As projected by our Ashokan staff, the NYC Water Board has increased water sewer rates by 4.4%. On June 6th, the NYC Water Board met to raise the water sewer rate to $11.63/HCF, effective 7/1/2023.
This represents the largest increase since Mike Bloomberg left office.
All other fixed rates will rise proportionately and the new MCP rate will be $1,184.44/dwelling unit.
Great news! At today’s NYC Water Board meeting, it was announced that the DEP will be extending the deadline for the Water Bill Amnesty Program. New Yorkers have until the end of May 2023 to submit an application. The Amnesty Program offers customers up to 100% forgiveness of accrued interest if they pay all or part of their outstanding debt and enter into a payment agreement. Payment can be made online or in-person with the DEP.
To learn more about the Amnesty Program, click here:
We encourage anyone you know who may be behind on their water bill to take advantage of this offer. Once it is over, the DEP will begin aggressively pursuing enforcement actions against delinquent accounts that did not take advantage of the amnesty. The application is easy, but if you need help, please contact Ashokan to consult with our auditor
Dov Vinar at 718-307-1242.
NYC is joining the rest of the country in promoting inflation.
On June 6th, the Water Board met to raise water rates by 4.9%, effective July 1st. This may surprise New Yorkers who have grown accustomed to minimal increases during the de Blasio administration.
The new rate will be $4.30 for water and $6.84 for sewer, for a total of $11.14.
We expect the 2023 increase to be even larger, spurred by high interest rates on the Water Board’s huge deb load.
June 6, 2022 Meeting Materials – https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycwaterboard/downloads/pdf/public_notices/wb-meeting-materials-6-6-22.pdf
The DEP held a public water board meeting on Friday April 29th and proposed a 4.9% water rate increase, citing lower consumption and water bills not being paid. Consumers will be shocked, as there has been minimal increases in recent years, and this would be the LARGEST increase that we have seen in some time. We predict that the DEP will reduce the increase from 4.9% to 4.7%.
The meeting also included measures to increase the late payment fee, and an increase in capital construction funding by 21%. There will be public hearings held in the coming months with rate updates and revisions for NYC.
This morning the New York City Water Board held a meeting to approve the 2.36% water rate increase, effective on July 1, 2018. This is the first rate increase in three years, but also the lowest proposed increase in 15 years.
In the preceding weeks, public hearings have been held in each borough for citizens to raise comments and concern. Alfonso L. Carney Jr., chair of the board, noted that public attendance at these hearings was light and attributed this to the assumption that the proposed rate increase must not be troubling. He acknowledged the points brought up by the few who did participate in the hearing process, and encouraged more concerned citizens to do so in the future. Some substantive points made at these hearings were:
The amended resolution was approved and passed unanimously.
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Allegra Miccio
Public hearings can be long and tedious. The process is boring, and attendance tends to be low. Such is the case with the New York City Water Board’s public hearing. However, these meetings have huge implications for water costs in New York City, so representatives from Ashokan Water Services (that’s us!) went to represent the interests of New York City water consumers and bill payers. On Friday, January 26, 2018 the New York City Water Board held a public hearing at 8:30am followed by a meeting at 9:30am. The issues on the table were whether to repeal the 2.1% increase to water and sewer rates allowed under the December 19, 2017 decision of Prometheus Realty Corp vs. New York City Water Board, and whether to extend the deadline to comply with the terms of the Multifamily Conservation Program to December 31, 2018.
In the Prometheus case, the Water Board was accused of unfairly implementing the 2.1% rate increase and issuing a $183 tax credit to only a certain tax class. To address the rate increase issue of the Prometheus decision, the Water Board hired Amawalk Consulting Group to assess their revenues and financial standing. Their findings showed that the Water Board is in good financial standing. This means that the 2.1% water rate increase is not necessary to fund the FY2018 budget, and that water and wastewater fees are reasonable as they currently stand. Although no rate increases are being adopted at the moment, the board will meet again in April with a rate proposal for FY2019.
A representative spoke on behalf of the Rent Stabilization Association, commending the decision to repeal the rate increase. He also suggested that all tax-classes should be considered to receive credit, for there was no basis upon which one tax class should be singled out. He advocated for a full elimination of the $183 rebate, and in favor of continued rate freezes. He expressed belief that the Multifamily Conservation Program (MCP) should be expanded to include additional buildings willing to meet the qualifications. The current eligibility base is too small for substantial water conservation in the city to be realized- a belief that we share here at Ashokan Water Services. (Check out more of our opinions on the matter here!)
The 2017 Water Rate Schedule stated that properties that did not provide evidence of MCP compliance would receive a penalty charge of 10% of their bill. Compliance includes the property having four or more units, wireless meter reading devices, and proof that conservation efforts are being made such that water consumption decreases. However, the penalty was never assessed since its proposal a year ago, even though approximately 10,000 properties have not provided evidence of compliance dating back to 2012. At this meeting, the board proposed to extend the compliance deadline to December of 2018. To implement this, the Department of Environmental Protection claims that they will “immediately begin enhanced outreach and engagement with the affected properties.”
