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If the city gets its way, the average residential customer's bill will rise from $49.35 a month to $64.21 by July 2011.
"You have to wonder how some people can survive, with this growing burden of just paying for basic utilities," said Community Legal Services attorney Philip Bertocci. "Water service is one of the basic necessities of life."
But the increase isn't a done deal.
The Water Department will have to justify its request in a series of hearings, and consumers will be represented by Bertocci and his team at CLS.
Hearing examiner Harris Bock will preside over the hearings, listen to public testimony, review filings from both sides and eventually recommend what the department should do.
The final decision, though, is up to city Water Commissioner Bernard Brunwasser, whose staff developed the rate proposal.
That peculiar feature of Philadelphia water rates, established in the city charter, has long rankled consumer activists. But Deputy Water Commissioner Joseph Clare said that commissioners have usually followed the recommendation of the hearing examiner.
The proposed rate hike would be implemented four times, with the first increase of 7.8 percent to take effect as soon as the request is approved. Rates would then go up every July 1 through 2011.
Water rates have risen by about 33 percent over the last 10 years, just under the rate of inflation. The last increase took effect in July 2007.
Why do they need the money?
Clare said that there are several factors, including growing employee-benefit costs and the heavy capital costs associated with maintaining plants and pipes.
"And our fuel costs have more than tripled in the last five years," Clare said. "We have 2,000 employees, and more than half are out in the field, cleaning sewer inlets, fixing water mains, maintaining and fixing meters. They use a lot of equipment and large specialty vehicles."
Clare said that many of the chemicals for treating water and wastewater are petroleum-based, and their costs have risen from $10 million to $20 million a year since 2004.
Bertocci said that he knows that costs have risen, but doesn't think that the Water Department has justified such large rate increases. He said that rather than carefully calculating its costs, the department estimates revenue needs for the next year, and then just projects that forward for three or four years.
"That's exactly the procedure the Public Utility Commission rejected when the Philadelphia Gas Works tried to do it," Bertocci said. "It's way too speculative a way to set rates."
Bertocci said that he also thinks that the Revenue Department, which collects bills for the Water Department, could do a much better job of assisting its poorest customers.
The public can comment on the rate request at five hearings throughout the city later this month (see schedule at right). Technical hearings, argued by attorneys and experts for the city and consumers, will begin in August. Clare said the department hopes to have a decision and implement new rates by November. *
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