I was just questioning the extra fee that we’re having for the fire. We’re talking about the water here, but there’s also the fee I was curious as to why that was also increasing, if that was for the fire hydrants and not necessarily the water quality. Why is that increasing?”

Beth Boie, Stanley resident

Meeting via Zoom on Tuesday, Jan. 20, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) took comment on proposed water rate hikes in Stanley. The proposed new rates, based on usage and submitted by the city to the PSC for review, will effectively double city water rates if approved. Once fully implemented the two-step rate increase would see a rise to $14 per 1,000 gallons for residential water rates, $14.25 per 1,000 gallons for multifamily residential, $11.50 per 1,000 gallons for industrial water use, $13.25 per 1,000 gallons for public authority, and $9.25 per 1,000 gallons for ACE Ethanol.
Fixed fees and public fire charges per quarter will also rise under the proposal, with fixed fees topping out at $41, with public fire topping out at $138.
With a final decision still pending PSC review of the testimony, residents and stakeholders all gave feedback on the proposed changes at the PSC hearing, presided over by PSC administrative law judge Michael NewMark.
Appearing for the city were City Administrator/Clerk-Treasurer Nicole Pilgrim along with Office Manager and Municipal Team Leader Cory Horton of Reupert-Mielke, the firm which prepared the rates. Appearing for the PSC were Water Division Public Utility Auditor Kathleen Butzlaff as well as Division Administrator for Water Utility Regulation and Analysis Andy Galvin. Appearing for Stanley residents were many, including City Council Members Laurie Foster and Aaron Dickson, in to listen.
Newmark opened the hearing at 2 p.m.
“This is docket 5670-WR-104,” he said. Introducing himself briefly and reviewing comment details before turning to documents and witnesses, Newmark started by swearing in Horton to verify the 59 documents involved.
“I can verify that those are the documents we submitted for the record,” Horton said.
“I have documents listed one through 59,” NewMark said. “Are you familiar with those?”
“Yes,” Horton, affirming they were complete to the best of his knowledge. Horton then shared the reason for the increase, including increased expenses since the last increase and capital improvements like SCADA and Ozone Upgrades. Also included were a well 3 update and central water treatment plant updates.
“The rates haven’t increased since 2017, so in order to meet the costs the utility is seeing the rates need to be updated,” Horton said.
Next for witnesses was Pilgrim, sworn in by NewMark before elaborating the reason for the rate increase from the city’s end.
“It basically to get the central plant up to date,” she said, noting the age of the central water treatment plant and SCADA, a system meant to allow both water plants (central and northwestern) to talk to each other.
Following Pilgrim was Butzlaff, who said two small adjustments to the rate increase had been found for accounting purposes, due to a utility error which had double counted $7 million in expenses. Once correction had been made by the utility the overall rate increase came out to a 103 percent increase for city water rates.
“I split it into two increases and when the second increase would be implemented the proposed increase would be 103 percent,” she said. “It would be approximately 45 percent in step 1 and then the remaining 50 to 60 percent for a total increase of 103 percent.”
Following Butzlaff was PSC Public Utility Rate Analyst Alex Hanna, who testified that cost service and rate design materials were complete to the best of his knowledge, without offering additional comment.
“I have no comments at this time,” Hanna said.
Following Hanna, it was time to take public comment.
“Now we can take public comments and we have a significant number of people that have joined and continue to join us,” Newmark said.
Speaking first was Council member Aaron Dickson, sworn in by Newmark.
“Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” Newmark asked.
“Yes sir,” Dickson replied, then sharing his thoughts.
“I don’t really have any particular comment but I want to be present to listen to what the public has to say,” he said.
Following Dickson was city resident Julia Sytsevich.
“I just wanted to listen in to hear what you had to say about the water upgrade, because I do live in Stanley and I’m very concerned how the prices are going to increase,” she said. “There’s a lot of people that don’t make a lot of money and maybe those people look at these price increases and they’re concerned. They have their bills that they have to pay like everyone else. I hope that this water isn’t too high.”
Newmark then went through others present on Zoom, listed as A, B, and Ben’s iPhone. None had comment.
City resident Beth Boie spoke next, asking a question on public fire service.
“I was just questioning the extra fee that we’re having for the fire,” she said. “We’re talking about the water here, but there’s also the fee I was curious as to why that was also increasing, if that was for the fire hydrants and not necessarily the water quality. Why is that increasing?”
The answer provided was that municipalities provide service, with different options for billing, these being property taxes or rates. Stanley billed public fire protect with its water bill.
“It’s a municipal decision,” Newmark said. “Whatever the municipality chooses to use that’s what the Commission then implements.”
PSC employee Hanna backed up NewMark’s comments.
