The City's Budget & How Your Utilities Are Funded

Here's a helpful video from the Association of Washington Cities that explains how cities plan and pay for city services and the challenges they face.

Did You Know?

The Bonney Lake Water Utility has:

  • 13,877 connections serving nearly 39,000 customers
  • 215 miles of water mains
  • 7 booster stations and 5 reservoirs totaling over 20 million gallons of storage
  • 5 water sources comprised of two spring sources and five groundwater wells

The Bonney Lake Sewer Utility has:

  • 6,706 connections serving nearly 15,000 customers
  • 103 miles of sewer mains and over 2,000 manholes
  • 26 Lift Stations
  • Owns over half of the treatment capacity at the Sumner Wastewater Treatment Facility

 

The Budget

The City of Bonney Lake began budgeting on a biennial (two-year) basis in 2007. In the budget, the accounts of the city are organized into funds. Each fund contains a set of accounts that comprises its cash, investments, revenues and expenditures, as appropriate. It is important to know that utility systems like water and sewer are accounted for separately. Local government utilities are paid for out of an Enterprise Fund, a self-supporting government fund that sells goods and services to the public for a fee. Your utility bills directly pay for the utility system it supports and they cannot be used for other purposes.

Rates and Fees

In order to be able to receive City Utility services, a customer must pay the appropriate fees. The collection of these fees pay for the administration of the utility, billing and collections, operations, maintenance, repairs, planning, design, and construction of improvements to the utility infrastructure. These expenses are completely funded by System Development Charges (SDCs) and user fees.

SDCs are one-time charges assessed on new development to pay for the costs of expanding public facilities to serve that development. Growth creates additional infrastructure demands and SDCs provide a mechanism to allow new growth in a community to pay for its share of infrastructure costs rather than existing taxpayers or utility ratepayers. By law, revenue from SDCs can only be used for capital improvements associated with the system that the SDC was paid into. SDCs cannot be used to repair existing infrastructure.

User fees typically include two separate components: the base charge and the commodity charge. The base charge is a fixed monthly fee determined by either the size of the water meter or the type of connection to the sewer collection system at your property. This fee helps more equitably distribute service costs that are not related to the volume of water used or wastewater discharged at your property such as bill production, customer service, water and sewer service inspections, meter reading and maintenance/replacement of meters.

The commodity charge for both water and sewer is the fee paid for the volume of water consumed during the billing period. It is the commodity charge that pays for the operation and maintenance of the utility infrastructure.

Water Utility Rate Structure

Bonney Lake, like many cities, has adopted a conservation based rate structure. That means the more water you use the more you pay. There is no “volume discount”. This is intended to discourage waste, high consumption, and promote conservation. This is not only for environmental stewardship purposes, but also because in the summer peak demand can exceed the volume of water the City can produce internally through its springs and wells. When this occurs, the City has to purchase additional water from Tacoma Public Utilities through our intertie with them. This cost is passed on to the rate payers who cause the excess demand. Although there is no cap as to how much water you can use, you will pay a premium for high water use during the summer.

Sewer Utility Rate Structure

Residential Sewer Utility customers pay a monthly base charge and commodity charge. The base charge varies depending upon whether your property utilizes a grinder pump or not. The commodity charge, often called a volumetric charge, is based off of your bi-monthly water meter read and is capped at 10 centum cubic feet (CCF) per month of water consumed at your property. (One CCF is equal to 100 cubic feet and 100 cubic feet is equal to 748 gallons) The 10 CCF cap on the volumetric charge is meant to prevent the customer from having to pay for water that never makes it into the sewer system, such as water used for washing a car or irrigating a lawn.

Billing of Rates and Fees

Residential customers who reside inside Bonney Lake city limits are billed the base charge for their water and sewer utility connections on a monthly basis and for commodity (consumption) on a bi-monthly basis. Residential customers who reside outside city limits are billed on a bi-monthly basis for both the base and commodity (consumption) charges.

The amount billed includes a fee or tax of 12% calculated on the gross revenue of the water, sewer and storm water utility. The money collected as a result of this tax is deposited into the city’s general fund account.

Residential customers who reside inside Bonney Lake city limits have their meters read on odd months (January, March, May, July, September, and November). If you receive your September bill and the invoiced amount seems abnormally high for that time of year, it is important to remember that you are paying for the water consumed during the months of July and August.

Residential customers who reside outside City limits have their meters read on even months (February, April, June, August, October, and December). If you receive your October bill and the invoiced amount seems abnormally high for that time of year, it is important to remember that you are paying the base charge and water consumed for the months of August and September.

Once all of the meters are read and when preparing the utility bills, the accounting system will generate a “meter read edit list”. All accounts that consumed more than double the volume of water during the same period as the previous year are sent a Courtesy Notice. A Courtesy Notice will be either a letter or a “door hanger” alerting the customer to the high water consumption for that billing period. Some people refer to these as “leak notices”, but a water leak could be one of several causes for the high consumption.

