New St. Mary’s County Metropolitan Commission member Bryan “Puff” Barthelme
California, MD — A new St. Mary’s County Metropolitan Commission (MetCom) member has questioned the business friendliness of the county’s water and sewer authority. Bryan “Buff” Barthelme noted at the commission’s Feb. 12 meeting the initiatives currently being considered in Annapolis to make the state and county more business friendly, including eliminating the business personal property tax. “Are you going to be perceived as being business unfriendly?” he asked his fellow MetCom commissioners and their staff.
What caused Barthelme’s concern was the proposal from a consultant for revising MetCom’s rate structure so that 60 percent of the residential customers would pay a lower monthly water and sewer rate but also showing some staggering increases for business customers.
The new rate would be based on the size of the businesses meter. A sampling of business customers showed that Target in California would have to pay $1,572.06 a month more, Extended Stay America $1,547.52 and Food Lion $1,071.38. “Is that going to make it harder for people to do business in this county,” Barthelme asked.
Concerns about the commercial rates were also raised at a recent joint meeting of MetCom and the county commissioners.
MetCom Commissioner Mike Mummaugh also questioned the rates. “I would like to compare them to the rates in Calvert and Charles.” he said, adding, “I am more concerned about being competitive.”
MetCom attorney Jacquelyn Meiser noted that the rates were dependent on the meter size that the customer has and perhaps they were too large for their needs; they could install a smaller one. She said, however, that there would be a cost to switch meters.
The rate study will be considered as MetCom develops its budget for the next fiscal year that begins in July.
The rates charged to customers not only include a service charge for operations but a system improvement charge for system maintenance and a one-time capital contribution charge for new projects. The size of the capital budget has been the source of criticism in the past. MetCom recently reduced the size of the proposed budget for the coming fiscal year.
But that reduction caused Mummaugh to question whether they have gone too far too fast. Mummaugh noted that interest rates are low now so now might be the time to do projects. “I don’t know if we should move that much down the road,” he said.
But Commissioner Charles “Sonny” Pessagno had a different concern. Pessagno observed that capital project costs are listed in the year in which they are bid even though the project costs may be spread over several years. He said that caused rate payers to be liable for the costs before they really are incurred.
Pessagno said the projected capital costs for the rest of the decade are like a roller coaster, with $80 million this year (half of which is for the Enhanced Nutrient Removal project at the Marley Taylor plant) and $6 million the following year (FY ’16). “Can we push some of this back to later years to even the burden,” he asked.
When time came to vote for a budget to present to the planning commission, Pessagno was the only one to vote in opposition. The capital budget will be also subject to approved by the county commissioners.
The MetCom commissioners are expected to finalize their budget and customer rates for the coming fiscal year in the next month. MetCom will have a public hearing on its proposed operating and capital budget and rate structure on April 6th and then finalize the budget before July 1.