The annual tradition of water bills increasing on July 1 has come for Riverside.
Villagers’ bills for water used in the month of June and beyond are set to go up from $20.77 per thousand gallons to $21.31, a jump of $0.54 or 2.6%. Sewer bills will also go up 5 cents per thousand gallons, from $5.45 to $5.50, a 0.92% increase.
According to village documents, for an average household that uses 8,228 gallons of water across two months, the bimonthly water bill will increase by $4.85 for a total annual bump of $29.13. For the minimum water bill covering 4,000 gallons of water over two months, the bimonthly increase is $2.36 while the annual jump is $14.16.
Village trustees approved the increase at their June 5 meeting. Yvette Zavala, Riverside’s finance director, said the village learned in April that McCook, which supplies Riverside with water, would be increasing its water rate by 4%. McCook, in turn, had its water rate increased by Chicago.
“Historically, the village passes on that rate increase, along with any operational increases related to personnel and capital projects,” she said.
This year’s increase will go toward routine raises for village staff who are members of the Service Employees International Union and to repaying future debt for Riverside’s planned sewer separations and replacements of water mains and leaded water service lines this year.
An interactive map of the planned projects this year is available on Riverside’s website.
The water main replacements and sewer separations together are expected to cost $8,850,323, according to agenda documents from the meeting, while the lead service line replacements will cost about $4 million.
Zavala said the projects will be funded through $6 million in bonds the village board approved earlier this year and an anticipated, zero-percent interest loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Money collected into the village’s water and sewer fund will be used to pay Riverside’s debts.
Each year, about 20 to 25 cents of the increase in the water rate goes toward funding the lead service line replacements. This has been the case since 2023, when the village implemented it to “minimize the impact to residents” by “smoothing” out the increased costs over time, Zavala said.
Trustees also OK’d an increase in the bimonthly fee owed by residents who have not had their water meters replaced from $50 to $100. Village documents say just 2% of households have not switched out their meters.
“The village incurs more costs than just the staff time to send public works to go and read their meters. We have the additional cost of keeping the software, [which] has doubled, along with the additional billing time that it takes to run a separate cycle just for maintaining two different systems,” Zavala said. “As that pool gets smaller of residents that do not have new meters, they have to cover the cost.”
Zavala emphasized that the new meters allow Riverside to notify homeowners immediately if it detects a water leak. She said the village plans to roll out a way for residents to monitor their own water usage by the end of the month.
“All the benefits definitely outweigh anything,” Trustee Elizabeth Kos said.
