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ST. LOUIS — The price of turning on the tap in this city has been flat for more than a decade. It may be about to spike.

The city’s water division is planning rate increases for the coming fiscal year, which starts in July. They’re expected to , a 34% year-over-year jump that would be the largest in at least two decades.

The proposal is explained in new budget documents as a way to catch up on “longstanding infrastructure needs� — needs deferred for years and called out in recent months by top officials and a state audit. A said the division needed more than $100 million to replace water lines and make plant upgrades over the next few years.

No one would say publicly how much the changes would cost the average customer. The water division did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Nick Desideri, a spokesman for the mayor, would not discuss the rates. Aldermanic President Megan Green, whose chamber would vote on the bill to increase rates, said she was still waiting on numbers from the mayor’s office.

“There are some dire needs in the water department,� Green said. “We need to update rates, or we’re going to find ourselves very much behind the eight ball.�

There may be some debate over how high — and how fast — rates need to jump, however. The increase in revenue outlined in budget documents is twice what consultant Black & Veatch recommended in its most recent study of the division in 2021. And it would take effect in a single year rather than over the course of four.

Alderman Pam Boyd, who represents a broad swath of north St. Louis, said she worried about the proposal’s impact on seniors living on fixed incomes. She also wondered why the city would go to ratepayers when it has been inundated with pandemic aid cash from the federal government in recent years.

“That’s just not making sense to me,� she said.

City ignored recommendations

St. Louis’ water system is a modern marvel. For more than 100 years, it has transformed muddy water from the nearby rivers into potable stock recognized as some of the best-tasting in the country — and the basis for the King of Beers.

Unlike much of city government, it has also paid for itself. The water division is supposed to bill homeowners and businesses enough to cover operating expenses and system upkeep. And when that balance gets out of whack, the mayor and the Board of Aldermen are supposed to adjust rates.

But it’s a political process. Leaders don’t like to do it if they don’t have to, and they’ve only obliged a handful of times in the past 30 years. The last time was in the late 2000s, when the numbers left them little choice: Big businesses like Anheuser-Busch were using less water and spending less money, a trend hitting utilities across the country, and overall customer numbers were flat or slowly shrinking. At the same time, the city was paying more for chemicals, piping and people. Black & Veatch said something had to give, or the water department was going to go deep in the red.

City Hall bit the bullet, raising rates by 19% in fiscal year 2008, 11% in 2010 and 12% in 2011, bringing the average homeowner’s bill to $292 per year.

And they were expected to do even more. But they didn’t.

Sales to commercial customers continued their slide. Sometimes they were offset by bumps in sales to other cities, such as St. Charles and St. Peters. But at best, it kept revenues flat.

Meanwhile, expenses continued their rise. Some of it was standard increases in salaries and pension payments.

But the department also had to pay more in overtime to patch pipes cracking during a drought and an especially cold winter. Transformers and pumps had to be replaced. The price of chemicals shot up.

Between fiscal years 2012 and 2017, operating revenue dropped by 7%; expenses jumped 14%.

Black & Veatch, the consulting firm, called for additional rate increases just about every other year during that time period. And each time they recommended larger increases.

In that same time frame, Missouri American Water, which serves St. Louis and St. Charles counties, raised rates twice.

Consultant reports also indicated that the cost of important upgrades was growing. The tab to replace distribution and transmission mains was $17 million in 2013. It was $70 million four years later. An estimate for upgrading a pump station up at Chain of Rocks, in far north city, quintupled in just two years.

In 2016, Alderman Antonio French, of the old 21st Ward, filed a bill calling for a rate increase, but it didn’t go anywhere.

A new year’s budget

“Those are always very unpopular,� French said in an interview Friday.

There were also conversations about taking another run at it during Mayor Lyda Krewson’s tenure, but nothing came of it.

“We all knew it needed to happen,� said former Alderman Jack Coatar, who chaired the Public Utilities Committee after French. “But nobody wanted to do it.�

But there’s been some momentum building in recent years. When the new chief of the federal Environmental Protection Agency came to town in the spring of 2021, newly elected Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and U.S. Rep. Cori Bush took him on a tour at the Chain of Rocks Water Treatment Facility at the city’s northern tip, where the cornerstone reads “1889.�

Curt Skouby, the city’s water commissioner, told guests if they listened carefully, they could hear water leaking from valves. After 100 years in service, they were rusty and porous, he said. He said the rest of the system wasn’t much younger.

In 2021, Black & Veatch completed another report recommending four 4% increases from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2026.

In late 2022, the state auditor’s office scolded the water department for its inaction.

And as recently as February, Jones was telling lawmakers in Jefferson City that all told, the division needed over $400 million in repairs.

Then, on Wednesday, Budget Director Paul Payne presented the first draft of next year’s budget to top officials, said projections included an assumption that rate hikes would increase division revenue by $16 million.

There was no mention of the 2021 study’s recommendations. Officials did not comment on the differences. But Boyd, the North Side alderman, said she hoped officials would consider spreading out the increases, if they push them at all.

“That would be more logical,� she said.