If you believe you were billed in error because of a misread or a faulty water meter, it can be easily checked. Compare the present reading on your bill to the reading on your meter. If the number on your meter is smaller than the reading on your statement, the meter has been misread. Call us at 253-447-4317, we will send someone out check the meter reading, correct our records as needed, and send an adjusted statement. If the reading on your meter is larger than the present reading on the statement, the reading is likely accurate.

If you suspect a faulty meter may be inaccurately recording the amount of water used, call us. Occasionally, a water meter does malfunction. A malfunctioning meter can record usage at a higher or lower rate than is accurate, but does not record usage when no water is being used. You can request a meter test by signing the form available at the City utility billing office in the Justice and Municipal Center at 9002 Main St E, or download the form from the City website. If a meter is found to be malfunctioning, it will be replaced and the billing adjusted. If the meter is NOT malfunctioning, the billing is not adjusted and your account is charged a service fee of $50.00. If you have questions or require additional information, please contact the utility desk at 253-447-4317. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Public Works and the City’s Finance and Utility Billing Departments are currently evaluating moving the reading and billing of utility services to a monthly cycle. Please stay tuned for more information on this change to your utility billing.

Bonney Lake Water and Sewer – The Most Expensive in the State?

Utility systems are all unique and so are the fees associated with them. How old is the system? How many sources of water or wastewater lift stations does the system have? What kind of treatment is required and how is the wastewater treated? And by who? Regardless of those questions, the following base and commodity charge comparisons are provided in order to illustrate that Bonney Lake’s water and sewer utility rates are very competitive with other utility providers in the region. All of this rate information is current as of March 2021.

In short, if you hear that Bonney Lake’s utility rates are the highest in the state or nation, it’s simply not true.

Provide water and sewer rate comparison tables here.

Wastewater generated in Bonney Lake is treated and disposed of at the City of Sumner Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF). Each month, the City of Bonney Lake pays Sumner for wastewater treatment and its share of any needed projects to maintain the WWTF or upgrade it to meet current wastewater treatment standards. Last year, Bonney Lake paid $2.4 million dollars to the City of Sumner for these services.

Keeping the City utility systems running in an efficient manner and in compliance with Federal and State Regulations is costly. However, not maintaining these systems can be even more costly in not just money spent but also in terms of the cost to public health and our environment. Putting off infrastructure repair and replacement results in higher costs due to the need to make more expensive repairs when infrastructure fails. These costs end up being passed on to utility customers.
Did you know?

Did You Know?

The Bonney Lake Water Utility has:

  • 13,877 connections serving nearly 39,000 customers
  • 215 miles of water mains
  • 7 booster stations and 5 reservoirs totaling over 20 million gallons of storage
  • 5 water sources comprised of two spring sources and five groundwater wells

The Bonney Lake Sewer Utility has:

  • 6,706 connections serving nearly 15,000 customers
  • 103 miles of sewer mains and over 2,000 manholes
  • 26 Lift Stations
  • Owns over half of the treatment capacity at the Sumner Wastewater Treatment Facility
The Budget

The Budget

The City of Bonney Lake began budgeting on a biennial (two-year) basis in 2007. In the budget, the accounts of the city are organized into funds. Each fund contains a set of accounts that comprises its cash, investments, revenues and expenditures, as appropriate. It is important to know that utility systems like water and sewer are accounted for separately. Local government utilities are paid for out of an Enterprise Fund, a self-supporting government fund that sells goods and services to the public for a fee. Your utility bills directly pay for the utility system it supports and they cannot be used for other purposes. 
Rates and Fees

Rates and Fees

In order to be able to receive City Utility services, a customer must pay the appropriate fees. The collection of these fees pay for the administration of the utility, billing and collections, operations, maintenance, repairs, planning, design, and construction of improvements to the utility infrastructure. These expenses are completely funded by System Development Charges (SDCs) and user fees.

SDCs are one-time charges assessed on new development to pay for the costs of expanding public facilities to serve that development. Growth creates additional infrastructure demands and SDCs provide a mechanism to allow new growth in a community to pay for its share of infrastructure costs rather than existing taxpayers or utility ratepayers. By law, revenue from SDCs can only be used for capital improvements associated with the system that the SDC was paid into. SDCs cannot be used to repair existing infrastructure.

User fees typically include two separate components: the base charge and the commodity charge. The base charge is a fixed monthly fee determined by either the size of the water meter or the type of connection to the sewer collection system at your property. This fee helps more equitably distribute service costs that are not related to the volume of water used or wastewater discharged at your property such as bill production, customer service, water and sewer service inspections, meter reading and maintenance/replacement of meters.

