09/22/2026
Did you know that in Livingston we pay some of the lowest monthly bills for water, wastewater, and sewer?
Check out the comparison table (image 1).
This sounds great on the front end. Low bills = more money in our pocket.
What we may not realize, though, is that the money we pay in our monthly bill is directly responsible for funding the operation, maintenance, improvement, and rehabilitation of our water infrastructure.
The City hired a third-party consultant to analyze our current monthly rates relative to our infrastructural needs (standard process thay generally occurs every five (5) years).
The consultant found that our current rates do not generate anywhere near enough revenue to operate, maintain, and improve our water/wastewater system.
I worked with Mayor Moran to bring this information to a public Council meeting last Tuesday (9/15) so we could have an open ans transparent discussion on where we stand.
Not every member of the Council wanted to discuss this openly (you’ll have to ask them why).
The following information was presented to Council at the (9/15) meeting (linked below, page 275):
“Under the existing rates, projected total cash reserves were projected to decline to approximately negative $15,.8 million for water, negative $12.7 for sewer, and negative $2.7 million for sanitation by FY 2031”.
The research is clear: the amount that we are currently putting into our system is not enough to maintain future needs.
The status quo will lead to multi-million dollar deficits (images 2, 3, and 4)
There are a number of reasons why costs have risen so dramatically:
-Massive inflation we’ve seen in recent years
-Rising labor costs (salaries, benefits)
-Rising operating costs (utilities, insurance, equipment, etc.)
There’s another piece to this though, which is the need for the City to pay for infrastructure improvements that should’ve been completed years ago.
Everyone in town knows our water infrastructure is not where it needs to be. We have folks in leadership that have had decades to address these concerns but have not managed to do so.
Over the years, Councilmembers have been too busy serving themselves rather than responsibly addressing the needs of the community.
All of this has added up and put us in a massive hole where the cost of getting our system where it needs to be is dramatically higher than what we are currently paying in.
Our consultants are still working on analyzing what level of rates are sufficient to move forward, but the reality is that there is no end game here where we can get sufficiently improve our system without paying more into it.
I take no pleasure in reporting this information. I have zero (0) desire to pay more. But I’m not going to lie to you about where we stand or pretend like things are fine when they’re not.
Whether or not we caused this mess, we all, as a community, share the collective burden of cleaning it up.
Please review the information for yourselves. These links are available for public view.
Look at the analysis. Ask questions. Come to your own conclusion about what’s going on.
My role is to help ensure that our community gets the answers they deserve and moves forward responsibly.
Link to study from consultant: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o1EBpnCuHzU8ck5hjBgo18H8eIFewlO0/view?usp=drivesdk
Link to (9/15/26) Council Meeting Staff Report: https://www.cityoflivingston.org/media/16861
