By Katie Northcott, News Director
On Wednesday, March 11, at a water and sewer town hall, Manchester Alderman Julie Anderson addressed the city’s reasons for passing a water and sewer rate increase in September 2025.
Anderson explained that the city had neglected to increase its water and sewer rates for several years and now has a painful process ahead to be able to afford infrastructure improvements.
“[Water and sewer consultants] say that if you don’t raise two to three percent or even four percent per year incrementally, then what happens is you’re running your system as cheaply as possible, which in the short term is a popular thing,” Anderson said. “But then when it comes time to make these big investments like we’re trying to make into these big repairs, then we’re forced to do these double digit rate increases.”
She said former Water and Sewer Director Jeff Perry brought the Water and Sewer Commission a budget that he had developed with the Finance Director and he had assessed the system for what capital improvements and projects he thought that the city needed. Anderson said she had “full faith” in the figures Perry brought to the commission.
Manchester Mayor Joey Hobbs said at the same town hall that the city has committed $3.75 million to water and sewer infrastructure improvements in the FY 2026 budget. He said $1.2 million of that budget came from the rate increase.
“Part of that increase will continue to upgrade the infrastructure and the supply lines,” Hobbs said. “In the previous budget, there was zero dollars dedicated to capital outlay, which is infrastructure and pipe replacement.”
Hobbs said that in Perry’s opinion, the rate increase should have been 70% for the city to afford water and sewer infrastructure improvements.
A higher rate increase proposal passed in the Water and Sewer Commission on April 3, 2025.
“The county needs water towers, our infrastructure is–more or less–dilapidated, and the justification for this [rate increase] is there,” then Water and Sewer Department Director Jeff Perry said at the April meeting.
Then Water and Sewer Commission Chairman Michael Anderson agreed.
“Increasing the rates is painful, but it’s a matter of do we want to try to prevent these sewer overflows, do we want to get to the point where we don’t have a main break every several weeks, or do we want to just keep plugging along nickel and diming everything?” Anderson said at the April meeting. “I know we need more rate increases. We’re not anywhere near our neighbors.”
Find reporting on the commission meeting here.
However, that proposal failed at the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BOMA) meeting on July 1, 2025. The BOMA failed the item with a 3-2 vote (Aldermen James Threet and Donny Parsley opposed).
According to the minutes of the July 3, 2025, meeting of the Water and Sewer Commission, Hobbs described increase’s failure to pass the BOMA as “unexpected and disappointing.”
The BOMA later passed a slightly smaller rate increase at its meeting on September 2, 2025, with a vote of 4-2 (Aldermen Threet and Parsley opposed).
Find reporting on the BOMA’s passing of the rate increase here.
