RVSA Utility Charges Will Include $250 Minimum Fee

The money Springfield Township pays to the Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority for sewage and wastewater disposal will no longer be taken out of property taxes, but it still needs to be paid. Earlier this month, Springfield officials announced that they are pursuing a system where residents would pay the RVSA as a utility fee, similar to power or water.

At their most recent Township Committee meeting, Springfield officials revealed some of the details of the plan. Each household or business would be charged a baseline rate of $250 a year for up to 48,000 gallons of water used. Businesses, apartment buildings and nonprofit organizations, which had previously been excluded from paying for fees because the fee was taken out of property tax, will have to pay.

Town officials said at their June 21 meeting that the new assessment method is more fair to residents than the previous system, as it gauges use (through data collected from the American Water Company) and it includes apartment buildings, businesses and non profits. The $250 annual fee was necessary, they said in the meeting, to ensure Springfield collects enough money to pay their obligation to the RVSA.

There are some potentially controversial aspects to the ordinance. The township's facilities are exempt from the fee, but the Board of Education is not. Also, religious institutions will need to pay the fee, and many will likely pay much more to support the water used in their schools and other programs, which some religious leaders say will have direct impact on their ability to serve the public.

"Any dollar taken away from the church takes away from programs we can offer to people in the area," Monsignor Bill Hatcher, the Pastor of St. James the Apostle Church, told Patch.

Over 200 New Jersey municipalities charge residents for sewer usage as a utility. Springfield officials have said they have studied other towns when designing the system for the township. Earlier this year, Westfield considered changing to a utility payment structure, but balked when the RVSA said it would charge an additional $180,000 to cover administrative costs from the RVSA to determine individual bills, along with printing and mailing the bills.

Under the terms of the proposed ordinance, Springfield's Finance Department will handle the utility processing. Township Chief Financial Officer Michael Quick said the township would not charge any additional fees for the administrative costs. 

The $250 is pegged to what the RVSA charges the town and could change from year to year.

"If the fee is lowered by Rahway, then we can lower the cost," Township Administrator Anthony Cancro said. 

The full ordinance is here.