The suggested shift would relax the burden on taxpayers by about $23,000.
By Donna M. Perry
Staff Writer

JAY – Selectmen are scheduled to hold a public hearing Wednesday on a proposed rate increase for sewer users. The increase would raise the rates $20 per unit for the 2004-05 year.

Existing rates are $175 for each unit.

Sewer Department Superintendent Mark Holt is recommending the increase to $195 per unit.

The rates have steadily risen from $80 in 1996 to today’s $175.

In a memo to Town Manager Ruth Marden regarding a proposed budget, Holt wrote that the increase would shift more of the cost of wastewater treatment onto sewer users and relax the burden on general taxation by approximately $23,000.

The sewer fee increase is to help offset the burden placed on the town’s general fund caused by the higher costs of wastewater treatment and infrastructure repair and maintenance, Holt stated in a sewer rate information sheet.

The rate hearing is scheduled to follow the special town meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Middle School cafeteria.

Voters attending the special town meeting will take up a citizen-initiated article to transfer nearly $26,000 from the town’s undesignated fund to the school Food Service account to reinstate the bakery and positions eliminated with it.

Even if the article is approved, the final say on reinstatement of the bakery and workers remains up to the School Committee.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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