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Billing Procedures

Who decides how much cities pay for treatment?

MCES's annual operating budget plans for the resources necessary to support its two core functions: wastewater collection and treatment and water resource planning. The major source of those resources is the Municipal Wastewater Charge (MWC), the fee paid by the 104 customer communities which send wastewater to the MCES system.

The authority to allocate the costs of the system among users is established in state law (see MN 473.517). The specific method of assessing wastewater fees is determined by the Council. The charge paid by customer cities is a "wholesale" fee, and is based on the metered amount of wastewater disposed to the system. Each city sets and charges its own "retail" rates to homeowners and businesses in its service area to recover the costs of city-owned collection systems in addition to the fees paid to MCES.

Questions about a sewer bill for an individual home or business should be directed to the city in which the property is located.

How are the charges to individual cities determined?

The total to be charged to customer cities in any calendar year is the amount of Municipal Wastewater Charges included in the annual budget adopted by the Council for that year.

The charges to individual customer communities are a function of the level of system use, the metered flow of wastewater from each community into the system. Beginning with 2005, the charging method was modified to provide more predictability in the charges, both for communities and MCES.

Metered flows for a "flow year", July 1 to June 30, are compiled as they become available. After the metering results for all cities are final and adjustments for unmetered flows are computed, the percentage of each city's flow of the total is calculated. That percentage is then multiplied against the budgeted total of wastewater revenues required for the next calendar year, and cities are notified in September of the amount of their new monthly charges to begin in January. View the Municipal Wastewater Charge Fact Sheet.

For more information contact:

Dale Ulrich at (651) 602-1020 for information on MCES costs & revenues.

Kyle Colvin at (651) 602-1151 for data on municipal flows.

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