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The Marblehead Water and Sewer Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to raise the fixed customer service charges on water and sewer bills and adjust usage rates for fiscal 2027, which begins July 1, changes officials said are intended to cover fixed costs, keep rates stable and prepare for major infrastructure work ahead.
The votes came at the commission's annual public rate hearing, where Superintendent Amy McHugh presented a rate study detailing rising wholesale water costs, labor, insurance and government charges, along with regional sewer projects expected to drive spending in coming years. "The commission remains dedicated to stabilizing rates, with a particular emphasis on sewer rates this year," McHugh said. Members present included Chair Thomas Murray, Vice Chair Gregory Bates, Barton Hyte and James Maher.
Water use in Marblehead is billed in blocks of 748 gallons, the unit that shows up on bills. For water, the annual customer service charge will rise to $190 from $170, or $47.50 per quarter. The charge is a fixed fee covering billing, metering and fire service costs that exist whether a household uses a lot of water or very little. The price of each 748-gallon block will increase to $7.39 from $7.16 at the lower step and to $11.95 from $11.65 at the higher step. Every customer pays the lower rate on roughly the first 22,400 gallons used in a quarter — about 250 gallons a day, close to what a typical family uses for showers, laundry, dishes and toilets, and more than enough to fill a backyard swimming pool. Only use above that level, often driven by lawn watering and irrigation, is billed at the higher rate.
McHugh initially presented several rate options, and commissioners discussed how to make the increase less painful for most users. About 82 percent of water bills — roughly 6,500 of the town's 8,000 water accounts in a typical quarter — fall entirely within the lower rate, according to the rate study. The board settled on a revised option that raises the fixed charge while shifting slightly more of the burden to heavier users, keeping the low-use rate below an alternative option. Bates said the approach spreads fixed costs across all accounts while tying part of the increase to how much water customers actually use. Hyte said the goal was to find the least painful option for ratepayers. Officials said a typical customer staying within the lower block would see an increase of roughly $10.70 per quarter, or about $42.80 per year.
On the sewer side, the commission set the annual customer service charge at $190, up from $180, and raised usage rates to $12.50 for each 748-gallon block at the lower step and $14 at the higher step, up from $12.10 and $12.95. Officials described the change for a typical household at that usage level as a relatively small monthly increase.
Sewer pricing was complicated by the growing number of sewer deduct meters. A deduct meter is a second meter that measures water used outdoors, such as for irrigation, that never enters the sewer system, so customers receive a credit and are not charged sewer rates on that water. McHugh said the town had projected losing 26 percent of sewer revenue to deduct meters but actually lost about 28 percent — nearly 200,000 of the 748-gallon billing blocks, or roughly 149 million gallons, carried no sewer charge in calendar 2025. Because the billing system credits deduct use at a single rate rather than a split rate, the board voted to set the credit at the low rate of $12.50 per 748 gallons. Officials said that avoids refunding water at the high rate while recognizing the meters' effect on revenue.
The water department's fiscal 2027 budget is $6,865,301, an increase of $401,344. That includes $148,417 more for water purchased from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which supplies all of the town's water, along with $57,985 in salary increases and $194,942 in added expenses. The sewer department budget is $4,799,295, a decrease of $732,974, largely tied to the end of a major payment connected to transmission line work. Charges from the South Essex Sewerage District, which treats all of Marblehead's wastewater, fell by $994,425, partly offset by higher salaries and expenses.
Even with the lower sewer operating budget, the total amount the rates must recover is larger because the plan also funds future capital work. The sewer plan includes an estimated $3.2 million construction article and the water plan an estimated $1.3 million article.
With the transmission line paid off, McHugh said, money that had gone to that project will be redirected to Marblehead-owned sewer infrastructure "for five years, and then we can shift that money back" toward SESD plant upgrades tied to the district's long-term Centennial Plan. The sewer system also remains under a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrative order requiring more than $10 million in spending over the next eight years to remove groundwater and stormwater that leak into sewer pipes.
All five rate-related motions, covering the water and sewer fee schedules, the new usage rates and the deduct credit, passed unanimously.
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