“Stanley already had it 100 percent direct charges,” Hanna said of the city collection for public fire protection.
Boie asked if grants were available to help with the plant, with Hanna responding that the part of the plant cost being recovered was debt service, meaning limited options for loans or grants.
“A lot of that debt’s through programs that are very low interest,” he said. “State programs and federal programs that are beneath the cost or low because it’s a municipal utility.”
Pilgrim answered for the city.
“We let our engineer take care of finding the funding and they said they’re weren’t any grants available,” she said. “There was limited principal forgiveness available through programs like the clean water fund and safe drinking water loans, but not much.
Butzlaff had a comment.
“Could I add something, Judge Newmark?” she asked. “There are federal loans sometimes. They’re very rare and hard to get. The Commission itself regulates utilities, so we do not have any funds available, but these low interest loans that are being mentioned, it’s a DNR program.” The loans in these programs amounted to grants, meaning that principal did not need to be repaid.
“The total plant additions in Stanley would be $10.2 million dollars,” she said, “and approximately 15 percent of that cost is eligible for principal forgiveness so it would not need to be repaid and would basically be a grant. It would be $1.5 million of the total that would not need to be repaid.” Such loans were 20 year loans, with interest set by the state and estimated at 1.3 percent at the time the rate case was opened.
Also providing public comment to the PSC was Debbie Haas, owner of Debbie’s on Broadway.
“My comment is that as a business owner in town my projected water bill is to go from $600 every three months to $1,400. That’s drastic,” she said. “Quite honestly I’m not sure the small businesses in Stanley can afford that, and we have to make it be sustainable, especially now with the economy we’re in now. I also know as a business owner Stanley is like half rentals. If Stanley loses all of the people that live in town, where will they go? They’ll leave, and what’s Stanley going to do for their water bills? How will they pay for their plant then?”
“That’s a good point,” Newmark said, moving to take more comments.
Other residents spoke as well, including Roseanna Kotecki, Jean Glidden, and Collette Kelly. The shared theme was that even with frugality and thrift the proposed rates were simply unaffordable, even for homeowners.
“None of the lower income people can afford this,” Kelly said, predicting that 90 percent of the town was going to be gone.
Also speaking was Council Member Laurie Foster, who echoed public concerns.
“There’s a lot of people in the commercial and residences who can’t afford this,” she said. There was talk among some of moving out. Foster also spoke on ACE Ethanol rates, saying “it’s not fair to everybody else.”
City resident Nikki Witt shared thoughts as well, asking how the oversight in rates had been allowed, and who was responsible, also touching on ACE Ethanol rates.
“I am a part of the Chamber and I want to see businesses thrive,” she said. A large rate gap was unacceptable.
Hutton of Ruepert-Mielke answered that ACE was 30 times bigger than other industries in its water use, and that the city had tried to get rates changed but this wasn’t allowed by the rules.
ACE Ethanol President Neal Kemmet also spoke at the Tuesday public hearing.
“I did submit some comments,” he said. “I uploaded some comments to the website and put a letter to the editor. I’ll spare reading the whole thing here. I’m definitely not trying to be tone deaf to what everyone is saying out there, but to let people know we are with ACE Ethanol in Stanley.
“I operate two ethanol plants in the state of Wisconsin. There’s ACE Ethanol here in Stanley, Wisconsin. I also operate Fox River Valley Ethanol in Oshkosh. And I can see firsthand how water costs impact the businesses in the communities. ACE Ethanol’s water and sewer bill is approximately $1.2 million annually, while Fox River Valley--it’s actually a bigger ethanol plant--their budget is less than $200,000 annually. So I’m paying six times the amount of water here that I am in my other facility which is actually bigger.
“Now the difference is partly because Fox Valley operates on a private well, while ACE relies on city public water system, but it’s also important to note that we don’t require potable water for our operations. It’s actually less then three percent of our water that actually has to be potable. So we’re paying for potable water we don’t need because it’s part of a common municipal system. So you know there’s a cost disparity for us here too. And then obviously ACE Ethanol’s water profile and infrastructure requirements are quite a bit different. Our fire flow needs, our peak demand needs. And then we have presented in the Public Service Commission before, case 5670-WR-103. So there we went through a detailed case that was very expensive for us, we went through a detailed cost of service case. And the rates that the Public Service Commission came up with at that time was a dedicated rate for ACE Ethanol that was consistent with the law of cost of service principle. So I mean I’m not happy about it either. I mean there’s years we don’t make a million dollars. There’s years we do better, there’s years we don’t, but we’re here and I’m not about to shift all of my production to the other plant and leave everything here high and dry. Obviously it doesn’t work that way. But no, I don’t like it either, in fact I hate it, but we do need clean drinking water. The facility was quite old, and I know Nicole and the Mayor have done everything they can to try and find grants, low interest loans. But no, it’s a tough situation, the water rates are high. I know that Cory with the engineering firm did do a big study and looked at different rate cases. I think Stanley was one of the cheapest and now it’s probably in the middle compared to other communities our size. But yeah, I wish this burden wasn’t out there, because it’s really hard to explain especially in my business just a million dollar budget variance much less paying your water bills at home. I don’t like it either, but I don’t think there’s much we can do about it at this point.”
