The Town of Daysland is presently working on a rehabilitation of its sanitary sewer system, with a total estimated cost of $4.3 million.

The Town received a grant for $3.2 million, announced last year, and will be replacing the lift station, force main pipeline, and doing a rehabilitation and replacement on its lagoon system.

The town will contribute the amount leftover after grant funding, about $1.1 million, and will fund the work from a debenture.

The debenture will be amortized over 25 years, and instead of increasing taxation to cover the payments, Council has made a decision to recover the debt from users, in the form of utility bills, also deciding that the current load for their water treatment plant should be paid in the same way, from utility bills instead of property taxes.

“This new method of funding the loans ensures that utility customers pay for the utility debt. This is done because not all taxpayers are utility users, and vice versa.”

Daysland CAO Rod Krips says that back in 2010 when the new water plant was built, the town was fortunate enough to receive three-quarters of the project cost in grant funding, leaving around $1 million on a debenture.

Krips says that generally debenture payments are taken from general revenue, via property taxes, but since both debentures are funding utilities, Council adopted the philosophy that repayment should be done through those using the services.