After two months of open houses and staff updates, the Queen Creek Town Council is scheduled to hold public hearings Wednesday and possibly vote on six utility charges at once, led by a new water resource fee to pay for the town's Harquahala groundwater. Four days before the meeting, the posted packet still lacked the reports behind the water items.
The packet's staff memos for the water resource fee, the matching capacity fee for new development and the water rate cost-of-service increase each say consultants and staff "are continuing to finalize" the supporting reports and enacting resolutions, and that the material will be added through an amended agenda. The memos say details on the financial and customer impact will come once those reports are done.
The Queen Creek Independent reported that as of Friday, staff was still drafting some of the fee ordinances.
What is proposed
The Independent reported that, if approved, the water resource fee would take effect Jan. 27 and first appear on March 9 bills, replacing the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District assessment that has been on property tax bills, including the portion the town has been covering for water customers since 2018.
The fee would start at $3.07 per 1,000 gallons of metered water, with increases phased in and requiring a council vote each year for at least the first six years.
Customers with combined town water and sewer accounts would get a credit for treated wastewater the town returns to offset pumping. In the Independent's example, a combined-account home using 10,000 gallons a month would pay $18.42 in resource fees after the credit, or $57.73 with the $39.44 water delivery charge. A water-only customer using the same amount would pay $70.15.
The cost-of-service change would cut two of the three single-family tier rates and raise one, the Independent reported: the rate for use up to 10,000 gallons would fall from $2.04 to $1.50, the 10,000-to-20,000-gallon tier from $2.73 to $2.50, and use above 20,000 gallons would go from $3.40 to $4.
A staff report it quoted projects about $4 million in added water revenue, roughly $2.4 million of it from landscape and hydrant rates.
