The Department of Waterworks was again a prominent topic of concern during Monday night’s St. Charles Parish Council meeting.
Following continued parish-wide concerns over inconsistent Waterworks billing, parish officials brought in multiple speakers to discuss water billing, the new smart water meters being installed and discussion of an upcoming financial and audit-related Waterworks report.
One of the more notable speakers at the meeting was Melanie Cailliouet, environmental engineer from All South Consulting Engineers, whom the parish hired to conduct a third-party financial study and audit of Waterworks.
Caillouet went over several factors that appear to be affecting some parish residents’ water bills, and promised to study in detail numerous factors before releasing her findings later in August. She pointed to the fact that in January, the parish’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) water bill rate increase automatically occurred, which increases water rates annually based on the CPI. Given inflation has been some of the highest the United States has seen in many years, the recent water rate increase was significant at around an eight percent rate increase on water billing rates. The same CPI rate increase, she said, also affects sewer rates, which further increases resident’s water bills.
“Most of the time [the annual CPI rate increase is] between two and four percent,” Caillouet pointed out. The eight percent CPI increase was significantly higher of a rate increase, she said, than most residents likely were used to seeing.
The consulting engineer also mentioned other factors affecting higher water billing, such as higher accuracy in newer meters, summer months affecting usage, higher bills when billing cycles are longer than 30 days and recent record heat and dry conditions.
“My job is going to be to quantify what is affecting [billing] – how much is each piece of the puzzle affecting the whole,” Caillouet said.
Caillouet, who is said to have conducted parish Waterworks financial studies for approximately 20 years through multiple administrations, will be presenting her firm’s findings in a report to the parish council in the council’s next meeting in August.
Representatives from Master Meter, the manufacturer of the new smart water meter the parish has been installing in residents’ homes throughout the parish, gave a speech at the meeting explaining the new smart meter’s capabilities to parish residents, as well as discussing issues regarding installation, leaks and accuracy, which many residents have questioned after receiving water bills with consumption up much higher in recent months.
Greg Gordon with the Department of Waterworks also spoke briefly at the meeting, promising maps at the next council meeting to show where the newest smart meters have already been installed and what areas have not yet received the new meters.
Hahnville resident and parish president political candidate Dwayne LaGrange gave a public speech at the meeting, outlining several concerns he felt needed to be addressed regarding Waterworks.
“The water billing instability in our parish has caused anxiety and financial strain on many families, and this against a backdrop of inflation, rises in taxes and insurance,” LaGrange said. “As these complaints have occurred over several months, we can not let this problem persist any longer – it is time to take meaningful action to restore trust in our water billing system and prove residents with the peace of mind that they deserve.”
LaGrange has made Waterworks billing a key issue in his bid for the parish president seat.
On Tuesday of last week, ahead of the Monday night council meeting, Waterworks announced it would reopen its lobby to Waterworks customers beginning on August 1. The Waterworks lobby will now be open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The customer service operating hours were a point of concern LaGrange mentioned in his comments.
“We appreciate everyone’s patience as we navigated difficult staffing shortages,” Parish President Matthew Jewell said earlier regarding the Waterworks lobby hours announcement. “I am happy to see the Waterworks lobby expanded hours and I look forward to returning to new lobby hours when Hurricane Ida repairs are completed at the main building in September.”
Later in the meeting after a second impassioned plea from local fire departments for more funding, parish council members briefly considered changing the tax rollback ordinance to accommodate fire services in St. Charles Parish, but the motion did not pass. The concern most council members appeared to have changing the ordinance for fire services only was the additional month delay the council would have legally been required to take before being able to vote on the ordinance again. Reports regarding parish millages due to legislative auditors in September made delaying the ordinance difficult.
The council in the end passed the tax rollback ordinance, which Parish President Matthew Jewell said would give residents a property tax reduction while still increasing the parish’s annual tax revenue by well over $6 million.
The Parish of plenty of taxes has long been robbing the people of St. Charles Parish on their water bill, amongst other Parish robberies like property tax, High Insurances for Flood even though they were telling us for years that the tax money to build the new Protection Levee on the westbank would address that issue and all but eliminate that…big lie it increased and continues. Surplus funds from property tax gobbled up by the Parish government for pet projects. I moved out to TANGI PARISH use th same amount of water if more and I pay 1/4 of what I was paying in St. Charles and my property is 4 acres and tax went to under 300.00 wheras I has a parcel in St. Charles 77 feet by 144 feet and was paying 1400.00 a year and kept going up…glad I moved from the Parish of plenty of taxes and coruption. You can have it.