Last year and current year Town of Vienna water and sewer rates:
Sec._1_13.___Schedule_of_public_works_fees_red lined-2The Town of Vienna quietly raised the water and sewer rates in July. Nobody paid attention at the time, but now it seems that a lot of people are figuring this out and a few seem upset about it.
And so, there seems to be a lot of nonsense going around about this, e.g., that our rates are twice as high as Fairfax County. To be fair, water and sewer bills are not straightforward. So I’ve seen a lot of mistakes like (e.g.) not factoring in the sewer rates.
But the key fact that many seem to overlook is that this is just the second year of a five-year plan to raise water and sewer rates in the Town of Vienna. I don’t think that’s widely recognized.
So I thought I’d do my best to get the facts down in black and white. The increase was done at the suggestion of a consultant. The additional money will, in theory, fund additional (and apparently much-needed) maintenance on the Town’s water and sewer pipes and other infrastructure. Taking that at face value, we have relatively little choice in the matter but to ensure adequate money to maintain the pipes.
The bottom line is that, right now, our water/sewer bills are about the same as everybody else in the area. In particular, for a typical family, you’d pay about the same here as you would pay for water and sewer in Fairfax County. That was the Town’s goal.
But looking forward, our bills are going to continue to rise, at about 10%/year, for the next three years. The upshot is that the FY 2023 (starting summer 2022) bills will be about 50% higher than the FY 2018 (starting summer 2017) bills were. Continue reading Post #448: Water/sewer bills, waiting for the other three shoes to drop.