On February 1st Everett’s utilities rates for water, sewer, and stormwater will go up. The Snohomish PUD electric rates go up on April 1st.
Everett Utilities:
The increase was approved by the Everett City Council on January 8th to ensure adequate funding for key replacements and upgrades to major utility facilities and systems that are past their useful life and to build new wastewater facilities to meet Dept. of Ecology requirements.
“The Utility reduced the number of capital projects that will be funded in this rate window to keep rates as low as possible and still meet its regulatory and operational requirements,” said Ryan Sass, public works director. “Construction costs to replace, upgrade and build new critical facilities was made greater by the historically high construction inflation costs we’ve faced since 2021.”
The utility rates will go up each year of the next four years, as seen in the below graphic, shared in the council meeting.
These are significant changes. Based off the above graphic, combined utility costs will increase about 11.3% in the first year, and then by 2028 utility bills will be 50.9% higher than today.
The utility’s website (everettwa.gov/ub) has a complete list of rates, information about capital projects the rates will fund, and additional rate details. Everett’s water system serves about 657,000 people across Snohomish County and its sewer system serves over 180,000 people.
The City of Everett provides water, sewer, and stormwater utility services through the Public Works Utility department, which is a non-general government department. The Utility is funded through utility rates and fees – not general government funding like property tax.
The PUD’s Board of Commissioners approved a 4.9% rate increase for residential customers during the Jan. 21 Board of Commissioners meeting. The commissioners also approved 4.1% and 3.6% rate increases for small- and medium-sized business customers.
Some of you may recall the PUD also raised rates 4.8% last year.
For residential customers, the rate increase for PUD residential electric customers will only be applied to the base charge. The energy charge for residential customers remains at 10.26 cents per kilowatt-hour. The typical residential customer will see an average increase of about $4 for small (multi-family customers or those with an amp size below 100), and about $6.40 for medium customers (majority of single-family homes), to their bill each month (see chart below):
For small business customers the rate increase will impact both the base charge and energy charge. The base charge will increase 80 cents per day, while the energy charge will decrease 0.635 cents per kilowatt-hour to 8.365 cents/kWh. For customers with an average monthly usage of 1,000 kWh, the rate increase will result in a bill increase of about $18 each month.
For medium-sized business customers there will be no change to the base charge or demand charge. The only increase will be applied to the Second Tier (>30,000 kWh) energy charge, which will increase 2.353 cents/kWh in spring (April-June) and 0.353 cents/kWh the rest of the year. The First Tier (<30,000 kWh) energy charge will decrease 0.635 cents/kWh. All changes to the medium business customers’ rates will equalize the energy charge for all seasons and tiers.
January 24, 2025
Everett Economy, Everett Government