Castle Rock residents will find a reduction in their utility bill next year due to operational efficiencies and the town being able to put off some capital projects.
Castle Rock Utilities Director Mark Marlowe said overall, fees for a typical residential bill will drop 1.2 percent next year.
“The good news is for several reasons the overall bill is going down for our customers, and the fixed charge will be going down 3 percent,” Marlowe said.
The average residential bill includes four charges for water, wastewater, stormwater and then a water resources fee associated with long-term, renewable water legacy projects. The water resources fee is going up 60 cents for the average Castle Rock resident.
He said some of the operational efficiencies include a new online billing system that will save the town about $100,000 a year. That system will be rolled out in January, he said.
“It provides more ways for our customers to interact with us and improve customer service,” Marlowe said. “There’s a lot of money that goes into mailing bills and that sort of thing.”
He said they’re also able to keep fees low because of Castle’s Rock’s growth.
“If you have more customers you can spread that out and that gets you some fixed efficiencies there,” he said.
Also contributing to the decrease is the new Plum Creek Water Purification Facility, which went online this summer. That’s because now the town is drawing from surface water rather than pumping it out of the wells, which adds expense to the city’s electricity bills.
The plant is part of the town’s long-term renewable water plan, which includes renewable water through a long-term plan with Stillwater Resources and the metro Denver area Water Infrastructure Supply Efficiency project.
He said the town has been able to delay the capital projects that include building the infrastructure for the new renewable water project out a few years until 2015, meaning residents don’t have to start paying for it yet. In addition, he said other capital projects, such as upgrading the wastewater collection system, have been deferred for a few years.
So residents might feel a pinch on their water bill in the future, but probably not for awhile.
“I think it’s a good thing we’ve got to balance, to make sure that we’ve got the finances to balance what we need to do,” Marlowe said. “But obviously we’re always working to keep our rates as good as we can for our customers.”
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2671, cwoullard@denverpost.com or
