HURLEY -- Council members discussed the fairest way to raise city sewer rates for close to an hour during a special meeting Monday.

A 15 percent overall rate increase will take affect Nov. 1, and will be seen by sewer customers on the March 2009 billing cycle. The average residential customer will see a 15 percent increase. The increase could be more or less than 15 percent depending on the current base service rate.

"We held off on this as long as we could," city auditor David Traczyk said.

Construction will be completed next year and Hurley will have loan payments of $286,000 per year for 40 years. Subtracting sewer profit, an additional $150,000 to $160,000 is necessary to make the loan payments, Traczyck said.

That's an additional 34 percent revenue from the 800 sewer customers over the next two years, which is the fairest way, Traczyk said.

In 2010 the city will be able to make a precise decision for rate increases based on the sewer budget for 2009 and how much money was saved after the construction.

Traczyk suggested council increase the base service rate opposed to consumption rate because consumption can decrease. He also said a citywide improvement should be added to the base rate so all residents and businesses pay for improvements.

"We're all going to pay for this one way or another," said council woman Charlene Mussatti, stating there was no new construction  to sewer lines in her neighborhood.

"We addressed the the worst areas," said Mayor Joseph Pinardi. "The other areas had decent lines."

Pinardi explained the city could have done a special assessment however the decision made earlier was to raise the rates city-wide when necessary.

Richards did not agree to the rate increase as proposed.

A 3 percent raise was approved for all non-union city employees.