Village Board selects new water & sewer rate structure

At its meeting on Sept. 15, 2026, the Oak Park Village Board approved a preferred structure for how residents’ water and sewer bills will be calculated for the next five years beginning in 2027. The vote directs Village staff to draft the formal rate ordinance, which the Board expects to review and adopt later this year. 

As the Village continues to analyze the needs of the water and sewer system, all rate information provided at this time is subject to change prior to the Village Board adopting the new rate structure at a meeting later this year. 

The proposed change comes as the Village’s water and sewer system faces rising costs from inflation, new state and federal regulations, and aging infrastructure that are tracking to outpace revenue in the years ahead, even though the system has kept a healthy fund balance of late.  

To chart a path forward, the Village worked with an outside consultant, NewGen Strategies and Solutions, to conduct a financial analysis and identify an approach that would keep enough money in reserve to handle emergencies and planned repairs, keep revenue collection steady and predictable from year to year and gradually shift more of the Village’s revenue collection to a fixed monthly charge rather than relying almost entirely on how much water each customer uses. 

After considering three possible rate designs, the Board settled on an approach called “Fixed Rate Charge and Increasing Block Rate.” In practice, this means two things for customers. First, every household will continue paying a base monthly service charge regardless of how much water they use; that charge will rise gradually from $12 a month in 2026 to $21 a month by 2031 for most homes.  

Second, the rate charged for water used will now come in two tiers, rather than one flat rate. The first 10,000 gallons a household uses each quarter, covering everyday needs like showers, laundry, dishes and drinking water, will be billed at a lower, more stable rate. Any water used beyond that 10,000-gallon mark will be billed at a higher rate. 

Across all three rate designs the Board considered, the total water and sewer bill for a typical customer was projected to rise by roughly 5% to 6% in the first year of the phase-in, so an increase of some kind was expected no matter which option was chosen.  

The current rate in 2026 is $11.94 per 1,000 gallons. In 2027, under the tiered model the Board chose, the rate is $12.18 per 1,000 gallons for the first 10,000 gallons and $12.79 per 1,000 gallons for anything beyond that. At that rate, a household using 10,000 gallons a quarter saves about $3.60 compared to the flat-rate alternative, a household using 25,000 gallons comes out just about even, and a household using 40,000 gallons pays about $3.90 more.  

By 2031, the tiered model charges $13.18 for the first 10,000 gallons and $16.37 beyond that. At that point, a 10,000-gallon household saves about $20.60 per quarter, a 25,000-gallon household saves about $3.65 and a 40,000-gallon household pays about $13.30 more.  

Put simply, households with lower and moderate water use come out ahead under the tiered model, and that advantage grows each year as rates phase in through 2031, while the highest-volume users take on a larger share of the overall increase.