Peachtree City's

Water and Sewer Authority has approved a $4.9 million budget for the coming

year.

While that

is technically a deficit budget, which will be covered with funds from

the authority's cash reserves, the budget figures will have to be revisited

within the next six months when a rate hike is considered, said General

Manager Larry Turner.

The rate increase,

which would be enacted to help pay for expansion of the sewer system to

treat an additional 2 million gallons of sewage a day, is estimated to

be in the $4 to $5 range, Turner added. That overall project will cost

over $15 million to complete.

Turner said

it didn't make sense to raise the sewer rates now and then raise them

again several months down the road.

The anticipated

shortfall of $222,000 will be made up by the cash reserve, although the

authority decided to shrink that by budgeting about $89,000 less for regulatory

monitoring fees, a fund used to pay any fines levied by the state Environmental

Protection Division.

The budget

includes represents an overall increase of 1.8 percent from last year's

budget, with a 2.4 percent increase in salaries.

The salary

increase was due to having to pay a higher wage to operators hired by

the authority, Turner said. The increase was also inflated since there

were a number of vacancies last year that kept the authority from being

at full staff, Turner added.

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