By Stan Zegel

The Winfield Village Board has adopted new rates for water and sewerage services to reflect a 230% increase over the next three years in charges by the Village’s water supplier.

Bills reaching residents in mid-February will reflect an increased rate of $14.80 per thousand gallons of water, up from $14.11 per thousand gallons.

The minimum monthly residential bill immediately increases from $35.27 to $37.00, and in May goes to $41.88, reflecting another rate increase to $16.75 per thousand gallons. It is scheduled to reach $51.45 in Jan. 2015.

In effect, the Village operates a socialized water and sewerage company, with the profits or losses isolated from the taxpayers’ funds. By law, the profits cannot be used for general government purposes, but must be used only for the water and sanitary sewer systems. Losses cannot be made up out of tax funds, and must be covered by the rates charged.

Winfield is half-way through a 30-year contract with the DuPage Water Commission, a quango authorized by the legislature in 1985, that buys its water from the City of Chicago. Lax oversight by the water commission and sloppy accounting caused it to overspend $69 million in past years, and it has had to raise its rates to recover that money.

The quango’s rates were artificially low in the first place, being subsidized by a 0.25% sales tax imposed throughout the county and paid by residents of communities who are not water commission customers. That unfair system is being phased-out by the legislature, so the water commission also has to raise its charges to reflect its full costs.

In addition, the City of Chicago has decided to raise its prices by 25%, with 15% additional increases in each of the next three years. Those increased costs are also being passed along in the water commission’s charges to Winfield.

The DuPage Water Commission consists of 13 appointed members, including Winfield resident David Russo.

Buying water from the DuPage Water Commission has been controversial from the beginning: Winfield considered the alternative of remaining on its own wells and treating the water to lower the iron content, and the 1993 local election turned on that issue. It was only when a write-in candidate who was elected because of his opposition to buying the expensive Chicago water, changed his position after he was safely elected that there were enough votes on the Village Board to enter into the 30-year contract with the DuPage Water Commission. In addition to the cost of water, Winfield also pays to “buy in” to a share of the commission’s previous costs for facilities.

Winfield is also charged an extra fee each month that the legislature later outlawed, but the quango continues to charge and the Village pays because the costs of fighting it in court would cost more.

Some critics of the arrangement have suggested that, because Winfield’s wells are still available, the Village give notice to the water commission that it does not plan to renew its contract when it expires in 15 years, and the water commission should now begin buying back Winfield’s share of the capital plant. The prospects of that, and losing Winfield as a customer, they suggest, may induce the water commission to stop the outlawed charge and refund the past payments. If carried out, iron-removal facilities would be built in 15 years to treat water from the Village’s own wells, presumably at a better cost to the residents.