News Flash

November 16, 2022

Dear Residents:

Over the past several days there have been questions raised related to the recently released Village water invoices that covered the watering period from May 1^st to October 31^st, 2022.  To establish a balanced budget for 2022-23, a necessary water rate increase was applied to this billing period to offset expenses that have been incurred by the Village in order to maintain its overall operations as well as support the improvements generated by the Water Department’s Capital Improvement Project that began in 2018.  The below chart highlights water rate increases that have been made since 2012:

Usage Amounts            2012                2014                2020                2022

First 100K gallons        $175                $175                $185                $185

Next 300K gallons        $2.25               $2.75               $3.25               $4.50

Next 400K gallons        $3.25               $3.75               $4.25               $5.75

Over 800K gallons        $4.25               $5.00               $5.50               $7.25

While the average increase for a water bill in the current billing period is approximately 35%, it is required in order for the Village to properly fund all the ongoing services that residents of Old Westbury require.   This water rate increase supports several key areas that include:

• Payments toward the Village’s $10 million dollar bond obligation that funded the Water Department’s Capital Improvement Project begun in 2018. This Project was necessary to ensure a healthy and reliable water distribution system.
• The maintenance of our highly trained Water Department Staff, which monitors and manages the entire Water System seven (7) days a week
• Offsets to overall Village operations predicated by a period of high inflation. Rather than levying a significant increase to Village taxes, residents have been given more control over their own expense as the cost for the commodity of water is based on consumer usage. Residents have the ability to monitor their daily usage using the Eye-On-Water app technology and thus control their consumption and overall costs.

We again encourage all residents who have not yet signed up to use the Eye-On-Water app to do so.  Instructions can be located by visiting: https://eyeonwater.com and click on the “Create Account” link.  

As always, please call Village Hall directly at 626-0800 for assistance or if you have any questions.