A home in Corinthian Bay pays $20 a month for sewer service, according to the county’s rate sheet. The last rate adjustment there was in 1995, according to a county memo.
Now the Corinthian Bay system is out of savings, and so is Middletown’s. Middletown Sewer and Corinthian Bay Sewer “have no reserves left and would require a loan,” Special Districts Administrator Robin Borre wrote in an Oct. 21 memo to the Lake County Sanitation District board. County staff plan community meetings in each district on rate increases.
Reserves are a sewer system’s savings. They pay for repairs and cover the gap when the money coming in from customers falls short of what it costs to run the pipes and the treatment plant.
Borre’s memo recommends short-term loans from Lake County Special Districts Administration, the county department that operates the district’s sewer systems. Repayment would be built into the rate studies and made within the fiscal year “in the amounts listed below,” the memo says. What’s listed below that line is the cost of each study.
The board voted 4-0 on Oct. 21 to put a consultant to work on new rate studies for four systems: Corinthian Bay, Middletown, Anderson Springs and the Southeast Regional system. Director Jessica Hooten was absent, according to the meeting minutes. The minutes record two motions on the item. Both deal with the studies. Neither mentions the loans.
A rate study is a review that works out what a system needs to charge its customers to cover its costs.
The $20 rate comes from a 1995 county ordinance. The neighborhood’s sewer lines were connected to the Kelseyville treatment system in the 1980s, according to the county.
The memo says Corinthian Bay’s rates need to be updated “to address current issues and CIP,” meaning its capital improvement plan, the list of repairs and upgrades a system plans to pay for.
The consultant’s proposal puts Corinthian Bay at about 72 customers. The Corinthian Bay study can cost up to $17,590. That works out to about $244 per customer.
In Middletown, the district approved a rate study and a five-year rate increase in December 2022. Before that, the last rate adjustment was in 1993, according to the memo.
A home in Middletown now pays $67.41 every two months, under the 2022 ordinance. That rate is set to rise to $69.77 in February 2027.
The memo says staff recommend a new Middletown study “due to revenue shortfalls and operational needs that were not addressed in the 2022 study.” The consultant’s proposal puts Middletown at about 672 customers. Its study can cost up to $20,740.
The consultant is Lechowicz & Tseng Municipal Consultants of Alameda, which has had a five-year on-call contract with Lake County Special Districts Administration since Nov. 4, 2025.
The Anderson Springs study can cost up to $17,590. Anderson Springs, formed after the 2015 Valley Fire, has had one rate study, in 2017, according to the memo. Unlike Middletown and Corinthian Bay, it has savings to pay for the work. A draft resolution in the packet shows a reserve of $141,131 as of Oct. 15.
The Southeast Regional study, which has $28,000 left on a $41,600 contract, was put on hold for at least six months, the memo says. It needs to be updated for costs from the Robin Lane sewage spill. The Southeast system already owes $2 million on a loan from the county’s general fund, according to an update in the board’s Nov. 5 packet.
No new rates are set yet. Under the plan in Borre’s memo, the consultant will bring the studies and proposed rates to the board. The county will then hold community meetings in each district before it mails notices required by Proposition 218, the state law that requires property owners to get notice by mail before a sewer fee goes up.
How much each bill would go up is the question the studies are meant to answer.
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