Brookfield village trustees may approve increasing the price of water in town by 4.13%, or $0.67 per thousand gallons, for the following year at their next village board meeting.
Officials discussed the water rate increase at the board’s committee of the whole meeting on May 26. Village Engineer Derek Treichel and Finance Director Doug Cooper said the proposed water rate increase is comprised of two parts: $0.12 per thousand gallons is being passed along from the Brookfield-North Riverside Water Commission while $0.55 per thousand gallons represents the village’s efforts to pay for the replacement of its lead water service lines in accordance with state and federal law.
The $0.12 increase from the water commission will cover increased operational costs as well as the increase in the price the commission must pay to the city of Chicago for water from Lake Michigan, Cooper said.
“We’re somewhat at the mercy of the water commission but more so at the mercy of the city of Chicago. We get our water from the lake, and when the city of Chicago has budget problems, they know they have a captive audience,” Village President Michael Garvey said. “They can increase their water rates to the commission, which then has to pass it onto us, and then we have to pass it onto the residents.”
The $0.55 portion of the increase is one of three that will need to be made through 2028 so Brookfield can begin to pay back the 30-year zero-interest loans it has received from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency since 2024, when it began replacing lead water service lines, Treichel said.
In total, Brookfield will take out $43.35 million in IEPA loans in order to finish replacing all lines by next year, Treichel said.
Unlike other municipalities, Brookfield took responsibility for both the public and private portions of the lines. That way, the village can “leverage as much of this zero percent loan funding” — which does not cover lines where the homeowner pays to replace, or opts not to replace, the private portion — as possible, he said.
If homeowners had been required to replace their own private portions of lead water service lines, the average homeowner would have had to ante up about $15,000, Treichel said.
The zero-interest loans, taken altogether, have a 30-year repayment period, meaning Brookfield must pay back $1,445,000 per year over the term, Treichel said. With an average of 450 million gallons of water billed per year, the village must collect $3.21 per thousand gallons to pay off the loans, he said.
In order to reach that figure, the village has a head start: In July 2022, officials approved a rate increase of $1.66 per thousand gallons to put toward replacing lead lines. That leaves a gap of $1.55 per thousand gallons.
In order to reach the full rate needed to pay back the lines, Cooper said Brookfield should increase its rate incrementally over the next three years. The village will start with increasing the water rate by $0.55 per thousand gallons this year and then increase it by $0.50 per thousand gallons in 2027 and 2028, he said.
Treichel emphasized that the village’s costs to replace all of its lead service lines — a project officials expect to complete by the end of 2027, the same year where the state requires municipalities to start replacing the lines — is as low as it could have been. Due to early, proactive efforts to get the ball rolling, Brookfield secured very low bids in the first years of replacement, he said, with some bids coming in as low as 55% of the engineer’s estimate.
Additionally, the village’s initial water rate increase of $1.66 per thousand gallons “allowed the village to get started and start leveraging some of the loan money” from the IEPA, Treichel said.
He said officials originally expected to have to increase the water rate by about $5 per thousand gallons to pay for the lead water line replacements, a leap from the $3.21 per thousand gallons figure officials have now arrived at.
Should the board approve the rate increase on Monday, June 8, Cooper said it will go into effect for bills issued after July 1, though the first bill will cover water that was used in May and June.
Even with the full increase of $0.67 to $16.96 per thousand gallons, Cooper said Brookfield’s water rate will fall below those of North Riverside, at $17.10 per thousand gallons, and LaGrange Park, at $17.82 per thousand gallons, the other two municipal members of the Brookfield-North Riverside Water Commission. Westchester and Riverside have even higher rates of $19.21 and $21.31 per thousand gallons, respectively, he said.
