The Augusta County Service Authority, which provides water and sewer service to over 14,000 water customers and over 8,000 sewer customers, will not be increasing water and sewer rates for the next fiscal year.
Neither hook-up nor availability fees will see increases in the upcoming fiscal year – July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013.
In the $14.4 million operating budget, the continuing impact of efforts from the past year to improve efficiencies in areas such as electrical, chemical, labor, and fleet costs contributed to the ability to hold the line on all rates for the upcoming year.
Overall, expenses were reduced by over 3 percent, or $433,000.
The $10.6 million capital budget also saw increases in efficiencies as well and is fully funded for the upcoming year. ACSA has achieved significant reductions in the cost of capital projects by the increased use of skilled ACSA staff to construct several major facility upgrades. Two key projects that are in the upcoming capital budget are Coles Run Dam Rehabilitation and an upgrade to the Weyers Cave sewer collection system.
ACSA has had rate increases for each of the past ten years to cover the $50 million costs of state-mandated improvements for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
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