Strasburg, Ohio - The village’s water customers will be seeing an increase in their monthly bills beginning next year. 

On Tuesday, members of the Strasburg Village Council approved incremental water rate increases for the next three years.

Beginning on January 1, the village’s current rate of $2.76 per thousand gallons will increase to $3.30 per thousand gallons, an increase of $2.70 month for customers whose with an average monthly water use of 5,000 gallons. 

The new rate will be effective through 2019 and will increase an additional 25 cents per thousand gallons in each of the following years, to $3.55 per thousand gallons in 2020 and $3.80 cents in 2021. 

Council President and Finance Committee Chair Jeff Smith says the increases were needed to help cover the cost of needed improvements and upgrades. 

“We’ve got some deteriorating equipment. We’ve got a deteriorating water well we’ve got to put in, some upgrades on our electronics. There are some things that we haven’t been able to do,” he says.

Aside from a $5 surcharge increase in 2015, he says the village’s water rates haven’t increased since 1995.

“It’s been almost 25 years since our rates were supplemented,” he says. “For improvements and the betterment of some of the things in the village that we need to do and maintain, we felt that this was necessary.”  

STACEY CARMANY, TUSCO TV