OCWA Water District
What?
The OCWA Water District is a fresh water supply district that was established by the Oswego Town Board in April 1993 which utilized the town borders as the district’s borders.
It was at this time that an agreement was made between the Town of Oswego and Onondaga County Water Authority (OCWA) to transfer the assets of several town owned water districts to OCWA. In return, OCWA was to supply the fresh water to the new district and invest in the infrastructure to expand the existing districts to the entire Town of Oswego to make fresh water available to residents.
In addition, there was an agreement with OCWA to pay a PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) for 20 years and in this case, taxes would be zero without a PILOT so the town benefited from the PILOT for this period. The district participants (town residents) also did not have to pay the ECC (External Customer Charge levied by OCWA) which is charged to all users of the district.
When this pilot ended in 2014 the ECC began to be charged annually to the district (town) residents.
It was decided at this time that the ECC charge and the charges for maintenance of the fire hydrants be included as a line item in the town’s general fund. This was allowed due to the town and district sharing the same boundaries.
Why the change?
This past year the OCWA board went to the Onondaga County Legislature and requested an increase of 133.7% to the 2025 ECC rate over the previous year’s actual expense of $32,739.
|
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
|
|
ECC |
$ 27,434 |
$ 27,165 |
$ 26,363 |
$ 27,768 |
$ 27,480 |
$ 28,554 |
$ 32,739 |
$ 76,511 |
|
Hydrant |
$ 32,797 |
$ 32,797 |
$ 32,923 |
$ 33,525 |
$ 34,802 |
$ 35,838 |
$ 38,450 |
$ 39,000 |
|
Total |
$ 60,231 |
$ 59,963 |
$ 59,286 |
$ 61,294 |
$ 62,281 |
$ 64,392 |
$ 71,189 |
$ 115,511 |
This was done after the town board had received the preliminary budget for the year. This increase represented 45.2 % of the annual increase for the 2025 Budgeted Expenses. The total increase in the town-wide taxes is 8.73%, 3.95% of which is due to the increase in OCWA ECC fees, and 4.78% for insurance increases, replacement of a 12-year-old dump truck, and increase for paving of town roads.
The Oswego Town Board decided during the budget process this year to split the OCWA charges out from the general fund and include it as a separate item (as a district) on the town resident tax bill. This was done because the Oswego Town board has zero control over the rates charged for the ECC charge as these rates are solely established by OCWA and the Onondaga county legislature.
The current charges with OCWA are being reviewed by the Town Board on its own and in conjunction with Oswego County administration to determine if there is anything that can be done long-term to mitigate these costs or at least have some representation for the towns in Oswego County on the OCWA board.