Chief Financial Officer Sharon Wilcox speaks on the ordinance.
Photo credit: West Springfield Access
WEST SPRINGFIELD — A resident called a general ordinance amendment ‘taxation without representation’ during a public hearing at the West Springfield Town Council meeting on March 16.
First proposed to the council by Mayor William Reichelt on Jan. 6, the ordinance looks to delegate rate-setting authority for water and sewer fees to the director of the DPW with a purpose of ensuring “rates, fees and charges are sufficient to meet the operational and capital needs of the water and sewer enterprise funds,” according to the proposal.
“This approach will also help depoliticize the rate-setting process, which has become increasingly difficult in recent years,” Reichelt said in the proposal. “Allowing the director to make rate adjustments based on professional assessment and financial analysis and subject to public hearing, reporting and oversight, will promote consistency, transparency and fairness in rate determination. In short, this ordinance provides a sound, policy-based framework to ensure that water and sewer rates are neither overinflated nor insufficient, but rather properly balanced to meet the town’s present and future infrastructure needs.”
West Springfield resident Linda Parent used the term, popularized in the 18th century against the British Parliament’s taxation of American colonists, because the water and sewer fee-setting was included in the town taxes prior to Proposition 2½.
“It’s the City Council’s job to set rates and set fees and set taxes,” Parent said. “I’d hate to see this abandoned.”
Resident Todd Steglinski said he’s concerned about the checks and balances with “putting all the power into one pot.”
“Not that I don’t have any faith in what our Department of Public Works does,” Steglinski said. “They know our infrastructure like the back of our hand, but like [Parent] said, you guys are the ones that have historically set all kinds of different fees, overseen a lot, and now to take that away from you guys and recreate the wheel, type of thing, I’m kind of concerned about that.”
Steglinski said he knows the town has a lot of costs related to aging infrastructure and the DPW knows what priorities there are and should still have input. However, he said the final decisions should remain with the council.
“I think you guys are pretty reasonable, as far as considering town department head input, I don’t see why that would change,” Steglinski said. “I think, it’s like eliminating the council, ‘alright, we’re not going to have a council anymore, we’re going to put all the power in the mayor and his subordinates to call the shots.’ I mean, that’s just not the way our government system is set up to work.”
He added that he’d like to see more engagement with the council and public involvement to make it a little bit more fair.
West Springfield Chief Financial Officer Sharon Wilcox said the ordinance calls for a public hearing before any kind of rate change, which is “more than what’s happening right now.”
“The council sets the sewer rates and the mayor sets the water rates,” Wilcox said. “This ordinance would have a public hearing where the DPW director would explain the process and why the fees are increasing, what the increase would be and take public input at that point in time.”
She added that changes are a part of the budgeting process, which the council has to approve. The council wouldn’t be able to directly change the rate but can change the operating budget, which can lead to the cut of whatever is making the rate change justified.
The council voted to continue the public hearing on the ordinance on April 6.
