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Perry Pride is a volunteer, grassroots effort to improve the quality of life in Perry, Kansas.

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WELCOME TO PERRY, KANSAS


LETTER TO CITIZENS - CITY WATER RATES

The City of Perry recognizes that there has been a great deal of discussion amongst citizens, and contact with City staff, in response to the recent increase in city water rates and the creation of a sewer rate. For those who have not been present at City Council meetings over the past year, or haven’t reviewed the minutes resulting from those meetings, the decisions by the Council to increase the water rate and create a sewer rate were extremely difficult. A great deal of time was put into considering the necessity of increasing the costs charged to citizens, and the City consulted with multiple outside professionals in reaching its final decision. In the end, it was determined that the increased rates were a necessity to improve an aged and failing system to protect the health and well being of current residents, and hopefully encourage future growth through a commitment to providing water and sanitary sewer service in a modern and state compliant fashion.

The City’s water system and its sanitary sewer system are both well over fifty years old. A large portion of the City’s water pipes are cast iron with a service life of less than fifty years. A large portion of the City’s sewer lines are aged clay pipe combined with brick manholes, also with service lives of less than fifty years. Both systems have well surpassed their useful lifespans. The aging and deterioration of both systems has led to the necessity of more frequent and costly repairs in an effort to try and maintain a basic level of useability. Over the past four years, the City has averaged an annual, unaccounted for water loss of over 2,700,000 gallons, or 12% of the water annually diverted through the system. There is inadequate water flow for fire protection per Kansas Department of Health and Environment standards, and wear and tear to sewer lines has led to sewer leaks which pose health and environmental hazards to our citizenry. To put it simply, the City has gotten more than it should have expected from its water and sewer systems, but it has reached a point that the only viable option moving forward is to replace those systems.

The City finds itself in a unique position to leverage available funding for these infrastructure projects. Interest rates for borrowing are at all-time lows and the cost of projects like these will only increase every year that the City fails to replace these failing systems.

The City Council compared its pre-increase rates to those across Jefferson County and in almost every instance the City’s rates were lower than other cities in the County. In many cases we were significantly lower. While the mission of a municipality is not to make money on utility services, it is a dangerous and unsustainable situation when you are losing money on them. The City was at that point with these aging systems. When deciding how much to increase rates, the Council tried to balance the need to be able to effectively pay for these upgrades, while at the same time remain competitive with rates charged in other cities throughout the County. The Council believes it has done that.

The City understands that this is a significant increase. The Council was at a point however, where the lack of incremental rate increases over time and aging and failing systems resulted in the need for increases to pay for necessary system replacements. While these increases are never desired by our citizens, we hope that you understand the reasoning behind them and appreciate that we were at a tipping point with our current water and sewer systems and these upgrades are absolutely necessary to protect our citizens, and continue to provide them with clean water and safe sewer for decades to come.

Willkomm Trails

Rediscover the Willkomm Trail - Click Here

Approximately 1.36 miles

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2022 CALENDAR

City Council meetings are the 2nd Wednesday of the month at 6:30 at City Hall

APR
9

Easter Egg hunt at 10:00am. In case of rain, backup date April 16th

JUN
4-6

Citywide cleanup and garage sales