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HOLDEN, Mass. — After hearing the concerns of residents and the recommendations of officials on a proposed rise in Holden's water and sewer rates, the Holden Selectboard voted 3-2 to support a 4 percent increase.
To address the long-in-deficit water/sewer enterprise fund, last year the Board of Selectmen put into place a new water and sewer rate structure, which established a fixed fee and commodity fee for each system.
"The fixed fee is designed to pay for the constant cost that the system incurs when anybody turns on the tap or flushes the toilet," said John Woodsmall, director of Public Works. "These are things such as wages and salaries and uniforms and debt service and things of a constant nature."
The commodity fee is set into an ascending rate clock, "where the more water you use, the more that you pay," said Woodsmall. "The user fee is designed to capture those things that are variable in nature, that as you use more of them, there are more costs associated with them."
Woodsmall and Water/Sewer Superintendent Mark Elbag recommended no increase on the commodity and fixed rates on the water side, no increase on the fixed fee portion of the sewer rate and a 13 percent increase on the sewer commodity fee.
"Altogether that represents an approximately 4 percent increase to the total water/sewer revenues," said Woodsmall. "It's approximately $65 a year for the average water and sewer user, so a little over $5 a month."
Some residents said their bills were already too high.
"It just seems like everything is being passed on to the people of the Town of Holden. The rates keep going up, yet the service keeps going down," said Sheila Moreau. "Why is it that we, the people of Holden are being hit with all of this?"
Selectman have not listened to the people, who don't want anymore increases, Morrow said. "We have to stay within our budgets, yet it seems that any time the town of Holden wants something, they say, 'Well, it's only a few pennies." But those pennies add up."
Yet Eugene Stirchak, chairman of the Water/Sewer Advisory Board, said the proposal is well-researched and"responsible to both the users and to the public needs. They're cognizant of the costs that go into obtaining the water, transporting sewage and also processing that sewage. So it takes into account maintenance, supply and the continuation of those things - especially in times when there are things like the ice storm. Without prudent management of the funds that are available, I believe that puts this town at a severe risk."
Finance Committee member Al Berg also supported the increase and reminded the board that it was obligated by the town's unanimous vote in support of the water/sewer budget at Town Meeting, which was dependent on the increase.
"The finance committee and the Board of Selectmen went into town meeting, where there at least 10 times as many folks as there are here tonight, and we approved this budget, which clearly was contingent upon a rate increase," he said. "Without the rate increase, this budget doesn't balance, and without a balanced budget the Department of Revenue will not certify our tax rate, and without our tax rate certified all sorts of unpleasant things will happen."
Selectman Mark Ferguson and Jim Jumonville voted against the rate increase, with Ferguson saying "the people in this town, frankly, can't afford it."
"I would suggest that this administration do their job and find the money that they're looking for in other ways," he said, encouraging the town to rein in the budget. "Do it through cuts. That's why we hired you."
Yet Selectman Ken Lipka said residents have already had their say in voting at town meeting. "It's the grim reality, and I know people don't like it," said Lipka.
"Check your phone bill," he said. "You pay 39.99 to have the phone in your house, and it makes no difference if you use it once a month, twice a month or 14 times a month, or a hundred times a month — that's called a service. You pay for the service to get it wired to your house, and we're doing the same thing here."
Selectman Anthony Renzoni said he wasn't there for the "first agreements made in 1933 with the City of Worcester when we gave our water rights away, or in 1989 when we started talking about sewage transport, or 2002 when we renegotiated a 99-year water contract," but he inherited the problem.
"There are not a lot of charges in house we can clean up," he added. "A lot of these are charges we're getting outside of our house. We made agreements with the City of Worcester, with DCR, with everybody else out there over the last 80 to 100 years that put us into this position. The answer would be a flux capacitor to go back in time and warn ourselves not to do it. But that's not an option."
"They are my problems now," he said, adding that he supported moving forward with the proposed rate increases.
Comments (18)
Name Withheld:
Your analogy is not apt. Refusing a child a toy is not the same as refusing a town a school.
We do not bear the entire cost of a capital project such as Mountview all alone or all at once. As Mr. White (cogently) put it: " Mountview will be a joint capital project with the state which will be funded over 20 years and once it is paid for the tax bill for that project goes away."
Our town budget is not precisely analogous to a family budget. We have to do things together for the common good, things we can't do or pay for as individuals. That's what government -- local, state, and federal -- is for.
A new or rebuilt Mountview is not something the town merely wants. It's something the town needs. Come to the tour on Tuesday the 17th at 5 p.m. and see for yourself.
