Rising costs, system upgrades spur 3-year sewer rate increase plan in Rohnert Park

Rohnert Park households and businesses can expect to pay about 7% more on their sewer bills come October after the city council approved raising rates to keep up with the cost of managing and treating the city’s wastewater.

Monthly bills for single family homes, which comprise 69% of the hookups within the city, are expected to increase a little more than $3, from $42.20 to $45.33, in the first year of three years’ worth of planned hikes, according to Mark Hildebrand, the consultant hired to help the city establish its new rates.

In all, the planned rates range between 6.2% and 7.4% more, depending on residential versus commercial usage and other factors. Customers would see increases at those same rates in years two and three.

Rohnert Park residents should see notices in the mail within the next couple of weeks explaining the increase. Known as a Proposition 218 notice, this legal requirement is the next step in the process, Hildebrand said.

The notice provides the opportunity for residents to protest the increase. If the majority of residents do not, the rates would likely be implemented by October 2024, Hildebrand said.

The increase would take Rohnert Park’s rates from least expensive in the county to second least expensive, second only to Cotati.

The city council originally approved a less aggressive rate hike in 2018 but paused implementation when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. Hildebrand said that current rates should be 6.1% higher than they currently are.

“During COVID, it was the right thing to do,” Vice Mayor Gerard Giudice said. “We knew we’d have to pay the price one day and here it is.”

Hildebrand said the increase is driven by two factors, one that can be controlled and one that can’t.

The city has no control over the basic cost of managing wastewater because it contracts with Santa Rosa, which holds and processes Rohnert Park’s sewage in the Laguna Wastewater Plant off Llano Road.

“The city has zero control of that bill,” Hildebrand said. “And it’s the majority of the city’s cost,” comprising 75% of the city’s wastewater expenses, which total just over $16 million for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

The cost for Santa Rosa’s service is rising, Hildebrand said, with regional prices spiking 13% last year and inflation pushing sewage treatment costs an additional 17%.

A rate increase is also required to help address the city’s aging wastewater infrastructure, which includes a system of pipes, sewers and pumps that serve more than 10,000 customers. Over the next two years, the city plans to spend more than $11 million on wastewater infrastructure projects, including rehabilitating its inflow and infiltration system, utilities building and a pump station.

Without the rate increase, the city would dip into its cash reserves beyond recommended levels.

“The reserves drop precipitously” without the increase, Hildebrand said, adding that an average 7% rate increase the first year, followed by another 7% increase the second year, and another 7% increase in the third year would reverse that trend.

Amie Windsor is the Community Journalism Team Lead with The Press Democrat. She can be reached at amie.windsor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5218.