{"id":37526,"date":"2026-06-19T07:24:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T11:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=37526"},"modified":"2026-06-19T07:24:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T11:24:58","slug":"decatur-water-rate-hike-is-lowered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/19\/decatur-water-rate-hike-is-lowered\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur water rate hike is lowered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Decatur&#8217;s upcoming huge water project has become a little easier on the financial accounts of residents!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was announced at Tuesday night&#8217;s city council meeting that the upcoming increase on water bills will be 11% rather than the 15% originally expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben Adams, project manager with Commonwealth Engineering of Fort Wayne, revealed the lower number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adams, who has worked with the city as well as Adams County on a number of projects, explained at the meeting the details of a reworked project financial package provided by Indiana&#8217;s State Revolving Fund (SRF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The original setup called for a $14 million loan at 2.83% interest while the new number is a $9 million loan at the same interest. Also, a loan of $2.5 million at 0% interest has been boosted to $5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"561\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ben-Adams-holds-glasses.jpg?resize=640%2C561&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-37527\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ben-Adams-holds-glasses.jpg?w=691&amp;ssl=1 691w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ben-Adams-holds-glasses.jpg?resize=300%2C263&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Ben Adams explaining good news<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In addition, an original $5.5 million grant with no payback has been increased to $8 million with no payback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo, Decatur received another $2.5M in grant funds and $2.5M in additional zero percent interest loan funds which ended up reducing the overall financing costs and therefore translated into a reduced increase to existing rates from 15% hike to 11%,\u201d Adams told WZBD.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the change, an average user of city water who resides within the city will see a current monthly charge of $53.48 go to $59.38. Customers outside the city will see the current charge of $68.01 rise to $75.15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The current minimum charge will rise from $34.85 to $38.45 for in-city residents and the current minimum for an outside-city user will increase from $45.25 to $49.90.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following a public hearing in which no one spoke, council unanimously adopted an ordinance placing the new rates into effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The federally-mandated project, funded through 35-year bonds, will replace over 1,000 lead service lines in the city along with numerous water mains, some of which are 100 years old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Decatur&#8217;s upcoming huge water project has become a little easier on the financial accounts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":37527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-37526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ben-Adams-holds-glasses.jpg?fit=691%2C606&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37528,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37526\/revisions\/37528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}