Wastewater Rates

Rate Increase Effective October 1, 2018

As a result of increasing demands on the Town's wastewater infrastructure and additional treatment costs, the Town of Argyle has implemented a rate adjustment.  The Town of Argyle has not adjusted their rates in the past nine years, despite several surrounding and comparable entities increasing rates between 23%-158%.  The new rate represents an increase of $5.41 on the minimum bill, which represents a 15% increase, maintaining a lower percentage increase than much of our neighbors.  The rate adjustment was determined based on careful consideration of the operating and treatment costs.  Additional information is available at the links provided below.

Wastewater Fund Information

The Town of Argyle provides wastewater service to its residents and commercial customers based on availability of necessary infrastructure.  The Town of Argyle is responsible for the transmission of wastewater that is subsequently processed and treated by two entities: The City of Denton and the Trinity River Authority (TRA).  Each entity charges rates based on their maintenance and operations, and debt service costs.  Our rates must reflect those costs as well as our maintenance and operations costs, and debt service.   It is important that our rates reflect charges to provide sustainability of the system for existing and future ratepayers. 

The wastewater fund is a “proprietary fund”.  A proprietary fund accounts for activities financed through user charges and fees as well as transfers from other funds, similar to a private sector business. These funds are considered self-supporting in that the services rendered by them are generally financed through user charges.  This is different from all of our other funds which have generic sources of revenue such as property tax, sales tax, various fees, or transfers from funds.  Specifically, it accounts for any activity for which a fee is charged to only users of that service.  This activity may be financed with debt that is secured solely by pledge of the net revenues from fees and charges of the specific activity.  Therefore, the activity’s costs of providing services, including capital costs (such as depreciation or debt service), must be recovered with fees and charges, rather than with taxes or similar revenues.