Public hearing set on Lawton City budget

Lawton City Council will hold a public hearing today to allow residents to comment on the preliminary budget being crafted for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

That 2024-2025 budget must be approved by the council seven days before the start of the fiscal year, and council members have been meeting in special sessions to get briefings on expenditures and projected revenues.

They haven’t made any decisions yet, but Mayor Stan Booker and some council members have indicated they don’t like one proposal already in the budget: a 4.9 percent increase in water, sewer and refuse rates based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). City code specifies utility rates will increase based on that annual CPI change, unless the council votes to suspend that automatic increase.

Booker doesn’t support the idea because residents still are coping with the double-digit increase the city implemented several years ago. He urged the council to suspend rate increases for another year.

“I assume the council will not raise it, if possible,” he said, adding he wants information from peer cities about their utility rates and whether those cities have emergency funds as Lawton does, for discussion at today’s meeting.

Ward 2 Councilman Kelly Harris said while no one wants to raise utility rates, the city must ensure it has the money to address problems. Acting Finance Director Kristin Huntley said the Enterprise Fund (utility revenue) would bring in an estimated $52.27 million with the CPI increase, and $49.397 million without. City administrators said the city budget was prepared based on increase, meaning cuts would be necessary if the council suspended the new rates.

Council members already know the city will get some new revenue, courtesy of an updated agreement with Republic Paperboard. That agreement also is on today’s agenda, one that will set new water, sewer and solid waste rates for the next five years, with the first change retroactive to April 1.

The five-year contract specifies a rate increase structure designed to get Republic closer to what other industrial users pay for city utilities, with the company’s rates gradually increased until they are at current industrial water rates. Thereafter, rate increases will be based on the annual change in the Consumer Price Index (the same mechanism that guides residential water rate increases). Water rates would increase from today’s 89 cents per 1,000 gallons to $3.50 by April 1, 2028, while sewer rates would increase from 48 cents per 1,000 gallons to $2.25 in the same time period.