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It’s now going to cost more to connect to a water or sewer line in Buckingham County. During their Monday, July 10 meeting, the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors voted to increase water and sewer fees. The reason, Buckingham County Administrator Karl Carter explained, was that the rates hadn’t increased since 2002. Since the costs of everything have gone up significantly over the past 11 years, Carter argued a hike was needed here too, just to balance the books. 

“Like I said before, while we are not trying to make money on connection fees,” Carter said. “We do not want to lose money for each connection.” 

Previously in Buckingham County, it cost a homeowner $2,000 to connect each water and sewer line. What Carter proposed, and supervisors approved, was a deal to increase the rate to $3,000 per line. 

As we mentioned, costs and regulations overall have increased since 2002. That includes everything from buying the materials to following state guidelines. It’s hard to balance that without passing some of that extra cost on to the customer. And $3,000 comes right in at the average for some counties of similar size to Buckingham, according to a survey done by the University of North Carolina. Out of 328 examined by the group, the average cost came in right under $3,000. 

Water and sewer fees not the only changes 

This fee was the only price increase that came out of Monday’s meeting but it wasn’t the only change. Along with the price increase, the board voted to take the connection fees out of the ordinance and list them separately in a fee schedule. Instead of specific prices, the ordinance now reads to “see the current fee schedule”. All the fees are still the same, just in a separate place.

“All we did is leave all of the meat and potatoes in there and in place and took out the fees and attached a separate schedule for them,” said Carter.  

This means that the board will no longer have to hold a public hearing every time they need to change fee prices in the future. Now, the process will look different even though the board will still hold a public vote for the change and will require a majority for it to pass. All that is different is that there won’t be a public hearing. The recommendation for this change came from Carter to avoid having multiple public hearings every time a change is needed.