The commodity charge for both water and sewer is the fee paid for the volume of water consumed during the billing period. It is the commodity charge that pays for the operation and maintenance of the utility infrastructure.
Water Utility Rate Structure

Water Utility Rate Structure

Bonney Lake, like many cities, has adopted a conservation based rate structure. That means the more water you use the more you pay. There is no “volume discount”. This is intended to discourage waste, high consumption, and promote conservation. This is not only for environmental stewardship purposes, but also because in the summer peak demand can exceed the volume of water the City can produce internally through its springs and wells. When this occurs, the City has to purchase additional water from Tacoma Public Utilities through our intertie with them. This cost is passed on to the rate payers who cause the excess demand. Although there is no cap as to how much water you can use, you will pay a premium for high water use during the summer.



Sewer Utility Rate Structure

Sewer Utility Rate Structure

Residential Sewer Utility customers pay a monthly base charge and commodity charge. The base charge varies depending upon whether your property utilizes a grinder pump or not. The commodity charge, often called a volumetric charge, is based off of your bi-monthly water meter read and is capped at 10 centum cubic feet (CCF) per month of water consumed at your property. (One CCF is equal to 100 cubic feet and 100 cubic feet is equal to 748 gallons) The 10 CCF cap on the volumetric charge is meant to prevent the customer from having to pay for water that never makes it into the sewer system, such as water used for washing a car or irrigating a lawn.
Billing of Rates and Fees

Billing of Rates and Fees

Residential customers who reside inside Bonney Lake city limits are billed the base charge for their water and sewer utility connections on a monthly basis and for commodity (consumption) on a bi-monthly basis. Residential customers who reside outside city limits are billed on a bi-monthly basis for both the base and commodity (consumption) charges.

The amount billed includes a fee or tax of 12% calculated on the gross revenue of the water, sewer and storm water utility. The money collected as a result of this tax is deposited into the city’s general fund account.
Residential customers who reside inside Bonney Lake city limits have their meters read on odd months (January, March, May, July, September, and November). If you receive your September bill and the invoiced amount seems abnormally high for that time of year, it is important to remember that you are paying for the water consumed during the months of July and August.

Residential customers who reside outside City limits have their meters read on even months (February, April, June, August, October, and December). If you receive your October bill and the invoiced amount seems abnormally high for that time of year, it is important to remember that you are paying the base charge and water consumed for the months of August and September.

Once all of the meters are read and when preparing the utility bills, the accounting system will generate a “meter read edit list”. All accounts that consumed more than double the volume of water during the same period as the previous year are sent a Courtesy Notice. A Courtesy Notice will be either a letter or a “door hanger” alerting the customer to the high water consumption for that billing period. Some people refer to these as “leak notices”, but a water leak could be one of several causes for the high consumption.

If you believe you were billed in error because of a misread or a faulty water meter, it can be easily checked. Compare the present reading on your bill to the reading on your meter. If the number on your meter is smaller than the reading on your statement, the meter has been misread. Call us at 253-447-4317, we will send someone out check the meter reading, correct our records as needed, and send an adjusted statement. If the reading on your meter is larger than the present reading on the statement, the reading is likely accurate.

If you suspect a faulty meter may be inaccurately recording the amount of water used, call us. Occasionally, a water meter does malfunction. A malfunctioning meter can record usage at a higher or lower rate than is accurate, but does not record usage when no water is being used. You can request a meter test by signing the form available at the City utility billing office in the Justice and Municipal Center at 9002 Main St E, or download the form from the City website. If a meter is found to be malfunctioning, it will be replaced and the billing adjusted. If the meter is NOT malfunctioning, the billing is not adjusted and your account is charged a service fee of $50.00. If you have questions or require additional information, please contact the utility desk at 253-447-4317. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Public Works and the City’s Finance and Utility Billing Departments are currently evaluating moving the reading and billing of utility services to a monthly cycle. Please stay tuned for more information on this change to your utility billing.
Bonney Lake Water and Sewer – The Most Expensive in the State?

Bonney Lake Water and Sewer – The Most Expensive in the State?

Utility systems are all unique and so are the fees associated with them. How old is the system? How many sources of water or wastewater lift stations does the system have? What kind of treatment is required and how is the wastewater treated? And by who? Regardless of those questions, the following base and commodity charge comparisons are provided in order to illustrate that Bonney Lake’s water and sewer utility rates are very competitive with other utility providers in the region. All of this rate information is current as of March 2021.

In short, if you hear that Bonney Lake’s utility rates are the highest in the state or nation, it’s simply not true.

Provide water and sewer rate comparison tables here.

Wastewater generated in Bonney Lake is treated and disposed of at the City of Sumner Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF). Each month, the City of Bonney Lake pays Sumner for wastewater treatment and its share of any needed projects to maintain the WWTF or upgrade it to meet current wastewater treatment standards. Last year, Bonney Lake paid $2.4 million dollars to the City of Sumner for these services.

Keeping the City utility systems running in an efficient manner and in compliance with Federal and State Regulations is costly. However, not maintaining these systems can be even more costly in not just money spent but also in terms of the cost to public health and our environment. Putting off infrastructure repair and replacement results in higher costs due to the need to make more expensive repairs when infrastructure fails. These costs end up being passed on to utility customers.