Belchertown raises stormwater rates slightly this fiscal year after they dropped for three straight years

BELCHERTOWN — Despite stormwater rates dropping over the past couple years, residents won’t see similar savings on their stormwater bills for the upcoming year.

The Select Board approved a stormwater rate of $6.62 for fiscal year 2025, up 78 cents from last year. This is the first time the Department of Public Works has raised rates in three years, bringing the rate from $9.60 in fiscal year 2021 to $5.87 in fiscal year 2024.

“When we initially launched the enterprise fund we were over $9.50. We had a lot of initial work to do, and over the last three years, we have been going down,” DPW Director Linda Leduc said. “We’re finally getting to the point where we are able to maintain this [enterprise fund]. It’s just a small corrective year to get the enterprise fund to balance out.”

Stormwater services are run through an enterprise fund, so the rate only covers the current year’s operations. The operational budget includes wages for the stormwater coordinator and stormwater laborer, street sweeping, engineering for new stormwater designs, and materials for catch basins and pipes.

About $50,000 of free cash from the stormwater enterprise fund rolled over into this year, but the $302,000 operating budget still required a slight raise in rates to cover expenses. Leduc said each year’s rate is calculated by dividing the stormwater’s operating budget by the number of billing units, a measurement based off the amount of impervious surface per 1000 square feet.

The amount of impervious service is based on the size of the residential or industrial development, but the roof makes up most of this area for a single-family home. One rate is calculated for the year, but residents receive bills quarterly.