ELKINS — Elkins City Council approved the final reading of an ordinance that will raise the sewer rate by 42% for customers over the next three years.

During Thursday night’s council meeting, the eight present council members voted in favor of Ordinance 350, which will increase customer sewer rates three times over the next three years, totaling a 42% rate hike by 2028.

Second Ward representative Lisa Severino and Third Ward representative Christopher Lowther were absent from the meeting.

The three increases include a 15% increase effective May 15, a 12% increase effective May 15, 2027, and a 15% increase effective May 15, 2028.

According to Ordinance 350, the city found it necessary to increase the rates “in order to provide sufficient revenues for the City of Elkins to pay the daily expenses associated with the maintenance and operation of its sewer system, to provide working capital reserves as required by Chapter 24 of the West Virginia Code and to provide funding of its existing debt service.”

The increase comes following a recommendation from the Elkins Sanitary Board, which manages the city’s sewer system. The Elkins City Council previously approved a 32.5% sewage rate increase in April 2023. Before that, a 21.5% increase in the sewage rate was approved by council in November 2019.

In a press release put out in February regarding the proposed increase, the City of Elkins broke down what the new sewer rate increases will look like for a residential customer using an average of 3,400 gallons per month.

For those customers, the proposed increases would approximately amount to $7.62, or an additional $0.26 a day in 2026, $7.01, or an additional $0.24 a day in 2027, and $9.82, or an additional $0.33 a day in 2028. Officials also provided a chart that compares the current rate and proposed rate increases on the City of Elkins website.

Before Thursday’s meeting began, Council began a scheduled public hearing for any resident to speak on the matter of the sewer rate increase. No community members spoke at the public hearing.

After City Council voted to approve Ordinance 350, Wastewater System Chief Operator Whitney Hymes informed the council that, although they had just voted, Michael Griffith of Griffith & Associates was present if they had any questions.

Griffith, the city’s financial advisor on utility-related matters, provided guidance and advised officials on what the rate increase could look like, Fourth Ward representative Andrew Carroll said.

Carroll asked Griffith if there was anything he thought the residents of Elkins should know about the process of coming up with the new rates.

Griffith said they had received a lot of comments regarding the rates in other places.

“Of course, every place is different and how you’ve handled infrastructure and what’s happened and the timing of things,” Griffith said during the meeting. “For example, if you build a new sewer plant pre-Covid, you’re going to be in a lot better shape than if you build one today because of the inflationary impacts of all the stuff that you’re facing.”

Griffith used Huntington as an example, saying the City of Huntington’s sewer plant came in $50 million over estimate because they had begun planning for the facility pre-Covid, but the construction was not completed until after the pandemic started.

Griffith continued to explain how inflation has greatly affected city governments when it comes to costs for infrastructure and necessary equipment.

“For your utilities, and for some other city infrastructure, the inflation impact, especially in the last decade, dwarfs the overall impacts of inflation on other things,” Griffith said. “I’ll give you an example; like, some big electrical unit. It went up from $250,000 to $1.5 million in three years. Just one piece of equipment, and when you have some of these things that you have to have, they’re very expensive. A lot of people just don’t realize it and your customers don’t realize it.”

Carroll added that Elkins residents with any questions regarding the rate increase can find information on the City of Elkins website, and that the City Council members were “certainly happy” to continue to share information with any constituents who reach out to them.

Before the council voted on the ordinance, Hymes gave a report regarding an “emergency issue” on Thursday, during which the sewer force main went out on Glendale Avenue.

Members of the Elkins Wastewater Department were seen conducting an emergency sewer repair on Glendale Avenue that day, temporarily closing the entrance to Glendale Park in the meantime.

The 40-year-old 18-inch line had a crack on the bottom, Hymes said, who called the issue a “system failure.” Hymes said that was the second time in a year that this has happened.

Elkins City Council will meet again on April 9 at 7 p.m. at the Phil Gainer Community Center.