Ark City updating fee schedule

The water costs are part of a revision to the city’s fee schedule for a variety of costs, including municipal court fees, franchise fees and rent of city venues.

City Manager Nick Hernandez said the proposed rate jumps for water customers would be 2 percent per year for the next five years.

This would mirror a 2-percent annual hike commissioners approved in 2013, which expires this year.

Hernandez said extending the relatively small, annual increases is necessary to keep up with the cost of inflation in running a water utility and avoids larger increases down the road.

“We want to avoid having those 10-15 percent increases, so we try to have incremental increases each year,” he said.