Newmark then turned to Horton for followup on how Stanley compared with water rates elsewhere.
“Where does Stanley compare to elsewhere with water rates?” he asked.
“I haven’t looked recently but in the past I believe this would put Stanley close to the median,” Horton said. “I don’t know if the PSC has any additional information that would provide any additional detail to that, but you know, rates for surrounding communities are also changing all of the time. I could certainly take a look at that but don’t really have any good examples off the top of my head.”
Also speaking at the hearing was Kaitlyn Witt, a young mother with two kids and five years homeownership.
“My name is Kaitlyn Witt, it’s on there as Griffin. But I’m Kaitlyn Witt. I’m a young mom with two kids. I’ve been a homeowner for about five years now, and Stanley has always been the family town. We’re all a really tight nit community, but I have so many concerns not for just myself but for everybody. We work hard but like everybody said in this economy, having our rates doubled, it’s just insane. So I do have a couple of questions. First, is getting extra outside help to run the plant. I remember hearing that somewhere. So are we having somebody come in to help run the plant because we don’t have anybody who is super knowledgable, even though we just got a lot of help that knew what they were doing get fired and stuff. So we’re training a lot of people. So there’s that.”
Plant workers John Hoel and Jeriame Czubakowski faced a potential firing over the summer but were retained after a community show of support at the Chapman Park Community Center. Witt went on.
“Also, I understand that our plants all need upgrades, and that’s understandable. But since 2017, there hasn’t been any increase or really anything being done to help make the necessary adjustments to our water plants. So I don’t see us needing to do all the things needed, all at one time, that in total cost us $10 million. That’s insane. I don’t know if there’s a way that we could just do it gradually over the next five years, do the adjustments, or even 10 years? I know we need them, but financially we can’t afford that much, so I don’t know. That’s very irresponsible to whoever’s in charge that we haven’t had anything done since 2017. That’s almost 10 years. I also did read somewhere that the fire protection rates in other towns are around 15 percent, and ours would go to 40 percent, so that’s quite significant. But yeah, we’re a low income town and we’re all doing our part. We have a lot of great businesses that we all support and it’s just really scary to think what would happen to this town if this gets approved, because it would not be the same. Everybody would leave, get shut down, there would be really nothing. So hopefully we can resolve this in a way that we can all work together.” Witt reiterated her question on whether outside help was coming to help run the plant, the matter addressed by Pilgrim.
“Currently we have two water operators who are not fully certified,” she said. “We have--one is fully certified but he’s working in wastewater so he’s signing off for the water department. We do have outside firms assisting when needed to help the guys when they don’t understand what the pieces are, but it’s not like it was before.” In place of contract work there was on-site assistance to the two full-time water plant workers. The cost of $10 million was for building a new plant, with Pilgrim (hired in 2020) unaware why it wasn’t done previously.
Following Witt and Pilgrim was former Stanley water operator in charge Don Goettl, who gave his
“I’m Don Goettl,” he said. “I was employed with the city for 30 plus years in the water department. We went thorough the increase back in 2017, I was the operator in charge then. At that point the city switched it over from a tax on the public fire protection on the tax roll to the water bill, which local governments were able to do back then. I went to the city council meeting last night, and back in 2017 one of the big parts of public fire protection increase was the ability to more rapidly produce water. And I asked if the central plant upgrade--it’s an upgrade--are we going to be able to produce any more water than we do now. Because that’s what set the ISO rating. My answer was ‘no, we’re going to have about the same amount of water.’ So how can they raise public fire protection about 140 percent, according to what I’m looking at here from $57.73? I got this when I paid my water bill yesterday, it’s the water rate increase for three-quarter inch residential meters. From $57.73 which it is now, to after step 2 is completed, after the central plant is upgraded, to $138? That’s 140 percent, and we cannot produce any more water.
“Another comment. There was comments made about the ozone update and SCADA upgrade with the Northwest plant. I retired about three years ago and that was in the works then. And at that time the water utility had the money for ozone and SCADA. I heard though that they’re trying to get that recovered in this new loan, or what?
Goettl’s last comment acknowledged that ACE didn’t need potable water but balanced this with benefits received from city water.
