Grants Pass' water plant. Over 35-40 years of rationing water rates, our river has never run too low for this plant to water our city.
Kudos to the Daily Courier and writer Vickie Aldous for exposing the consultant hired by our City Manager regarding pay raises for himself and other non-union staff. The consultant was asked to create mid-size raises and delivered high raises.
This reminds me of water and sewer rate consultants FCS Group, hired in 2005 by then City Manager David Frasher. In 2008, our Public Works Director couldn’t pay the overhead and asked the Council to raise the base rate by $3 to fix the problem. It didn’t, because they didn’t lower unit rates, which were most of the bill.
FCS eventually hiked our water rates every year 5.28% above inflation to pay the overhead and Councils rubber stamped it.
In April 2020, I sent a memo to city staff about changing the rate system back to putting all overhead costs in the base rate and charging only unit costs to unit rates, the way it was when our city was clean, green, beautiful, and far from wildfires.
FCS sent me a memo, admitting on the first page that aligning “fixed costs” (overhead) with base rates would make revenue more stable and “water usage” cost less per unit, encouraging watering in the growing season. FCS never said what is wrong with watering.
Ninety-nine percent of
the cost of any utility is overhead; usage costs are tiny in comparison and vary
greatly by season. Paying for all plant
overhead with base rates pays the bills every month, even when the plant goes
down, and spreads the cost most evenly among ratepayers. Our Budget Committee can do the yearly math
to set rates.
3-4-2026 2-minute Speech to Grants Pass City
Council
Published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com
and shared on Facebook and X.com
Like Ratepayers for Fair Water and Sewer
Pricing on Facebook.
Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener 541-955-9040 rycke@gardener.com