However, no insight was provided as to how the DEP will do this. Representing Ashokan Water Services, Hershel Weiss voiced his concerns at the public hearing. Our main qualm is that MCP regulations have not been enforced in the past, so no one complied with the guidelines. Albeit, these process guidelines are still unclear, and no one understands who has to submit applications. Our request (which Hershel has voiced at approximately 14 different Water Board public hearings over the years) is simple- the Water Board must write a clear directive stating specific guidelines, a checklist for compliance, and who needs to submit applications.
The Water Board assured everyone at the hearing that they would take all comments and concerns into consideration. “We don’t come predisposed,” said Alfonso Carney, the chair of the Water Board, “we will use what the members of the public say.” This sentiment is expressed at every meeting, and nothing substantial comes of it. We did not expect this meeting to yield different results, but our fingers are crossed nonetheless.
The Water Board with reconvene in a few months. Updates regarding their public hearings and meetings can be found here.
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Allegra Miccio
Alfonso Carney chairs water board meeting at which Hershel Weiss presented the following testimony:
“Hershel Weiss, President of Ashokan Water Services, Inc., which represents the owners of 8,500 buildings in NYC, who look to Ashokan for water conservation, bill monitoring and guidance through Water Board/DEP’s regulations.
On this matter, we again request you state what rule is in an official memo.”
Just short of a week ago, Supreme Justice Carol Edmead voided the Water Board and City Hall’s authority to impose a water rate hike for this year as well as terminated the program to reimburse small homeowners on their water bill credit.
Citing unfair and preferential distribution of funds, the city of New York and the Water Board were stopped in their tracks by the people of New York.
Thanks should be given to Joseph Strasburg of the Rent Stabilization Association who fought against City Hall and the Water Board for this win for the people of New York.
Further applause should be given to Justice Edmead who is protecting the taxpayers of New York and our fragile water system from the greedy hands of politicians.
Dressed in an ash grey suit with a periwinkle tie, Mayor Bill de Blasio exclaimed, “Today we are righting (sic) a wrong”. Back in late April in Bay Ridge, Mayor de Blasio developed a plan for New York City homeowners to save money on their water bills by having the city present a one-time water credit to all homeowners within the five boroughs.
“This is part of an overall effort to address the needs of everyday working people all over the city to make sure that what city does is fair,” proclaimed de Blasio.
The push for this proposal was de Blasio’s belief that homeowners within the five boroughs were paying too much for their water bills. Backed by the Department of Environmental Protection’s Commissioner Emily Lloyd, de Blasio proposed a $183 one-time water bill credit to all homeowners with one to three family units within the five boroughs.
According to de Blasio, the proposed bill would cover about 664,000 homeowners for the summer. The 664,000 homeowners make up about 80 percent of all water bill accounts. With this one-time bill credit, homeowners can save 17 to 40 percent on their annual water bill.
Seniors who make up 120,000 of the total amount of homeowners residing in the city will also benefit greatly from an additional bill credit.
“This action we are announcing today will save homeowners across all five boroughs a total of 82 million dollars in fiscal year 2016, the fiscal year we are in right now. Eighty-two million,” said de Blasio.
According to the DEP, this credit program has already passed water board committee members and will be in effect as of July 1st. This is the first step in a series of changes the mayor is attempting to put into effect for water use policies.
The DEP has been promoting water conservation for two decades, since the droughts of the 1980s. But June 17, 2011, the Water Board’s last meeting of the fiscal year, marked the end of an era of “conservation” rhetoric. Gone are the days of saving water and taxpayer money. The future is all about increased sales and maximum revenue: consumption, not conservation.
According to their financial presentation, the DEP collected $2.68 billion from residents last year and surpassed their own revenue projections by 2%. The good news: that’s the first time since 2005 that they haven’t made less money than hoped. The bad news: that’s also almost nine billion more gallons of water used, plus the $51 million more that taxpayers coughed up to pay for it. So why, after worshiping ‘less is more,’ are more water and more revenue suddenly a triumph? Over the past ten years, usage decreased for all but two of them (see the Water Board’s report, page 29). Now, with our water use back up to near 2009 levels, water is just a stream of revenue again.
Pay no attention to how our water rates are higher than ever, every year. (This year’s 7.5% hike to $8.21 is somehow the lowest rate hike since 2006.) All that seems to matter to the DEP and Water Board is that more people get more water and pay more and more for it. The leading concern of the Water Board, according to their Mission Statement, is whether “revenue collections will satisfy revenue requirements of the [Water and Sewer] System.”
The only kind of waste that makes sense in this System is wasted potential: water not sold, consumption not metered, bills not paid. More revenue can be good for the whole city. It just depends on why there’s more of it. More paying customers come naturally with more people in the city, which in turn requires expanded services. Still, the DEP has maintained that distributing more water will bring down its cost to residents. The ‘reduced increase’ of this year’s rate seems to corroborate that a bit, yet the DEP can only continue to reap increasing revenue at the increased expense of residents. Is such public service really self-service or endless debt service? For instance, are “same-customer sales” a real measure of success for a public agency? Does the fact that each customer paid (on average) 19.2% more in October 2010 to use 6% more water than in October 2009 constitute a win for New York City?
As it is, revenue maximization is our current course. Meanwhile, conservation is a promised land saved for rainy days. Where we’ll end up, though, depends on who adjusts the sails.
Water Watch NYC 