New Lawton city budget won’t include utility rate increase

When City Council members act on next year’s city budget, it won’t include a utility rate increase.

Monday’s special council meeting will include multiple items, including one that would allow the council to approve the 2024-2025 budget. That action comes after several weeks of special meetings where city staff and finance officials presented the details of a budget that sets expenditures and projects revenues for the fiscal year that begins July 1. By state law, council members must have the budget in place seven days before the new fiscal year begins.

During last week’s regular council meeting, council members made one specific decision, agreeing the budget would not include a 4.9 percent increase in water, sewer and refuse rates. City code specifies that utility rates will increase each year by the same annual percentage change of the Consumer Price Index. That figure was 4.9 percent for the nation’s southwest region, said Deputy Finance Director Kristin Huntley. The increase goes into effect unless the council specifically votes to suspend it.

The value of that 4.9 percent increase was an additional $2.87 million in new revenue. For residential water customers, the difference on their monthly bills would range from $2.97 more for base level users to $4.29 more for those who use 6,000 gallons of water a month.

Mayor Stan Booker and others have said they don’t like the idea of another utility rate increase, following on the heels of a 15 percent rate increase imposed on Lawton water customers several years ago. Booker has asked the council to forego a rate increase for another year, and council members agreed. City Manager. John Ratliff said expenditures in the budget would be adjusted to offset the loss of the $2.87 million in projected revenue.

“We can make it work without the CPI,” Ratliff said.

“I’d like us to do without the CPI,” Booker said, adding that efficiencies in operations imposed by Ratliff and his administrators make it possible to do without the rate increase.

A formal vote on that action is expected Monday.

Next year’s budget includes a $93.1 million General Fund, with $36.296 million expected in the Enterprise Fund (utility revenue) and $98.36 million in the Capital Improvements Program.