At their meeting on January 18th, Chestermere City Council dropped utility rates for municipal water, wastewater, and curbside collection by 2%.
For residents, this means that the rates they pay will be the same as they were in 2020 and 2021. Although the past Council increased the rates by 2% in 2021, a grant covered the impact to residents.
The decision was made on January 18th, but the rate adjustment will be applied retroactively as of January 1st, 2022.
The need to increase the rates in 2021 arose from the impact of COVID-19 on utility revenue. However, residents were not impacted by this increase because these costs were offset by grant funding provided by the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada to support municipalities. The grant was called the Municipal Operating Support Transfer (MOST) and was made available to municipalities to alleviate the financial impact as a result of the pandemic. The City contributed $260,000 in order to offset the 2% utility rate-increase, along with the grant funds provided in early 2021.
For more information on utility rates or to sign up for e-billing, visit www.chestermere.ca/utilities.