The Valley Signal

Government & Accountability

Victor Cuts Sewer Rates a Third; The $1.4 Million Estimate Behind the Old Rate Was Never Billed

Victor's monthly sewer rate would fall from $98.47 to $62.98 under budget direction July 8, after records showed a Driggs estimate the city never billed.

By Wade Williams · ·

VICTOR — Victor's monthly sewer rate would fall by more than a third, from $98.47 to $62.98, under budget direction the City Council set July 8 after dropping the city's plan to build its own wastewater treatment plant and cutting the $520,000 it had budgeted for that work.

The sewer rate had held near $98 since 2024, when the city raised it from about $60. Records Victor released show it raised the rate to cover a preliminary estimate from Driggs that put Victor's share of wastewater costs above $1.39 million, a figure Driggs did not bill.

Driggs finance officer Carol Lenz sent Victor treasurer Jasmine Griffin the estimate on May 22, 2024, calling the numbers "very, very tentative." About $924,000 of the $1.39 million was Victor's 44 percent share of design work for a treatment plant the two cities then planned to build together. Victor pulled out of the joint plant, and Driggs' estimate for Victor's share fell to about $678,000 for the 2026 budget year and about $585,000 in the current 2027 draft. The rate stayed at $98.50 through 2026.

The system now serves 1,946 sewer customers, some 200 more than a year earlier, which Griffin said would have lowered the rate to about $89 on its own. Removing the $520,000 the city had budgeted for its own plant carried it the rest of the way to $62.98. Victor had spent about $396,000 of that line this budget year before dropping the project, on testing equipment, legal fees, and engineering for a preliminary report.

Griffin proposed the $98 rate to cover what Driggs had projected, and the council adopted it in 2024. She told Lenz in the same 2024 exchange that she wanted "to cover known expenses" and hold reserves until Driggs' construction and loan costs came due. When she pressed Driggs to explain how it would pay for the more than $1 million in added expenses, she wrote in a note accompanying the records, she was told in person that Driggs had done a 4 percent increase. "I said that didn't make any sense, and I did not get a response," she wrote. The amounts were not billed.

The money the higher rate collected but did not spend accumulated in the sewer fund. Ratepayer Cindy Reigel put that fund at about $7 million during public comment, asking the city to refund what it had collected but not spent. "I believe I have been getting overcharged sewer fees for at least two years," she said. She also wanted proof the increase was ever documented. "I would like to see the document that shows that they requested the increase," she said. The Signal obtained that record. It is the May 2024 Driggs estimate that drove Victor's rate, released by the city.

The city's FY27 budget shows the $7.1 million is the sewer fund's entire balance, not a pool of cash the city could refund. About $2.2 million of it is the value of the system's capital assets, and most of the rest is assigned to specific projects or held as a contingency against a revenue shortfall. A 2025 independent audit had already found Driggs overcharged Victor on the loan for the shared plant.

The council declined to refund, for now. A refund, Griffin told the council, would be hard to divide fairly among customers who have since connected or disconnected, and would force the rate back up when Driggs' bills arrive. She urged the council to hold the money and spend it down as the bills came due instead. If Driggs bills Victor $700,000 in a year the city budgeted less for, she said, the reserves cover the gap and the rate holds. Spreading a large bill over five years, she added, would raise it less in any single year than absorbing the whole increase at once. Councilor Sue Muncaster called that alternative "whiplashing the rates."

City Administrator Jeremy Besbris said the reserves are restricted to the wastewater system and are needed for work coming due. The city's engineers put near-term capital needs at about $18 million, counting $12.2 million of improvements through 2030 and more than $6 million for a lift station they flag as needed now. The plan identifies another $16 million by 2045, and about $3.4 million of the reserves is already assigned to projects in it. Besbris said those projects draw on sewer bills alone, so the system's 1,946 users carry the cost instead of the broader tax base. Split evenly, that is about $9,000 a customer if the bill came all at once. Griffin had told the council the $62.98 rate is likely to rise again in future years. Set against those costs, its swing between about $60 and $98 over two years covers little of the coming bills.

Councilor Amy Ross had called a refund "the right thing to do." She said she would instead keep the money in reserves and revisit the question in a year, weighing what she called fair and equitable treatment of ratepayers who "have already kind of paid more."

The 2027 figures are not final. Driggs treasurer Maddi Manos, who now handles the Victor account, wrote on July 7 that "leadership needs more conversations before these numbers can be finalized." Victor still pays Driggs for wastewater service through quarterly invoices; only the design-heavy 2024 estimate went unbilled. The council's direction still needs preliminary and final budget approval.

What to watch: Victor is due to give preliminary approval to its 2027 budget ahead of an August public hearing, where the sewer rate becomes official. The city is also conducting a connection-fee study, its first in more than 20 years, that Griffin said could shift more of the cost onto new development.

Sources

Waste Water