Ashland residents to see 23% increase on sewer bills after Kehoe veto
Ryan Shiner
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Ashland residents can expect to see a sizable increase to their sewer bill.
After Gov. Mike Kehoe on Monday used a veto to strike down $11 million from the state budget for sewer system improvements in Ashland, a city spokesperson says a 23% jump in sewer bills will occur.
The city broke ground on a wastewater treatment facility on May 5. Previous reporting indicates the expansion will increase the facility’s capacity from 600,000 gallons per day to 1.6 million gallons per day. It could treat up to 2.6 million gallons per day once it is fully built out.
Ashland spokesperson Kyle Michel wrote in an email on Tuesday that the state funding request was intended to be used to reduce rate increases for customers.
“The project will require, at a minimum, 23% rate increases on sewer bills each year for the next three years,” Michel wrote. “Funding from the state would have reduced or eliminated part of these increases and would also have positioned the City to return some aspects of the project that were cut. While it is disappointing that our funding request was cut, our project was not exclusively singled out. All wastewater funding requests were cut. We did what we could to ensure our project stayed in the budget in an effort to protect our rate payers.”
Michel wrote that the “project is under construction and will move forward regardless as it is an essential project that must happen.”