Hughes Springs increases water fees

The Hughes Springs City Council convened Tuesday, June 16, to discuss a prospective nominee for the Cass County Appraisal Board and an increase in water meter deposits and reconnect fees.

The council voted unanimously to nominate Rick Nelson for appraisal board director.

City Manager Stephen Barnes recommended Nelson for the council’s consideration.

“I’ve been in contact with Sarah Dildine, Superintendent, and we’re both nominating the same person. They nominated him at their last school board meeting. So that’s why we’re nominating Rick--to get on the same page with them, get behind it, hopefully get him elected.”

The council also voted unanimously to increase residential and some commercial water meter deposits and reconnect fees.

Barnes reiterated discussion points from May’s meeting regarding bad debt as the reason for the increase.

“At the last council meeting we wrote off a fair amount of bad debt basically from past water bills and that spurred the discussion of possibly increasing some deposits. I made several phone calls to surrounding cities—tried to get ones in comparable size and see what they were doing”, Barnes said.

“Based on the high rates and the surrounding town rates, the city’s recommendation is to increase a residential deposit to $100 and increase reconnect fees from $25 to $40.”

Discussion regarding bad debt accrued by certain commercial water customers led to an amendment of the agenda item to include raising water meter deposits for “larger commercial” accounts to $300 from $250.

The Hughes Springs City Council meets the third Tuesday of each month at City Hall, 603 E. 1st Street.