ALTAMONT — After months of discussion and a number of rescheduled public hearings on the matter, the Altamont Board of Trustees on Tuesday voted to increase the fee charged to customers for upgrades made to the village’s waste-water treatment plant. 

 The twice-a-year fee, which is used to pay for the improvements, will increase from $45 to $100 per user. 

In 2013, the village upgraded about two-thirds of the Gun Club facility. The upgrade came with $170,000 in annual loan payments. At the time the village adopted this year’s budget, in April, $2.75 million of the original $3.58 million bond was still outstanding.

The village was recently flagged by the state Comptroller’s Office for borrowing from the general fund to cover sewer-related costs. The state Comptroller’s Office had “notified us and said you have to do something about your rates,” village Treasure Catherine Hasbrouck said at last month’s board meeting, because the fund “has to be self-supporting.”

Every year for the past few years, the village has had to take $25,000 out of the sewer reserve to help pay back the bond on the sewer-plant upgrades. The board was told in March 2020 that more revenue had to be raised so the village could collect another $100,000 per year to help pay down the bond. 

Last year, $70,000 had to be borrowed from the general fund to balance the 2020 sewer fund. For this year’s spending plan, another $105,000 was budgeted to close the gap, according to village filings with the Comptroller’s Office. Mayor Kerry Dineen said during the Dec. 7 meeting that the sewer-fund shortage for this year would be approximately $96,000.

When the board adopted this year’s budget, it had already built in the anticipated additional sewer-fee revenue, but because the October bills were sent without the increase, the village will likely have to transfer money from the general fund to cover sewer expenses, Hasbrouck told the board on Tuesday. 

The public hearing was initially scheduled for June 1; canceled and rescheduled for Oct. 19; canceled and rescheduled again, this time for Oct. 28; and finally canceled and rescheduled for Dec. 7.

Just one resident (of the two who attended the meeting) spoke during Tuesday’s public hearing. Kathryn Provencher asked the board if the fee is scheduled to go away, to which Hasbrouck answered in about 23 years.

Explaining some of the reasoning behind the fee increase, Dineen said, “Water usage is down. That’s one of the big reasons … Expenses on the plant have also increased over the last seven years; the electricity is higher than expected.”

The village bills customers for their water consumption and bases the sewer charge as a percentage of water use. In April, customers are charged 180 percent of their water use for sewer rent. The October bill has a 150-percent charge.

Between 2017 and 2021, the village’s median metered water sales were approximately $328,500 per year, which represented an average annual decline of about $16,000 from the previous five-year period, 2012 to 2016, when median sales were about $345,000 a year, according to village filings with the Comptroller’s Office.

Over the past five years, Altamont collected about $430,000 per year in median sewer rents, down from the annual median of about $436,000 it received between 2012 to 2016, according to village filings with the Comptroller’s Office.