Water and Sewer Rates to Increase, Effective July 1

Water and sewer rates will increase by 4% and 8%, respectively, in the upcoming fiscal year.

The new rates will be reflected in the Aug. 1 bills for water consumption in July.

The increases, approved by the Select Board this month, aim to “recalibrate” the finances, particularly by growing the reserve fund balance.

Dave Fox, vice president of the utility management consulting group Raftelis, said sewer bills nationwide have been increasing by 6% each year. Last year, both sewer and water rates in Belmont increased for the first time since 2018 and 2019, respectively.

“That’s an anomalous amount of time to not have an increase,” said Fox.

He emphasized the importance of the reserve fund—both as a “rainy day fund” when revenue is low during certain seasons or times of the year and for capital improvements.

“That reserve fund balance … if we’re running a structural deficit in perpetuity over time, that’s going to eat into that reserve fund balance to the point it would go negative in 2028, which we cannot allow to happen,” he said of the water fund. The sewer fund would “enter the negative” as soon as 2026 or 2027.

According to Fox, Raftelis worked with the town last year to create a five-year financial plan for the town’s sewer and water funds. The process considered the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority (MWRA) assessment, operating expenses, and the capital improvements plan.

“Unfortunately, the water and sewer enterprise business is very capital intensive,” he said. “We live in a very old infrastructure part of the country and that infrastructure needs to be renewed and replaced to maintain that reliability and quality of service. We take all that into consideration, and we compare that to … how much revenue is being brought in under existing rates.”

As part of Raftelis’ analysis last year, there were also structural changes made that included re-scaling the fixed charges, which are by meter size, to put more onus on the larger meter sizes “to reflect industry best practices.”

“It costs more to serve those or to have the capacity to serve those,” he said.

The one-time 8% bump in FY25 was forecasted to be followed by 3% increases in subsequent fiscal years. Fox clarified, however, that with the exception of FY25, those rates weren’t being voted on and could change.