The East Point City Council delayed again rolling back city water bills after officials warned that the rate plan favored by the mayor would leave the water department without cash for repairs.
Roy O. Barnes, who heads the Water and Sewer Department, outlined several scenarios for possible rate reductions but lobbied for one that added an extra $1.5 million for operating expenses but did little to curb the water rates that sparked a political firestorm last fall.
Barnes said the department has been using bond money that is intended to replace aging clay sewer lines -- some of which date to the 1920s -- to make repairs. He said the department could not continue to dip into the bond money for ordinary repairs.
"If a line breaks right now, there isn't money to fix it," he said. "In our operating costs, there are no funds for emergencies or repairs."
It wasn't a message that the council looked like it wanted to hear. Two new members, Latonya Martin and Alexander Gothard, won election last year pledging to roll back rates after the monthly base rate jumped from $19 to $48 last summer.
Others, such as Councilman Myron Cook and Marcel Reed, have noted that the water rates are a political problem that had to be addressed.
Mayor Earnestine Pittman had used the water issue to help elect Gothard and Martin and create a council majority more supportive of her positions for the city.
Pittman said she favored a plan that would reduce the base rate to $32 a month for the remaining four months of this fiscal year. The rate would go to $39 in July, when city's fiscal year 2013 starts.
The plan favored by Barnes would have the base rate at $46 in July -- or just $2 under the rate that created the controversy.
In the end, the council voted to delay acting on the water rates until March 5 to give it time to get more information from the staff.
That means it won't be able to adopt its amended FY2012 budget, which currently has a projected shortfall of $7 million. Pittman has said the council will have to raise taxes to fill the shortfall, but it will need to decide the water rate issue to know how much.
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