Brookfield’s annual tradition of increasing residents’ water rates has come to pass yet again.
For bills received after July 1, water customers in Brookfield will pay $16.29 per thousand gallons of water use, a step up of $0.19, or 1.18%, from last year’s rate of $16.10.
According to the village’s new fee schedule, the minimum monthly water bill will be $40.62, meaning the minimum annual cost will be $487.44. Brookfield bills residents for water bimonthly, so the new minimum water bill will be $81.24 for about 5,000 gallons of water across the two-month period. Above the minimum, the amount an individual household is charged will depend on its water usage.
Village trustees approved the change on May 27 as part of the consent agenda for that day’s village board meeting, meaning they did not discuss it separately.
Brookfield receives its water from the Brookfield-North Riverside Water Commission, which is itself a customer of Chicago’s Department of Water Management. According to letters attached to a village memorandum, Chicago informed the water commission on Feb. 28 of this year’s price hike — 4% over last year’s rate based on the Consumer Price Index inflation rate for 2024 — and the water commission informed Brookfield it would pass on the rate increase on April 9.
Chicago’s water rate increase went into effect June 1 and will show up on water bills next month for water used this month.
While Brookfield usually raises its water rates each year to align with Chicago’s changes, it took a pause in 2023 after a larger-than-usual increase in 2022 was approved to partially fund the village’s lead water service line replacement project.
Brookfield’s water bills include a 27.1% sewer service fee to cover the cost of maintaining the village’s sewer infrastructure, though the fee excludes the portion of the bill that Brookfield sets aside for the lead line replacements, about $1.66 per thousand gallons.
