Jamestown’s Board of Public Utilities officially approved both the solid waste and wastewater 2025 division budgets with no projected increases in rates for either.

Kevin Karr, BPU finance and customer accounts manager, also presented the updated 2025 Water Budget and Initial draft of the 2025 Electric Budget to the board.

Karr reported that they are looking at roughly a 50% cash balance reduction at the end of 2023 for the water, saying that their main focus right now is to keep that stable. He added that they are receiving some funds from a WIIA Grant, around $750,000 and another $175,000 for a Flex Tech Grant.

“A lot of the grant money is just to recoup expenses for projects, so it’s not additional funding,” Karr said.

Karr also reported $6.7 million in revenue and $1 million in miscellaneous revenue is grant money. There is also a projected 4% rate increase across the board.

“This would raise individual, residential rates bills about 80 cents a month,” Karr said. “So, we’re looking for a small increase in rate.”

Karr went over a little bit more for the water budget, including capital projects, before looking at the electric budget for 2025, which is projected to end 2024 with a cash balance of $21 million. Karr discussed expenses being higher than revenue at this point, though total expenses are down from 2024 in certain areas, and 2024 did go down from 2023.

“So we are under budget in our expenses, so that’s encouraging,” Karr said.

Karr then discussed some sizable electric capital projects coming up in 2025, along with the ONM budget and power plant. There is a decrease in the ONM budget, coinciding with the planned broadband work that the BPU will be doing.

Other numbers included in the electric budget for 2025 include downtown work, some vehicles, general office items, and more. Karr said this is the first run through of the electric budget, and the official budget will be presented in December.

“There’s items to be discussed in more detail here,” General Manager David Leathers said. “We expect to at least entertain filing for a rate gaze at the end of the first quarter, beginning of second quarter next year. That rate raise could go into 2026, but we have not had a base rate adjustment since 2016 in the electric division.”

Leathers also noted the 2025 electric budget does not come with any projected rate increases in the coming year.