{"id":6619,"date":"2015-10-31T16:04:12","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T22:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=6619"},"modified":"2015-10-31T16:13:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-31T22:13:41","slug":"madisons-water-geyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=6619","title":{"rendered":"Madison’s Water Gey$er"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madison citizens paying (and reading) their water bills likely noticed not insignificant price increases, along with the change from semi-annual billing to monthly invoices….<\/p>\n

I thought it time to see how much our rates have increased and compare that information to per capita income and property tax growth.<\/p>\n

I emailed water@cityofmadison.com:<\/p>\n

Hi:<\/p>\n

I hope that you are well.<\/p>\n

I am writing to request historical information on Madison water\/sewer bills (annual median and average residential costs), operating budgets and the debt supported by those payments from 1995 to 2015.<\/p>\n

Thanks much and best wishes,<\/p>\n

Jim<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Michael Dailey and others kindly provided data, displayed in the chart below.<\/p>\n

\"Madison,<\/p>\n

\"Madison,<\/p>\n

\"Madison,<\/p>\n

Per capita income data via the Bureau of Economic Analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Historic inflation rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

City of Madison budget information<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Extra Credit 1.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While compiling data, I wondered how water rates might vary across the “sprout belt”, that is, Ann Arbor<\/a> to Madison<\/a> to Boulder<\/a>. Ann Arbor’s water rates were not easily found…<\/p>\n

Boulder’s 2015 “utility rate increase PDF<\/a>” features a “Bezos chart”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Boulder's<\/p>\n

Extra Credit 2:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Dailey also provided borrowing information:<\/p>\n

\n

There have not been very many so it is easiest to just list them out\u2026

<\/p>\n

2003 $3,505,710

\n2006 $8,725,000

\n2008 $11,195,000

\n2010 $13,135,000

\n2012 $9,500,000

\n2014 $9,645,000

<\/p>\n

This is borrowing for the Sewer Utility for the given year. We typically borrow every other year now. Payback is typically 15 year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madison citizens paying (and reading) their water bills likely noticed not insignificant price increases, along with the change from semi-annual billing to monthly invoices…. I thought it time to see how much our rates have increased and compare that information to per capita income and property tax growth. I emailed water@cityofmadison.com: Hi: I hope that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6619"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6623,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619\/revisions\/6623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}