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Village of Lansing Mayor Donald Hartill told the Village Trustees Monday that he is pushing a plan to lower the minimum water charge for Bolton Point customers.  A long-time member of the Bolton Point Board of Commissioners, Hartill says the current minimum charge is unfair, forcing low-volume users to subsidize major water users.

"What they should do is have some minimum charge that everybody pays, including the big users," Hartill said.  "That minimum charge would be, in effect, the cost of accounting and sending bills.  If you take a minimum charge of eight dollars per quarter and then you pay four dollars per thousand gallons or whatever the rate is on top of that, it's basically income-neutral.  But it saves almost 50% of the customers a fair amount of money.  The big users pay their fair share."

Hartill says the commission decided to study the issue more after he presented a spreadsheet that showed how redistributed costs will continue to pay for water commission expenses.  He says the commission authorized $10,000 to hire a consultant to study his proposal, and that he hopes to switch to a fairer system next year.

"The way we're doing it now is that half of the residential users are subsidizing the big users," Hartill said.  "That doesn't seem fair to me."

The current minimum charge in the Village of Lansing is $50 for 10,000 gallons, or $45 in the Town's consolidated water district..  After the first 10,000 gallons the charge is $.500/100 gallons in the Village and $.455/100 gallons within the Town's consolidated water district.  Town water users outside of the consolidated water district pay the same rates as Village users.

Hartill says most people use  four or five thousand gallons at most, and some only use around two thousand.

"If you take this proposal the lower half saves a significant amount," he said.  "You're still being subsidized, but it's much better."

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