Rosston council passes water rate increase

By John Miller, 08/9/22 2:44 PM

ROSSTON – Residents of Rosston will need to tighten their financial belts a bit more in September.

When the September water bills arrive, they will be $6.48 higher. This is because the Rosston City Council, at its August meeting Monday night, passed an ordinance to raise the base rate for water. The base rte was $23.58 and will be $30.06. However, only the base water rate is affected by the increase, the amount of water used will be billed as it has been. Again, there are no changes to the water rate on the amount used.

Rosston Mayor Dale Quarles said this isn’t something the city wanted to do, but had no choice. “We can’t afford to lose revenue  and go in the red.” Quarles pointed out inflation also affects the city as prices of needed goods and services continue to rise. He reminds customers to check their water bills next month, especially the base rate and make sure it’s $30.06. He told the council customers can be notified about the increase via the call system.

In other business, the council was informed the city received two sales tax checks, which helped the general budget. Quarles suggested keeping track of how much the city receives in sales tax each month so it can be used to help obtain matching grants. He said the city has been maintaining and wants to keep the sales tax money separate from the water revenues.

In discussing the street aid, Quarles said the work on the Nevada School parking lot and street is finished and looks good. Next, crews will be working on the road behind the Rosston Volunteer Fire Department. Once this is done, he told the panel, there will only be two streets in the city limits needing to be paved. Having paved streets, he added, cuts down on maintenance considerably. He told the council the city will continue applying for street aid from the state, letting the amount build for future projects.

The last order of business was to discuss the 2023 budget. Quarles said the council needs to start on it now and put more time in on it because of inflation. “It will change a lot in some areas,” he said of the budget, especially utilities. The city, he continued, won’t be putting much in the street budget because of the recent street aid projects, and this department’s budget will be left as is.

The budgeting process, he said, will be a slow one, but it’s due in December and the data needs to be gathered. He pointed out the city exceeded its 2022 budget because of the cost of literally  everything going up while the budget was based on the previous year’s figures. “I’d rather budget too high, than too low,” he said.