Mr. White
I agree with the other writer that your postings are well written. I would also add "refreshingly civil" to the list.
However, distinguishing between capital expenditures and operating costs, etc, while it is undoubtedly technically true, does not change one simple fact:
Municipalities go bankrupt because they spend too much. I do not guest Holden is on the verge of bankruptcy by any means. However, I do suggest that undoubtedly there was a time when the folks in Stockton, CA would have said the same thing : "We are nowhere near that stage...."
And so they apprently increasingly failed to question over the years whether they could afford their expenditures- capital, operating or otherwise.
My only point is just as we do so in our own families' budgets, let's start to take into account the simple fiscal realities involved in a rationale, adult manner.
And calling those of us who modestly ask only the above silly names (you assuredly did not do so but someone else did) not only gets us nowhere, but evinces a shockingly childlike attitude toward all of this. Indeed, one can only deduce this same mentality was prevalent in Stockton for years or decades....
It reminds one of young children at a store who, when their parents explain that no, they cannot have that new toy, at least not until better times are upon us, accuse their parents of "only saying no...." because the children either refuse to consider the fiscal reality involved or simply cannot grasp it.
Thank you for your thoughtfulness Mr White. While we may not agree on this, your postings have been very informative, mature and pleasant to read.
To Name Withheld, “Actually, this has everything to do with the Mountview issue because it has everything to do with the families and seniors of Holden upon whose shoulders all of these things ultimately must be borne.Get ready folks: This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Coming next will be increases in trash collection fees. After that, who knows.”
The big difference is some of the items you mention are normal operating dollars and the Mountview which is capital. Trash fee’s are operating dollars and they are going up .25 per month. The cost to dispose of trash and recycling in Holden is one of the lowest if not the least expensive best program in the state. The .25 totals to be $3.00 per year increase that rate should then hold for several years. Water sewer is now on a rate structure that everyone pays the same to have access to the system and then a fee for what they actually use. The commodity rate for sewer is going up but to say $65.00 per year to the average user is misleading. If you are a very low user your bill may go up 15-25 dollars per year. If you are a very large user it may go up $120.00 per year. You have control over this by simply paying attention to the amount of water you use in your own home. If you do not want to pay more money than simply use less. If it is a 13% increase than reduce your usage by 10% and you will see a 3% increase.
Mountview will be a joint capital project with the state which will be funded over 20 years and once it is paid for the tax bill for that project goes away. Every community and homeowner has to do capital projects to maintain their infrastructure. In the public sector the tax payers are the ones that approve and then fund (pay or) the project.
If you buy a house and then have 2 children you move to a new house. Then you have triplets, unplanned of course, you would either be forced to buy a bigger house or add onto your old one. That is the situation at Mountview, we have a house with enough space for 600 kids and we now have 800. Time for a new house or a significant addition to the one we have.
Viola, That is the first time in 57 years anyone has refereed to me as “informative, cogent, and reasoned”.
Ah, more rants and raves from the 'anonymous' peanut gallery. How sad. Perhaps some day they will have the guts to use their real names. Perhaps some day they will actually come up with real facts.
Thank you, Mr. White, for an informative, cogent, and reasoned comment.
The Mountview Building Committee, under the capable leadership of Paul Challenger, will do the best possible job for the students of Holden. The Forces of NO in this town, however, will continue to whine, misrepresent, confabulate, and bully, irrespective of the facts placed before them. These Forces of NO "humbots" (human-robot hybrids) are impervious to facts or experiential learning. They are simply hardwired to bellow "NO!!!!" when confronted with pre-programmed stimuli, which then precipitates a cascade of follow-up "honks," which sound suspiciously like "We can't afford it" or "Taj Mahal" or "Tutella." These "honks," if you will, will continue to occur until their "NO!!!!" buttons reset.
Glad I could be of some help.
As far as Mountview is concerned the solution will be the one that the MSAB, Mass School Building Authority, will support. The only way to access their 54% is to do a project that will be a solution that will last 50 years. The MSBA will not pay for band aids because they don’t want to be working on the same building 5 or 10 years from now. They want a a comprehensive solution that will not be revisited for many years to come. Since the building has a design capacity of 600 students and there are already 800 there the solution will need to add space for 200 more students. Once that level of construction is required it will trigger a Mass State Building Code requirement to make the entire facility current to the most recent state building codes. This will add significantly to the expense regardless of what the solution is.
