Morgan City council votes to raise utility rates

The Morgan City Council voted Tuesday to raise residents' utility bill rates so that the city can continue to fund essential services, city leaders said.

City council members adopted three ordinances to increase utility rates beginning March 1, which means the increases will show up on the April utility bills. The monthly increases include $7.50 per month for 1,000 kilowatts of electricity, $7 per month for 10 cubic feet of water, $7 per month for 10 cubic feet for sewer usage, and $1.79 per 16 cubic feet of natural gas. The total average monthly increase residents should see is about $23 for all utilities.

All three ordinances passed by a 4-1 vote with Councilmen Louis Tamporello, Ray Autrey , Mark Stephens and Tim Hymel voting in favor of the increases. Councilman Ron Bias was the lone dissenting vote.

The council added wording in the ordinances to allow the council option to adjust rates by resolution, as needed. Tuesday’s rate increases marked the first time the city has raised utility rates since 2010, officials said.

“We looked at this a lot,” Tamporello said. “It’s a hard thing to swallow for anybody that’s got to do this ... but, if not, you won’t have the services that we’re trying to provide now.”

Hymel said the rate increases are not meant to let the city make money, but to just allow the city to break even on revenues and expenses.

Since 2013, the city has been able to cut expenses from the city budget by reducing Morgan City government’s workforce by over 40 employees, hiring a private company to collect garbage and going to a self-insured health insurance plan for city employees, along with other savings measures, Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi said.

“All of those gains have basically gone to continue to subsidize utility rates,” Grizzaffi said.

Morgan City doesn’t have any dedicated taxes to fund the police department, fire department, recreation department and library, he said.

“All of those services that we offer for free with no tax are basically paid for through utilities (revenues),” the mayor said.

In 2017, city officials transferred $3.35 million from the utility fund to subsidize those four departments. Officials plan to do the same in 2018.

Over the years, the utility fund balance has dropped from over $40 million to less than $17 million.

“There’s going to come a time when you’re not going to be able to transfer any money from the utility fund to the general fund because you won’t have a fund balance to sustain it,” Grizzaffi said.

State officials expect the city to at least break even on expenses and revenues within each department’s budget, he said.

“We’ve been basically ignoring that and subsidizing for the benefit of our citizens all these years,” Grizzaffi said.

When the economy was flourishing, the city could use the utility fund to subsidize other departments without any problems, he said.

“When you’ve been on a crunch like we’ve been on, and now you’ve made all the cuts. And you’ve given all the cuts to these subsidies, you can’t do it anymore. You have to be neutral,” Grizzaffi said.

Also during the meeting, the mayor and council commended the city workers for how they handled the aftermath that resulted from hard freezes last week. Workers did well to shut off water and leaks due to busted pipes, Grizzaffi said. Pressure in the city’s water and natural gas lines got unusually low because of the freezes, but officials were able to avoid any major issues, he said.

In other business, the council

—Accepted the appointment of Tamporello as mayor pro tem.

—Accepted the appointment of Marion Collins to the library commission.

—Approved the Krewe of Dionysus to hold its third annual Irish Italian Walking Parade at 1 p.m. March 17.

—Approved organizers to hold the third annual Porch Fest April 21 in the area of Lawrence Park.

—Tabled action on the issuance of revenue anticipation notes.