$3.5 Million Saved for $12.2M Sewer Work

VICTOR — Victor has $3.5 million designated for sewer infrastructure, against $12.2 million of sewer work its engineers say the collection system needs by 2030.

Victor's sewer fund holds $7,101,744. About $2.2 million of that is the value of the system's capital assets, which the city cannot spend. A contingency the city's policy fixes at half of annual operating costs holds $1,092,752, debt service takes $95,893, and the equipment reserve holds $210,470. That leaves $3,466,943, which the city has assigned to the projects its facility plan lists.

The money accumulated while the monthly rate sat near $98, a figure Victor set in 2024 against a Driggs estimate the city was not billed for. The rate falls to $62.98 on October 1, the first day of Victor's 2027 budget year.

Victor budgeted $33,827 for sewer capital spending in 2027, plus $61,875 to reimburse Driggs for capital costs. Victor's wastewater facility plan, prepared by Keller Associates, puts the collection system's first-priority work between 2025 and 2030 at $12.2 million in 2024 dollars, covering upgrades and new force mains at two pump stations: Driggs' South Lift Station, which takes Victor's flow, and Victor's own Lift Station 1 at the north end of town.

The city's 2027 budget summary lists an equipment reserve, "annual funding set aside for the future replacement of vehicles and equipment based on their expected useful life." The plant and the pipes get no such line.

"One key piece that the agreement doesn't contemplate, and either method doesn't contemplate, is funding depreciation, funding future replacement of the plant, not expansion, but replacement," Driggs public works director Jay Mazalewski told the two councils at a joint work session on September 16. "Every piece of equipment has a lifespan. This is just operation and maintenance costs. It's not putting anything away for savings when the car breaks down."

"How much of the depreciation of the facilities do the councils want to fund in the rates?" he said near the end of the session.

A staff report Mazalewski brought to the September session puts the Driggs plant's upgrade and expansion at $30.3 million at 60 percent design, in 2026 dollars, with a 15 percent contingency. The estimate excludes engineering design and construction services, lagoon decommissioning, and $2 million for Class A water reuse. Victor's share of it is not established. Whether Victor's obligation can be capped, the report says, is "TBD, if a new agreement is created."

"We have not passed on any costs to the city of Victor," Mazalewski said of the design work. "We've [spent] approximately $2 million in engineering costs for the treatment plant design in the last 3 years."

Driggs' May 2024 preliminary budget for Victor, sent to the city treasurer and labeled "Very, Very tentative," came to $1,392,867 for the coming year, about $924,000 of it Victor's 44 percent share of plant design. That is the estimate behind Victor's old rate.

Both the consent decree and the $30.3 million estimate stop at the treatment plant. The decree schedules no work on the pipes and pump stations that carry Victor's sewage there, and the one lift station it names is the plant's own. The estimate's line items run from the membrane package through the electrical and the biosolids equipment.

Beyond the first-priority sewer work, Victor's plan identifies $7.5 million of gravity-line upgrades between the cities on a 20-year horizon. "It's very difficult for an engineer to identify a year because this is based on forecasted growth," Mazalewski said. "It could happen next year, or it could be 15 years down the line."

Impact fees are the tool a city uses to make new development pay for the capacity it consumes. Since the city began collecting them in 2023, they have paid for the Agate Avenue reconstruction, restrooms at City Park and part of the Sherman Park skatepark. The study that established them set fees in three categories: parks, pathways and roads. The impact-fee fund held about $1.4 million this year.

City treasurer Jasmine Griffin told the council in July that a connection-fee analysis was underway, Victor's first in more than 20 years, and that it would "likely have a pretty large increase" that could "curb some of that concern" by moving cost onto new development.

Victor is running Lift Station 1 at 45 percent of capacity, according to the City. "They've tuned them back so they don't overflow our lift station," Mazalewski said. Victor's facility plan records the arrangement: Driggs staff reported the station "must operate at a reduced capacity to prevent overflowing the South Lift Station."

The plan puts peak inflows at Lift Station 1 above 85 percent of firm capacity and projects they will exceed it within five years. Victor's three other lift stations have room under today's flows.

Driggs' engineers are pricing an interim upgrade to its South Lift Station so the system can keep running without risking a sanitary overflow. The larger collection system improvement study is six to eight months out.

What to watch: The lower rate takes effect October 1.

Victor Has $3.5 Million Saved for Sewer Work Its Own Plan Prices at $12.2 Million

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