Hinsdale Passes Water Rate Hike on to Residents

The Board of Trustees approved an ordinance Monday night that will raise residents’ water rates 11 percent beginning Jan. 1 to keep up with a rate hike the village is receiving from the DuPage Water Commission (DWC).

The DWC has alerted its municipal clients that it will be increasing its Operation and Maintenance rate from $2.04 per 1,000 gallons of water to $2.73 per 1,000 in January, upping the overall DWC rate from $2.29 per 1,000 to $2.98 per 1,000.

According to the ordinance passed at Monday night's meeting, that hike will cost the village about $640,000 each year, translating into an 11 percent increase on each resident customer.

Trustee Doug Geoga, chair of the Administration and Community Affairs (ACA) Committee, said at the Dec. 5 ACA meeting that the increase is keeping the village “on par” and will not generate any net revenue for the village.

“It is regrettable but beyond anything we can do,” Geoga said.

Geoga said “a series of very substantial increases” from the DWC is expected to continue. In addition to the approximately 30 percent bump the DWC is doling out in January 2012, the ordinance passed Monday says the village expects a 20 percent hike in 2013, an 18 percent hike in 2014, and a 17 percent hike in 2015.

Village manager David Cook said the DWC increases are meant to offset the DWC’s short-term borrowing of $69 million due to, according to the ordinance, “accounting and rate making errors" and accommodate a 90 percent water rate hike implemented by the City of Chicago over the next four years.

The DWC gets 100 percent of its water supply from the City of Chicago, Cook said. 

The 11 percent hike was passed nearly seven months after .