DWCC serves approximately one third of the city with secondary water. Kaysville City provides the billing for DWCC and remits the collected fees each month, for which Kaysville City collects a minor administrative fee for services. The Agreement with DWCC states that rates “may be amended periodically by Kaysville City and the canal company to reflect changes in operations and maintenance, changes in the Service Area and other expenses.”

Smith said the rate analysis and assessment included the state mandated metering as well as future capital projects. He said rates had not been raised since 2011 and the secondary metering will push their finances and budget to the edge. He said DWCC had been actively working on installing meters on their approximately 13,000 connections (they have approximately 3,900 locations metered due to new development and a Bureau of Reclamation Grant). They have already received $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funding; used loans to spread the costs out and hoped to find additional grants or funding to help with this project. DWCC is requesting an immediate rate change.

Fred Philpot, Production Team Manager & Consultant from Lewis Young Roberts & Burningham, Inc.  (LYRB), said his team helped run financial performa. He said when doing these studies, they look at ensuring revenue consistency to balance cash reserve and fund balance. They typically look at 5-year planning and beyond as it relates to capital investment; in this case, there is not enough reserve to maintain infrastructure needs. Philpot provided examples of scenarios with no action and needed rates to assume revenue increases to promote sustainability. The plan is to review the rates every 2-5 years. He said the new recommended fees are based on this analysis and include factoring of lot size and meter size to capture utilization within the system. He said the DWCC Board chose to limit the maximum increase to 25%.

When asked how DWCC rates compare to the other two local water providers, Smith said “they are very similar, as they are all feeling the impact of the required metering mandate.” Because the council really has no control, they requested that city staff investigate renegotiation of the agreement to prevent this from having to come before them as an action item in the future. To enact rate fee increases as proposed by DWCC, the City Council unanimously adopted a resolution to update their FY 2023 Consolidated Fee Schedule effective Feb. 1, 2023. 

“This process is more of notification or formality; Kaysville City is not benefiting from this increase, it is merely a pass-thru of collection of fees,” said Mayor Tami Tran. “The hope for metering is that if more residents in Utah knew how much water they were using, they would voluntarily conserve.” Meters communicate water use and help communities, businesses, and residents strive for greater water conservation. Studies have found that information provided by meters can help property owners reduce water use up to 30% or more.