Since the town portion of any project is 46% + - and that is spread over a 20 year borrowing although it is a lot of money to talk about it is spread over a very long time. Because of the economy construction costs are still low and borrowing is very low, Shrewsbury just borrowed money for their project at 1% it is a good time to be buying. The Public Safety Building came in 2.3 million dollars under budget.
So lets continue to go through the process and see what comes out the other end. Tuesday the 17th at Mountview there is an informational meeting where you can make comment. If you are concerned I would suggest that you come and make your feelings known.
Actually, this has everything to do with the Mountview issue because it has everything to do with the families and seniors of Holden upon whose shoulders all of these things ultimately must be borne.
Get ready folks: This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Coming next will be increases in trash collection fees. After that, who knows. But we do know that coming down the pike will be the Mountview matter, And if anyone thinks that any "recommendation" other than the absolute most expensive one: a full multimillion dollar rebuild, is going to come out of e "committee" please do contact me because I have some land for sale in the everglades I would love to seek you.
All the same old clichés to justify all these expenditures will be wheeled out. In particular we will be told "Come on folks, the average taxpayer in Holden will pay about the cost of one more cup of coffee a day" etc etc
Makes one wonder when the people of Holden will wake up and realize that their "coffee" may well drive them to move to New Hampshire, if not drive them to insolvency first.
Actually I believe most of the Worcester system is gravity not pumped. So the additional costs that Holden residents pay is quite a bit higher because the maintenance of our system is higher. Again I am not saying that totally explains the difference but it does explain a great deal of it. We also are paying for quite a bit of I & I that once removed reduces our costs. However the cost to remove the I & I is sometimes a greater investment than the return you get when you remove it.
The Holden costs are the transport rate, debt, capital and operating costs, such as labor equipment etc. At the end of the year the books close out with a very small amount left over which goes into the stabilization account for the department which should pay for major projects/upgrades and unforeseen major expenses.
So where do we claim the money is going missing? From the early 2000's to around 06 we ate up a 1 million dollar surplus. Then for 4 straight years we were in deficit by 200k to 400k each and every year. This deficit problem was fixed with the new rate structure. So where and how can the department be run more cost effectively?
The past manager was under control during the years when the 1 million dollars was eaten up and when the budget was in the red 200-400k annually. There were 2 different DPW directors during this time as well. In fact the DOE refused to set our tax rate because of the budget problems within this department.
So if there is some mystery as to where the money has been disappearing it has gone on for a long time. Again the question is how much money annually do we really thing a sewer user is paying? And is it worth the risk of 10’s of thousands of dollars, which the same people will have to pay for, to attempt to win a judgment which all experts have said is not winnable.
Yes Dave, we do pay a higher than needed transport fee to Worcester and yes that does explain a small part of the rate differential. Of the $2.14 ccf/m charge we pay to Worcester thru DCR only $1.21 is actually for transport and $0.93 is for treatment.
Even if we reduced our transport rate for an average user (500 ccf/m) by 5 times the full $1.21 charge our rates would still be 79.1% higher than Worcester. Yes we do have some debt service charges and some pump station testing and maintenance fees but so does Worcester. Why are we still 79.1% higher than Worcester?!!?!? Something just doesn’t sound right.
Part of the answer as to why Holden's rates are higher is because Holden does have to pay a transport fee to the city of Worcester through a agreement with the DCR. The transport rate is higher than it should be by some percentage. However Holden must also maintain and operate its own system. So our own operating costs are in addition to what the transport and disposal fees are. The Holden system does still have some debt service on it as well as many pump stations because of the topography in Holden. Testing, maintaining and operating those pump stations add cost to our operations which Worcester does not have to pay for, while we at the same time do subsidize the operations of their system.
If we can agree that Holden is paying a transport rate that is somewhat high which subsidizes the Worcester DPW operations which in turn allows Worcester to keep their users at an artificially low cost. I believe this does account for the high difference between the rate payers in the two communities.
The issue is what is the "risk reward" of going after the transport fee? The Holden BOS has been advised on many occasions by our town attorney, past and present town managers, past and present DPW directors as well as Weston and Sampson and CDM that we would have little or no chance of winning a judgment.
So does the town risk a significant amount in legal fees over an issue which we have little chance of prevailing on? This action would further put people’s hard earned money at risk with no return.
The town has many agreements with the city of Worcester on many issues that may be far more important to the town than risking a battle with them on this issue when there is little chance of prevailing.
I believe I have laid out why it seems that Holden’s rates for transport are significantly higher than the in city rate. Maybe not all of the reason bu certainly some of the reason.
