Hobart residents can expect to see their sewer rates go up by around $3 a month on January 1.
The City Council at its Wednesday night meeting voted 7-0 for the rate increase, its second since 2022. Residential customers who use 3,000 gallons a month will see their bill go up $2.90 to $61.18 from $58.28 to $61.18; while customers who use 4,000 gallons will see their bill go up $3.31 a month, to $69.88 from $66.67.
Unmetered users on well water, on the other hand, will see their bills reduced by $9.84 a month — to $69.88 from $79.72 — because the Hobart Sanitary Board determined the average usage data it was using was too high, the Post-Tribune reported previously.
The increases serve two purposes: to continue covering the bond on the $45 million lift station improvement project the city just completed, but also because the Sanitary Department has reached the point that it could run into trouble paying to fix things, Sanitary Board President and Mayor’s Assistant Bob Fulton told the council.
“We are now below the recommended reserve (cash) level,” he said. “We’re seeing increased time of delinquency (in residents paying their bills), and we’ve been trying to reclaim (the money) in liens, but that takes a long time, and we need to cover increased maintenance costs.”
Additionally, the sanitary department is the “most senior department” in the city, and it’s about to be hit with a wave of retirements in the new year.
“When you lose two or three senior employees, you’re going to have hire four or five new people to replace the institutional knowledge walking out the door,” Fulton said.
City officials celebrated the completion of lift station improvements last month. A second force main was added from the lift station at 33 Center St. to its connection with a line from the Gary Sanitary District, which treats the sewage. Built in the 1980s, the lift station also received new pumps, electrical components, a transformer as well as site improvements around the facility.
In 2010, the city entered into an agreed order with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to take several measures to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows in the city.
The council is expected to approve the increase on second reading at its December 18 meeting.
In other business, the Department of Local Government Finance bestowed upon the city some pleasant news Tuesday night: Its 2025 budget passed the DLGF virtually intact, said Clerk-Treasurer Deb Long.
“That’s unheard-of,” Long said. “The council did a good job.”
Long said the DLGF did provide a warning about the taxpayers’ property tax circuit breakers — wherein if a resident’s gross tax liability is exceeded, a cap will kick in — but she won’t know how much they’re costing the city until it receives its first tax collection of the year.
Freelance reporter Carole Carlson contributed.
