Haleyville Water Board raising tap, reconnect fees

HALEYVILLE - Costs for connecting water and sewer service in the City of Haleyville, as well as reconnection fees when services are discontinued for failure to pay a bill will increase effective June 1.
The Haleyville Water and Sewer Board voted unanimously at their noon meeting Tuesday, March 24, to raise the residential standard three-quarter inch line tapping fee for water from the current rate of $500 to $900;
The tapping fee for one-inch water line will increase from $800 to $1,300, the board approved.
Concerning tapping fees for sewer service, costs are increasing from $500 to $1,500--an increase of $1,000, the board approved.
Reconnection fees or service charges for customers whose water and sewer services are discontinued for failure to pay their bill will increase from $25 plus costs of the bill due, to $50 plus costs of the bill due, they approved.
If a person needs to be reconnected after business hours, service charges will increase from the present $30 to $60.
“Tapping fee is where we tap our main and give you a meter and a box and service,” explained Lane Bates, Haleyville Water and Sewer manager.
“We go home at 3:30. If you call at 5 o’clock and say, hey, I will write you a check’ when we come to cut the water on, we come, but we are going to charge you your bill plus the $60,” Bates explained about reconnect fees.
The board took one vote to approve the above changes in service fees, with board member Brian Berry, who is also a Haleyville City Council Member making the motion, seconded by Joey Harbin. All board members voted in favor, including Berry, Harbin, Glen Roberts, Bobby Taylor and Board Chairman Dr. Ray Boshell, who is also Haleyville’s mayor.
Bates emphasized the increase in these service fees is not to punish customers, but to cover rising costs.
“Everything has gone up,” Bates emphasized, citing inflation. “Stuff has gone up 100 percent.
“All the materials it takes to do a water tap, a sewer tap, has gone up,” Bates added. “Inflation is just eating us up.”
Boshell added, “In the long run, it actually saves the customer money because  it costs the company a good bit of money every time we do one of these connections.
“We have to pay for it somehow,” Boshell added, “If we keep losing money, we have to raise the price of water to the customer.  “The lady who has been using us for 20 years, why would we have to raise her rate, for somebody that never pays their water bill?
“It still keeps us cheaper,” Boshell stated. “Out of 20 cities around here, raising these (service fees) is still cheaper than 90 percent of them.”
“Everybody will get in a situation where we’re losing money,” Bates added. “This is eliminating one of those elements.
“You do this to avoid a rate increase,” Bates pointed out. 
“It was a necessary change,” Boshell said. “Lane showed me how much money we were losing each time and over a period of time.  Otherwise, it would be the average consumer who would have to pay for it.
“Instead, this will just be one of those exceptions,” Boshell concluded.
Bates told board members, “I have known for quite a while that we were behind on the fees we charge for tapping. It’s because (costs of) these materials have gone up.  It kind of started with COVID.”
Bates was referring to costs increasing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which also caused a shortage of certain items, such as brass, which is used for fittings by the water and sewer board.
Bates held up a brass pipe connection to board members, noting that one short fitting which goes at the meter box costs $75 .
“There’s another valve at the main,” Bates explained, adding that a three-quarter meter is about $240 for a smart meter.
The cost of copper is also very high, at $10 per foot, Bates continued. 
“I am going to say that each tap is going to require 30 feet (of copper),” he said.
“We need to be at $900 on our taps, just to cover ourselves, and we’re at $500,” Bates said. “We don’t charge for labor on taps. It has always been material costs.
“The reason I let this go for years, is I value a rate payer 12 months out of the year for a long time, more than I value getting my money on this one-time tap,” Bates told board members.
“I don’t want to discourage anyone from making a tap because we want them long-term,” said Bates,“but it’s getting out of hand.”
For 2024 into all of 2025, the Haleyville Water and Sewer Board performed 39 taps, according to Bates.
“We lost $13,000 just by giving people taps last year,” Bates pointed out. “That is what we’re trying to offset.  It’s going to get worse and worse and worse. Material (costs) are not going to come down.”
Concerning sewer service, Bates pointed out that most sewer lines are under the streets. “We have to do a patching job,” he explained. “We dig up an 8x10 (area) in the street, 12-foot deep to do a sewer line.  We’re not covering our bases when we have (a local company) come in here and patch them to make the road smoother,” Bates continued. “We’re losing money.”
Haleyville also conducts 80 to 100 re-connections per month for failure of payment for services, he explained to board members.
 “If you double everything, we are still way behind other towns,” Bates pointed out. “We are still very generous to our customers.
“It is not so much to punish them. It’s to cover our costs,” Bates pointed out.
Bates directed board members’ attention to figures, showing that tap services on three-quarter inch line constitute 99 percent of the tap service for residential customers.
A list of tapping fees for towns and areas near Haleyville and the surrounding region was also presented by Bates to board members, showing that the local system does two to three tap services on one-inch lines per year.
Figures compiled from research conducted by the Haleyville Water and Sewer Board showed Double Springs charges  $750 for new water service connection for a three-quarter-inch line, $50 for a reconnection fee during working hours and a $100 reconnection fee after working hours, according to the chart. No fee was listed on the chart for a one-inch line.
Bear Creek charges $1,100 for new water service connection for a three-quarter inch line, $1,800 for a one-inch line, a $60 reconnection fee during working hours and no fee listed for after working hours, the chart showed.
Phil Campbell, the chart further showed, charges $1,000 for new water connection  for three-quarter-inch line, $1,200 for one-inch line, $50 for water reconnection fees during working hours, with no fee showing on the chart for after working hours.
Among other business, the board voted to change the times of the water board meetings to noon, but to keep the meetings on the last Tuesday of each month, at the water and sewer board offices near Haleyville High School on 20th Street.