By: Kara Szymanski | Shelby-Utica News | Published March 17, 2025
SHELBY TOWNSHIP/UTICA — The Great Lakes Water Authority Board of Directors approved the organization’s fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2027 biennial budget, as well as the corresponding fiscal year 2026 water and wastewater service charges for its member partner communities, including Utica and Shelby Township, at its meeting Feb. 26.
The systemwide service charge increase is 5.9 percent for the water system and 4.5 percent for the wastewater system.
This is the first year that GLWA’s budget will exceed 4% as the 4% promise that was included in the organization’s foundational documents ended with the current fiscal year. Despite the increase, GLWA said its nine-year average charge increase continues to be well below 4% — 2.7% for water and 1.6% for wastewater.
The total budget for GLWA for fiscal year 2026 is $954 million, which is approximately $48 million more than fiscal year 2025.
According to GLWA, its fiscal year 2026 budget and charges address multiple years of double digit increases in chemicals, utilities and services costs. These costs have increased nearly 55% since 2020, GLWA said in a press release. The cost of chlorine, which is essential to produce clean water and to treat wastewater, has risen approximately 40% alone in the last 10 years, according to GLWA.
The budget and charges also will provide funding for GLWA’s Linear System Integrity Program, which looks at the system’s transmission pipes and identifies opportunities for pipe renewals and replacements, according to a press release.
Utica Mayor Gus Calandrino said that on Feb. 26 he spoke at the public hearing for the Great Lakes Water Authority budget adoption.
“As the chief elected official in my city, I’m compelled to control my city’s spending by the state of Michigan. I’m accountable to my residents to ensure they get the greatest value at the lowest cost for the money they entrust with their local government,” he said.
He said being a quasi-governmental agency, GLWA has no such constraints.
“You also have no accountability to the residents. If my residents are unhappy with the way I’m spending their money, they can show their displeasure at the voting booth. What accountability does GLWA have to those they serve? We understand we must all pay for water. We understand we must maintain and upgrade our infrastructure. We understand rates will, and even must, increase over time. However, small cities like mine cannot shoulder these large increases with no end in sight,” he said.
He said the cost of water is the single greatest concern for Utica residents. The increases to his residents were 9.4% last year and now 7.38% this year.
“Senior citizens and others on fixed incomes comprise a large percentage of the population of my city. They cannot continue to pay these large increases, year after year. Rate increases of this magnitude are a burden to my residents and are not sustainable. To ensure the future viability of our water system, there must be structural changes to the way you are doing business,” he said.
The meeting lasted nearly four hours.
“I’m pleased to announce GLWA has reconsidered and reduced the increase from 7.38% to 5.9%. Although this rate increase is still high, it is more palatable to Utica residents and businesses. Thanks to resident, friend and adviser Paul Koncz for also attending the meeting. I’m pleased GLWA listened to and considered my comments as well as the comments from others. I will continue to do my part to ensure Utica residents and businesses are treated fairly and not gouged by large and unsustainable increases to their water rates,” he said.
Rick Stathakis, the supervisor of Shelby Township, said they need to make sure that their residents know Shelby Township is not going to arbitrarily raise rates because of GLWA.
“Unlike the state and our regional ‘partners’ like GLWA, Shelby Township is not going to tell our customers that they must pay X before we make sure X is the lowest possible cost and best possible value. While it’s too early to say what the exact impact the GLWA rates will have for Shelby Township, I can say that, to make sure any increase was the smallest increase possible during the GLWA’s recent rate calculation process, we reached out to Brian Baker, our GLWA representative and State Rep. Doug Wozniak, both who are doing an excellent job minimizing any GLWA increase,” he said.
He said that while the township is pleased that GLWA issued a smaller increase than it had originally planned, it is still an increase and the issues surrounding the process are still a concern.
“The issue here is one that we as local officials run into all the time. The numbers and figures we get from GLWA, and the actions taken by Lansing and Gov. (Gretchen) Whitmer seem completely arbitrary. We have GLWA putting an entirely random 4% cap on rate increases for the last several years, when clearly they needed more funding to provide the services our residents and their customers require. Additionally, we have Gov. Whitmer who indiscriminately acted to forgive tens of millions of dollars in unpaid water bills for Highland Park,” he said.
He asked why there were millions of dollars for Highland Park, but there is no money to fund the infrastructure needs of the GLWA as a whole.
He said other levels of government do not have the same accountability as officials at the local level.
“We at the local level must pick up the pieces, answer our phones and balance our budgets,” he said.