With about two months left in his tenure, DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond is proposing to increase water and sewer rates by 6% over each of the next three years, a total increase of more than 19% by 2027.
“The smart political thing for me to have done was not to bring it up at all,” Thurmond told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But the reason I inherited a deteriorating system is because other people kicked it down the road for 40 years.”
The increases would generate nearly $107 million in additional revenue in the first three years, according to county estimates.
With the additional funding, the county would issue bonds worth $225 million. Upgrades to the tank that stores drinking water at Scott Candler Water Treatment Plant are estimated to cost $200 million.
The county is also tapping into federal and state funding, Thurmond said.
DeKalb raised water and sewer fees in 2022 by 6%, but the lack of rate increases since then could hurt the county’s bond ratings, according to a presentation by Maria Houser, the county’s director of consent decree and environmental compliance.
In an email, county spokesman Andrew Cauthen said the rate increases were also needed to maintain financial stability.
“Financially stable utilities establish and meet financial metrics,” Cauthen said. “While Watershed has established financial metrics, the metrics are not being met.”
He did not immediately respond to a question about which metrics are not being met.
The DeKalb County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to vote Nov. 12 on the rate increases. Commissioner Ted Terry, a member of the public works and infrastructure committee, said the first increase would kick in March 1 at the earliest because staffers need about four months to update the billing system.
This year, the median residential water and sewer bill for 4,000 gallons of usage is $70 per month, according to the county. A 6% increase next year would bring the median to $74.20 per month.
Advocacy groups this week raised concerns about affordability in light of the proposal. They called for shut-off protections and an income-based payment plan, similar to programs that exist in Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities.
“Disconnecting residents’ water has had a disproportionate impact on Black DeKalb residents and residents with disabilities,” said Jacqueline Echols, board president of the South River Watershed Alliance. “A moratorium should be imposed on this destructive practice.”
DeKalb County’s water and sewer system has a troubled history. The county is under a federal consent decree that mandates improvements to the sewer system. And from 2015 to 2017, thousands of households erroneously received outrageously high water bills, leading to a five-year moratorium on water shutoffs.
The number of disputed bills has since dropped from a high of about 4,000 per month to 105 this month, according to county data.
Since Thurmond took office in 2017, the county has spent $1.25 billion on water and sewer infrastructure. About $500 million went to the water distribution system, and the rest to the gravity sewer system, Thurmond said.
Water mains burst all over Atlanta one weekend this spring, drying taps for thousands of residents and placing a swath of the city under a boil water advisory for days. The crisis raised questions about systems in the neighboring suburbs. But Thurmond said he has known about DeKalb’s problems since March 7, 2018 — he remembers the exact date — when a massive main broke in Doraville, placing all of DeKalb under a boil water advisory for days.
“It was a watershed moment for me,” Thurmond quipped this week.
Commissioner Steve Bradshaw said a vote on new increases should wait until January, after incoming CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson and new commissioners are sworn in. The seven-member board now has two vacancies.
“On this critical matter, the citizens of DeKalb County deserve to know the positions of the people they have most recently voted for,” Bradshaw said.
Bradshaw, whose term ends Dec. 31 after an unsuccessful run for CEO, said he would not abstain if the rate increases came up for a vote this year.
Thurmond said the vote could wait, but his goal was to get the commission talking.
“I’m not saying that the world is going to end on December 31,” he said.
Cochran-Johnson did not return messages seeking her opinion.
Commissioner Michelle Long Spears and Terry pushed for the income-based repayment plan. Terry said such a plan would not hurt the county’s revenue projections because the alternative is collecting nothing from people who can’t afford their bills.
“It’s better to charge a lower rate because they’re more likely to fulfill it each month when the rate’s due,” Terry said.
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