Update: Water Board Approves 7.5 Percent Rate Increase

Update, May 13, 11:45 a.m.: The city's Water Board voted this morning in favor of a 7.5 percent increase in water rates proposed by the city Department of Environmental Protection, NY1 reports.

The new rate will be instituted July 1. 

There was one piece of good news at Tuesday night's public meeting called by the city Department of Environmental Protection regarding a proposed 7.5 percent increase in water rates.

For the first time in five years, the hike scheduled to take effect in fiscal year 2012 is in the single digits. 

But that fact didn't go far toward placating the concerns of a handful of Queens homeowners absorbing an average of 13 percent in annual increases since 2008. 

"My income is fixed... I'm on a pension. But they keep raising the rates year after year. It's outrageous," said Carol Courtines, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Bayside at a Tuesday night's public hearing.

According to Courtines, her water bill has risen from $62.94 for the quarter in July 2008 to $366.74 this April.

"I can't reconcile that, and that's why I came here tonight," Courtines told city Department of Environmental Protection commissioner Cas Holloway, in attendance to outline the need for the city's 15th straight water increase. 

Holloway defended his agency's performance in maintaining and expanding upon the city's sprawling network of reservoirs, aqueducts and tunnels, calling the rate increases necessary to finance upgrades to the system — many of which he said were mandated by the federal government.

"Some of these projects are not necessary," Holloway acknowledged. 

However, in terms of the percentage of every dollar spent on the city's water system, operation and maintenance expenses represented only 39 percent of expenditures.

According city DEP, the largest chunk of the system's annual budget — 42 cents of every dollar expected in FY2012 — went toward servicing its debt.

That had at least one unemployed Queens homeowner, Stephen DeDalto of Flushing, calling on the city agency to mirror the extreme belt-tightening measures he said he adopted when he was laid off in January 2009.

"We have all had to make due with less," DeDalto said. "How about you guys make due with less?"

Earlier in the hearing, Holloway detailed measures to reduce costs, including the reduction of 108 employees in FY2012.

"Any rate increase — especially in these tough economic times — is not a good thing," Holloway told the audience in Flushing. "But it's the first single digit increase in five years."

The deadline for submitting written testimony in regards to the proposed increase is Wednesday at 1 p.m.

The city's Water Board will meet Friday to vote on adopting the increase, which would take effect July 1.