Sewer Bill FAQ

Why is my sewer bill higher than last year?

                The sewer bond for $96,300.00 for the South Woodstock Wastewater Treatment Plant was included in this year’s bill. This was voted on by the town at last year’s Town Meeting. Businesses also used less water than usual, so this causes bills to rise in order to hit the sewer budget that was approved.

 

Why are we changing to quarterly billing?

                To make it easier for our sewer users. We have had comments about how a yearly bill is hard financially. Quarterly billing will allow us to spread out the total amount due. The billed amount will be the same each quarter.

 

Why are we charging by bedroom?

                To make it universal. Currently we charge by water meter readings, or for those that don’t have meters, a set single, couple, or family rate. This will make it so that everyone is billed the same in our system.

 

Why can’t everyone just have meters?

                The meters are owned by Woodstock Aqueduct, which is a private company. Unlike most other towns, Woodstock does not own their own water company. Because of this, we have to pay for these water readings every year.

 

Why don’t we charge by the number of people in the household instead?

                It is impossible for us to get a census on the number of people living in a household at any given time. People move in and out all the time and we have no way to update our records accordingly because of this. The number of bedrooms in a house doesn’t change.

 

How will this affect my bill?

                As of right now we don’t know for sure. But looking at other towns rates that have adopted this method and charge by bedrooms, bills should not be dramatically affected. However, bills will be slightly higher going forward due to the bonds for the South Woodstock Wastewater Treatment Plant.

 

When will this new billing start?

This will start July 2022. The bills that just went out are not charged by bedrooms.

 

What about businesses? How will they be charged for “bedrooms”?

                Businesses will be charged based off the Vermont Design Flows. Every Business type has a different number of gallons per day that they are charged for, and it is based off of different factors. That number is then divided by the gallons per day for one bedroom and that is how the businesses will be charged a “bedroom rate”. Everyone will be charged a minimum of at least one bedroom.