News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Algood will increase its sewer and water rates at the start of 2025 to match the jump seen in Cookeville this summer.
Algood City Administrator Keith Morrison said they purchase water from and send sewer to Cookeville so any rate changes in Cookeville get passed onto Algood customers. Morrison said the new rate will cost citizens about $2.18 more for their first two thousand gallons of water each month.
“We know it’s going to be bad with everything already going up,” Morrison said. “So that’s why we’ve tried to be very diligent and try to make a good decision with this and also why we put it off until January the first is to try to give our citizens as much time to get through the Christmas holiday and get to the first of the year.”
Morrison said they went with the smallest increase they needed to offset Cookeville’s prices while keeping the impact on citizens as small as possible. Morrison said Algood will be able to absorb the extra costs through the end of 2024 without any issues.
“We’re doing everything we can to protect our customers and keep their rates as low as we can keep them,” Morrison said.
Morrison said they had hoped to go through with a five-year rate increase around this time but they need to do more research before that is possible.
“We needed some more time to study the next four years,” Morrison said. “What kind of projects we were going to encounter, what kind of system needs were there and we just didn’t have to get all that together and ready for the council so that they could make a good, informed decision.”
Morrison said their goal is to have the data they need so they can move forward with bigger plans for their water rates by next July.
“We’ll have the next four years of rates, hopefully with more detail and study and some information from our engineer and be able to put together a long range plan,” Morrison said.
