Saying “we absolutely hear your voices” and “we understand the concerns you raised,” City Administrator Faith Leach joined three other members of the Board of Estimates tonight to approve a new schedule of charges that will raise household water bills to their highest rate in five years.

Representing Mayor Brandon Scott, who left the meeting prior to the vote, Leach profusely thanked the dozen residents and community activists who testified – all against the proposed rate hikes – and pledged to commit herself to improving the quality of the city’s water and sewer system.

So did Comptroller Bill Henry, who expressed sadness about the latest charges, but said that “several generations of deferred maintenance [that] kicked the can down the road” required the board to act.

“We can’t put it off because it’s awful. It just has to be done,” he said.

City Council President Zeke Cohen abstained from voting, citing concerns about the city’s historic poor collection of delinquent water accounts and dependence on expensive outside contractors.

“We can’t put it off because it’s awful. It just has to be done”  – Comptroller Bill Henry.

Tonight’s approval was fully expected.

For the last quarter century, the Board of Estimates has ratified yearly water rate hikes, which have tripled as a result.

Now, starting on February 1, sewer rates will rise by 15%, and water and stormwater rates will go up by 3%.

On July 1, 2025, rates will rise again by an average of 8.4%, followed by a third jump of equal size on July 1, 2026.

As a result, the average utility bill for a four-person household will increase from $130 a month currently to $168 a month after July 2026 – a 29.2% climb in 17 months.

Large Delinquent Accounts

Testimony by citizens, which the board is required to hear prior to a rate adjustment, focused on calls for the Department of Public Works to better collect on commercial accounts and to require anchor institutions and other large property owners to pay their fair share of utility costs.

Nneka Nnamdi, head of Fight Blight Bmore, cited underpaid water bills by New York developer La Cité on its apartment complex in the Poppleton district of West Baltimore as an example of scofflaw landlords.

Other examples have been cited by Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming, including $7.9 million owed by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City (HABC).

Altogether, Cumming reported that delinquent water accounts amounted to $319 million as of May 2023.

Earlier The Brew, analyzing internal records maintained by DPW’s UMAX billing system, reported that the Johns Hopkins Medical Center and Kevin Plank’s distillery and Sagamore Pendry hotel were far behind in water payments.

Tonight, DPW Director Khalil Zaied, who doubles as a voting member of the Board of Estimates, defended his agency’s ability to collect outstanding large accounts.

The last audit showed $188 million in “receivables not collected,” he said, but $56.5 million of that amount has been recouped by a task force assigned to tackle the delinquency problem.

Still, DPW is below the industry standard in collections.

But “not that far,” interjected Aaron Moore, DPW’s financial officer, who nevertheless said he could not give the board a solid figure on how poor collections influenced the size of the latest rate hikes.

The lack of information, Cohen said, underscored that “we have a very long way to go to get it right.”

Mayor Scott, who was in attendance as one resident asked the board to “please do your job that doesn’t impact on poor people in the city,” said decisions made by previous administrations, some in office before he was born, were responsible for water bills that he himself was unhappy about paying.