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Authority’s revenue needs.
“We’ve got capital expansion needs, primarily related to sewer,” Mr. Rice said, “that we need to come up with some money for. Whether that will mean a rate increase — I’m not sure if we will raise the rates or not.”
Mr. Rice agreed that the state requirements contribute heavily to the cost of operating the systems. “Every time you turn around, it’s something else. The state... (is) coming up with new regulations and reporting. They keep the overhead costs high, in- ^ crease the workload in the office.”
Marshall has a privately-owned system which has been supplying water to the village since the 1920s. David Ferguson, who is one of the owners, said the privately owned system has an incentive to operate efficiently: “We have to make a profit... Any private enterprise can be run more efficiently than a government bureaucracy—they lose sight of it.”
Rates for Marshall Waterworks customers are the highest of all the towns surveyed. With a rate increase effective this past January, customers pay $26.65 for the first 4,000 gallons. From 4.000 to 24,000 gallons, the rate is $6.26 per 1,000 gallons; over 24.000 gallons the charge is $4.65 per 1,000 gallons.
The tap fee for new customers is $1,500. The system presently serves about 426 customers.
Mr. Ferguson said that since his partnership bought the system in the 1960s, all the money has been poured back into the system. “It’s been a continuous system upgnule; when we bought the system it was terrible.”
The Town of Remington, also in Fauquier County, has a municipally owned and operated system. It’s smaller than Marshall’s, serving about 325 customers, according to Wilbur Heflin, chairman of the water committee.
Remington’s rates are $6.50 per month for the first 4,000 gallons for town residents, and $1 per 1,000 gallons over the minimum. Customers outside the town limits pay $8.75 for the first 4.000 gallons, and $1.50 per 1,000 gallons over. The town charges $1,200 for new connections.
“We’re keeping up with growth and expansion pretty well,” said Raymond Heflin, the town’s superintendent. The Authority added 17 new customers in March, when a new subdivision was hooked into the system.
Mr. Heflin said that there had been problems with the system’s aging galvanized steel lines, and they are all being replaced with six-inch plastic pipe. Only two blocks of the old, two-inch steel lines remain, he said.
The Town of Culpeper raised the rates to its approximately 2,500 customers last July. They now pay $3.86 for the first 2,000 gallons per month. That increase last summer represented a 25 percent hike in rates, according to Ann Giles, billing clerk for the town’s utilities.
Additional charges are 19.4 cents per 100 gallons for 2,000 to 25.000 gallons, 30.5 cents per 100 gallons for 25,000-100,000 gallons, arid 11.5 cents usage over 100,000 gallons per month.
The fees are increased by 50 percent for customers outside the town limits.
The town’s tap fee is now $500. According to Ms. Giles, -the town’s proposed 1987-88 budget will include a provision to increase the tap fee to $1,000.
There is, as this informal survey indicates, a wide disparity in charges to water customers throughout the area.
One fact, however, brought universal agreement. With increasingly stringent state and federal regulations, the cost of supplying drinking water to municipal customers will only increase — and assistance from state and federal sources to defray those costs is not, presently, anywhere in sight.
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