At a meeting on Jan. 6, the Camp Verde Town Council unanimously voted to adjust the monthly wastewater fees for RV parks, motels and hotels with a minimum of 10 rooms or RV spaces.
The council’s decision was to base the new rates on a schedule developed by Chet Teague, plant and collections operator for the Camp Verde Wastewater Division. This would cut rates based on occupancy, with RV parks and hotels having their wastewater fees cut by 25% if they were between 55% and 70% occupancy, 35% between 35% and 55% occupancy, and by 50% if they are below 35% occupancy.
The change was requested by Brad Woodruff, owner of Verde Ranch RV Park. Woodruff pointed out to Camp Verde Economic Development Director Steve Ayers that RV parks were in effect getting charged nearly triple what residential users are, roughly $30 for 1,000 gallons of effluent as opposed to approximately $12 for residential users.
The council made the decision not to make the adjustment based on usage, with Camp Verde Town Councilman Joe Butner making the case that with complaints about wastewater fees already common among the Camp Verde population, the council did not want to exacerbate them by changing fee schedules.
“We already have a lot of residents that are somewhat disturbed about their sewer rates — little, old ladies living in a big house with lots of holes in the ground and they have to pay for lots of holes in the ground with lots of usage,” Butner said.
Camp Verde Finance Director Mike Showers told the council that because wastewater payments are consistent and there are more people moving to Camp Verde, there is little reason to be concerned about reducing revenues from hotels and RV parks.
“We should be predicting some good revenue for next year from wastewater fees,” Showers said. “And the nice thing about wastewater fees is that they don’t tend to go away. Someone owns the property, and someone’s paying the wastewater fee. The only way to get rid of that is effectively to disconnect, and then they’ve got to pay a connection fee to get back on. So generally wastewater fees don’t go away, they just go up.”
The adjustments only apply for this coming year, because the town is hoping to purchase the water company soon and would likely adjust aspects of sewer fees if they do.
