After city staff discovered a discrepancy between city code and how the city bills property owners for sewer service, the Jefferson City Council will review a potential amendment to city code.
City code requires the city charge a rate to individuals connected to the public sewers, as well as residential, commercial, industrial and government establishments that "are not connected to public sewers but for which sewer service is available."
However, Jefferson City Finance Director Margie Mueller told the Jefferson City Finance Committee last Thursday the city does not charge the fixed minimum rate per month to vacant or abandoned establishments that have available sewer service.
The sewer service charge has a monthly fixed minimum rate of $11.33, plus a charge based on the cubic feet of water used per month.
Sewer service is considered available if a sewer is within 150 feet of the establishment's property, under city code.
On average, about 100 active abandoned properties are registered with the city. There were 108 abandoned properties listed on the city website as of Sept. 4.
While it is unknown how much revenue the city has missed by not collecting the sewer charge for abandoned properties, Mueller said, she estimated the impact was less than $15,000 a year.
The city received more than $11 million in revenue from sewer charges in fiscal year 2017, Mueller said.
She offered the Finance Committee two options. The first would be to direct city staff to follow the city code as written, so "any building or structure that has sewer service (available to them) will be billed $11.33 whether they're hooked up or using the service at all," Mueller said.
The other option, which the committee opted for, was to change the city code language to state the city would charge only individuals whose properties are connected to the sewer service and are using it.
City staff noticed the discrepancy after neighbors complained about an abandoned building in their neighborhood, where the property owner of the vacant building had disconnected sewer service, City Administrator Steve Crowell said.
One reason to charge the minimum rate to vacant and abandoned structures, Crowell said, is the sewer system must be maintained and be available to all properties, even if owners of abandoned structures choose not to use the service.
The committee and council also must ensure they do not incentivize the wrong thing, Crowell and City Counselor Ryan Moehlman added.
"If you make it too easy for people to disconnect from the sewer then you may encourage people to (disconnect) their buildings," Moehlman said. "You want to make sure you're encouraging and incentivizing the right thing, not disusage."
Charging the minimum rate regardless of usage could incentivize property owners not to connect the sewer service, Ward 2 Councilman Rick Mihalevich said.
"Would the incentive be to tear (the properties) down because they don't have sewer service or don't want to pay for the service, or will it be where a property owner says, 'This is another thing I have to pay, so I might as well get this back to being habitable?'" Mihalevich said. "I don't know. We want to incentivize not an abandoned building; we want to incentivize a building that meets city code."
The City Council will discuss the proposed city code amendment in October or November.