayed until outside consultants could determine how big they should be to keep the city’s water and sewer systems operating in the black.
“We don’t need to raise the rates more than they need to be,” he said.
Ellis told the council that the rates “will have to go up 6% again next year, too,” but with the ordinance passed last week, the rate increases will actually be about half of that.
Rocky Top had already been identified as having the highest water and sewer rates in the region, according to a study by the Clinton Utilities Board that was presented to the Anderson County Commission in 2022.
The city buys its fresh water from the Anderson County Water Authority, but distributes it through its own system to residential and commercial customers.
Rocky Top operates its own wastewater treatment plant and collection system, which is now in the middle of a major upgrade that is costing millions of dollars.
Most of that is being paid from grants, however.