We would like to thank Ms. DeMinimus Maureen Maximus (aka Maureen F) for finally admitting that she does not possess “detailed expertise” in the matter of water and sewer rates and that she cannot explain why Holden rates for the average homeowner are 95.1% HIGHER than Worcester. Thank you for also admitting that you cannot explain why our rates would be 89.4% higher than Worcester even if we could take out the full $2.14/ccf DCR charge paid to transport and treat our sewage.
Just the Facts (JTF) said she “heard say” that over 70% of our annual budget is committed to Worcester fees and debt service. Clearly this figure is not even close to correct. The Worcester fees net of treatment are approximately $1.21 per ccf. This would represent 1.6% of the average user’s bill. Is JTF trying to tell us Holden is paying 68.4% of our bill for debt service? Even if this were correct (it’s not) Holden’s bill would still be 25.1% higher than Worcester. WHY?
The questions are simple: Why are Holden’s average rates 95.1% HIGHER than Worcester? Why are Holden’s low end user rates 570.2% HIGHER than Worcester? To date nobody has been able to give us answers to these questions.
With regard to running for office, unfortunately (contrary to the foolish comments by Maggie Watson) running a small business precludes committing to specific dates and times for meetings. Now ladies, when will you man up and stop hiding behind your silly aliases?
Sorry Ed and ohhhhh do I cring to say, but I agree with Maximus.
I have heard say that the water/sewer account has over 70% of its annual budget committed to Worcester fees and annual debt service. So, attacking the 30% is the only option to eliminate so-called waste. Problem is, past selectboard votes took the easy out and used the connection fees and sewer assessments to offset annual incremental increases of rates. Now, those sources of revenues are gone, gone, gone.
If you agree that the Worcester sewer transport rate is excessive (and it may be), THAT negotiation should have taken place when Selectman Ferguson was originally in office. And, Brian Bullock tried his damnest to do so.....only to have West Boylston and Rutland wilt and sign the agreement.
So, what makes you think that this argument can be resurected again now? Where does the political capital lie? Certainly not in the smal burough of Holden.
One more time for the both of you....get off the cyber soap box and run for something.
I have commented on a news story in a rational manner. I have nothing to say in response to a browbeating by Mr. Ed that is bullying in tone and demanding of specific, detailed expertise I do not possess.
My name is Maximus, just as we have Aquitaine and Viola and JustTheFacts and Pat Henry.
Mountview has nothing to do with this post.
Perhaps DeMinimus Maureen Maximus (aka Maureen F) can explain why the average homeowner in Holden (500 cf/m) pays $73.83 while the same user in Worcester pays only $37.85. Why is Holden's charge 95.1% HIGHER than Worcester?
Perhaps Ms. DeMinimus can explain why a low end user in Holden (100 cf/m) pays $43.16 while the same user in Worcester pays only $7.57. Why is Holden's charge an astronomical 570.2% HIGHER than Worcester every month?
Even if we could take out the full $2.14/ccf DCR charge (we can't) we are still 89.4% to 541.9% respectivly HIGHER than Worcester.
WHY?
OK DeMinimus Maureen Maximas, let's hear your explaination and while you are at it, please expain how we are going to pay the $1 MILLION charge to clean up the hazardous materials at Mt. View.
Two citizens spoke against raising the rates. They said, in a nutshell, it's a tax, I hate it, can't afford it, no new taxes. Two people spoke in favor, pointing out that the water/sewer budget had been unanimously approved at town meeting with the knowledge that the rate increase was coming and with the approval of the then-select board.
No one likes to pay more but sometimes a town's gotta do what a town's gotta do.
Mr. Ferguson's bellowing was entertaining but it was Mr. Renzoni, Mr. Lipka, and Mr. Lavigne who stepped up and did the right thing.
Re: previous comment: Other than Mark Ferguson and Jim Jumonville!!!
"The fixed fee is designed to pay for the constant cost that the system incurs when anybody turns on the tap or flushes the toilet," said John Woodsmall, director of Public Works
The commodity fee is set into an ascending rate clock, "where the more water you use, the more that you pay," said Woodsmall.
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I FOR ONE DO NOT SEE A HECK OF A LOT OF DIFFERENCE IN THE BOTTOM LINE BETWEEN THOSE TWO SENTENCES BY MR. WOODSMALL!!!!! SAME END RESULT!!!! HELLO!!!!
Holden taxpayers can't afford to keep paying continually escalating costs!!!!! Someone has to learn somewhere how to put some brakes on........I'm just not sure we've elected anyone yet!!!