Customers on the city of Vicksburg’s water and sewer systems will soon begin paying more for those services.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen Monday approved an ordinance setting the new rates, which will be spread out over two years starting in October. In setting the rates, Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said city officials “tried to be mindful of the elderly and people on fixed incomes.”

City water and sewer bills are based on use. Presently, residents pay a minimum of $8.75 for the first 2,000 gallons used and $3.22 per 1,000 gallons for the next 8,000 gallons used. A sliding scale is used to determine the cost per gallon for use more then 8,000 gallons.

With the new rate structure, the minimum rate a customer will pay is set on a sliding scale based on the size of the water meter and water use. Under the ordinance approved Monday, each increase will be phased in, with half levied in October and the other half in Oct. 2019.

The least a residential customer will pay under the new schedule is $10.06 for the first 2,000 gallons, an increase of $1.31 more than the $8.75 minimum rate users have paid since the rates were raised in 2015. Commercial and industrial users would pay a minimum of $41.18 for the first 4,000 gallons used, a $5.37 increase from the present rate of $35.81.

The minimum residential sewer rate was increased by $3.20, from $12.90 to $16.10 for the first 2,000 gallons, and from $3.96 to $4.96 per 1,000 gallons for the second 2,000 gallons — a $1 increase.

The new minimum commercial rate is $43.31 for the first 2,000 gallons, an increase of $15.06 over the present rate of $28.25, and $4.96 per 1,000 gallons for the second 2,000, an increase of $1 over the present $3.96. The industrial sewer rate is unchanged at $446 for the first 200,000 gallons.

The rates were recommended by a 10-member committee appointed by the mayor to examine the city’s rate structure. The committee’s recommendations were presented at an April 18 public meeting called by Flaggs to discuss the rates.

“It has come to our attention that it is absolutely imperative that we raise the rates as it relates to water and sewer and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency),” Flaggs Jr. said. “This area of government service is costing us money and we have to raise the rates.

“This (the rate increase) is a necessity.”

He said the city cannot use money from its general fund budget to make repairs to the utilities systems under state law, nor can it use the capital improvements bond money, and cannot use revenue from the 2 percent special sales tax on food and beverages sold at restaurants and hotel rooms, because those funds are committed to other city projects.

Flaggs on several occasions since January has indicated the city needed to increase water and sewer rates, pointing out the city’s utilities infrastructure is more than 100 years old, and over in the last five years “is costing us more to provide water and sewer than we collect.”