“With the iron and maganese removed, and the water softened, you can darn well bet it’s a lot easier on their processing equipment,” he said of ACE.
Horton commented on how rates were set.
“The rates are set by the financial position of the utility,” he said. “It’s not like a—you know—as much as we’re looking forward to a few projects ultimately those rates don’t go into effect until the project’s have been 100 percent completed. So a lot of the past utility work like SCADA, those things are kind of looking at where the utility’s true costs are. So that doesn’t necessarily say that fire protection levels have changed significantly. The big part of the fire protection piece is operational costs have increased a lot over the time since last increase as well. So again, this is not a projected look at a future project, this is a look at the real data that we have that PSC reviews, from a cost perspective.”
Goettl shared a thought on personnel.
“When I retired two years ago we had experienced personnel who were qualified and something or someone, something or someone forced them down the road and they quit. Anybody with experience...If we wouldn’t have forced our other workers down the road, and this is what I heard from them that they couldn’t take it any longer from management...we wouldn’t have to pay an extra $177,000 and we wouldn’t be in the predicament we are now with inexperienced workers. And trust me, that inexperience is going to go on for quite a while with the water system here in Stanley. There’s a lot to learn.”
Nikki Boie and Erica Sturm also spoke, with Boie expressing concern on the price increase as well as impact on local business, schools, and grocery stores. Sturm said she had made comparisons with other local communities on the PSC website with more recent increases and that these hadn’t been as much as Stanley.
“I just wanted to voice my concern too about a drastic increase,” she said.” I did try to find comparisons between the Stanley water rates and others. I looked on the public service commission website and made some comparisons, and did see the rates haven’t changed since 2017. But comparing to other local communities, Cadott, Thorp, Fall Creek, Elk Mound, and others. Their rates looked like they had been changed more recently, going back to 2022, 2023. None of those rates—they all varied—some are higher, lower, but none of the rates are drastically higher than what Stanley’s are currently. So to have ours go up so much, just doesn’t seem to fit. Again I can see the need for an increase to improve the water in the city, to update the systems, but to increase so much would put us much higher than any of the surrounding communities. And the communities have more recently had rate increases…I think it would greatly affect home values. Who would want to move into Stanley, come into Stanley with those high rates? When compared to other local communities the rates if this change comes about, those rates would be much lower.”
Horton made a clarification on the water rates from what he said earlier.
“Your rates depend on how much water you’re using and what classification you are,” he said. The current rates as they stand are near the median for the state.” A rate increase would put Stanley’s above the median for the state. Stanley was also reaching the age where a lot of infrastructure updates needed to be made, something that other communities might not be at the same point on.
“They may have a younger system or just a newer system with a lot less maintenance,” he said. “I would recommend that people take a look at that Wisconsin PSC rates dashboard if they want some more information on that.”
With current rates based on needed improvements, the plan once these were taken care of was to do simplified rate cases.
“My plan after this would be that we do a simplified rate case like it should have been done previously,” Pilgrim said in answer to questioning. “So that way it gets done every year instead of every 10 years.”
Further questioning made known that simplified rate cases are tied to inflation and the utility must show a financial need for it to qualify.
“If they do not show a financial need for it they do not qualify,” Butzlaff said. “But if they qualify they can implement a simple rate case annually. For large utilities that more than 4,000 customers they are allowed to do it for up to five years and then they need to do a conventional rate case increase again. For smaller utilities with 4,000 or fewer customers like Stanley that utility could file a simplified rate case every year until the increases add up to 40 percent, as long as it meets the financial criteria to meet that rate increase.”
Rates as proposed were based on a 20-year infrastructure loan, with Horton saying the goal for rate cases generally was to keep up costs to avoid large price spikes in the future. With debt still on the books from the last project in the 2010s, the central plant upgrade involves a new plant connected to the most recent part of the original.
“We need to make sure we’re keeping up with costs so we’re not in the situation we are today, where we’re saying we should have thought of it and we should have implemented it,” he said. Horton also clarified that the public fire rates were infrastructure related to keeping up infrastructure.
“The operation and maintenance costs are a big reason for the increase in fire rates going up,” he said.
With more people speaking Tuesday and several PSC letters to review, the information gathered will now be reviewed by the PSC along with comment letters, the PSC issuing a formal decision on the matter, made by Galvin and emailed to the utility as well as posted on the PSC website.
“I have one question, since I know I’m going to be asked,” Pilgrim said. “Do we have an estimate on how long it takes for that review?”
The answer provided was for estimated review time was two to three weeks.
Residents not able to make the Tuesday hearing can watch the recording of it at https://www.youtube.com/@PSCWI-Hearings, the video entitled Docket 5670-WR-104 Stanley Public and Party Hearing Sessions.