In case you missed it, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s lead story on Wednesday was all about looming major water rate increases in Milwaukee and other communities.
South Milwaukee is not included in the article, but one is coming for us, too, as I wrote about in this post.
From the article:
Proposed water rate increases would threaten jobs, make the area less competitive, unfairly penalize suburbs and hurt consumers during a recession, according to corporate officials and customers objecting to proposals shared with Milwaukee aldermen Wednesday. Most customers – residential and business – face price increases of around 30%, but some suburbs are looking at more than 50%, in the rate schedule proposed by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. …
Jacking up the cost of doing business is a terrible strategy at a time of economic struggle, said Steve Baas, government affairs director for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
“Our low water rates are one of the competitive advantages this region has, and a dramatic increase like this reduces our edge and sends a bad signal as we try to attract new companies,” he said Wednesday. “If you raise rates, you run the risk of further depressing economic activity, or giving incentive to more conservation, which further shrinks the pie and creates a need for even further rate increases. The only real solution is growth, expand the consumption base, have more people paying into the system.”
I can’t disagree. And you can see why this is such a complex issue, one with no easy solutions.
I’ll keep you posted on South Milwaukee’s upcoming rate increase.
South Milwaukee Blog 
It would be interesting to compare the rates (or proposed rates) with those of other municipalities not located on one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world (and the largest one solely in the US). Hopefully we are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper. If not, perchance we should take a look at the business model of the middle east sheiks and start looking at ways to enhance the profits of the city. Water is a heck of a lot more important than oil so the profit margins should be there.
On a non-related note, I despise how the city charges for water – specifically the sewer charge. It seems as if the city is just trying to hide the cost by calling it something else. It’s not as if the outgoing water is separately metered. It’s all based on the gallons going in so it should just be the rolled into the cost of water, which it is anyway.
Pingback: 52% Water Rate Increase Proposed « South Milwaukee's 4th District