June 23, 2026 (UPDATE: Please note that this post was written after the town manager said the GFL increase was “not the full $5” and after two elected officials told me it was almost $5. I used a $3 increase to be conservative. Now we know that the monthly increase will be 63 cents for residential trash pick-up. The figures below were based off of an $18 per month flat rate increase, although we now know it will be $15.63.)
At the June 2026 Town of Farmville Board of Commissioners meeting the FY 2026-27 budget was approved. Customers will pay an additional $5 per month per utility as a flat rate increase for water, sewer, and electric (an additional $15 per month) plus, according to the town manager, “not the full $5” for GFL trash pick-up per month. A household using all four utilities through the Town will pay maybe $18 extra per month on their utility bill or $216 additional per year.
The town manager said the town was in a “position” to set this flat tax and that it would “minimize” the impact for the customers. He said that we customers will be “better off” with this structure. This is not at all true for our household. The cost to the Town from ElectriCities (electric) will go up by 3.5%. The cost of actual water (only a portion of our water bill) will go up by 2.7% from Greenville Utilities Commission and the cost from GFL (trash) will go up by 2.4%. With my family paying an extra $18 or so per month, this is like us paying a 7%-8.5 % increase for EACH of the four utilities. Even if the Town passed along the maximum 3.5% increase to every one of our four utilities, this would be less expensive for all of us customers up to a $500 average utility bill. Our family had a spike in June 2025 where our bill was approximately $100 more than every other month. With that abnormally high bill, our family would be better off paying a 5.5% increase that month than the new flat rate.
Please look at your TOF utility bill total for the past twelve months and see how this flat rate compares to a usage increase. If this flat rate actually would help modest-income customers, I would be much more likely to think it was a good idea. I’m wondering how often modest-income homes have a Farmville utility bill monthly average over $500.
As someone noted in the citizen’s presentations, seniors on a fixed income will have no opportunity to use less air conditioning or less heat in order to lower that $5 monthly tax. Even if they lower their water usage, they will still incur an additional $5 monthly tax for water. Usually a flat rate is regressive and disproportionately hurts lower income residents. So far, I have only heard from customers who would be paying the Town much more with this flat rate. If you think this new flat rate increase would be unfair for our seniors and/or for others, please sign up by 5:15 in the courtroom at Town Hall on Monday, June 29 in order to give a citizen’s presentation. Please note that most of our current elected officials were not in office when Farmville was dug into a financial hole. The Board now has to try to deal with the repercussions.
In previous years, the Town of Farmville has raised our rates on most, if not all, utilities. For example, the proposed Town of Farmville budget beginning July 1, 2025 included a 3.5% increase for water rates, 3.3% increase for sewer rates, 3.5% increase for electric rates, and a 2.4% increase for solid waste collection. Again, for some of us, it looks like this 2026-27 flat rate could be more like a 5.5%-8.5% increase on each of these utilities.
With the Pitt County revaluations which took effect January 1, 2024, and the Town keeping its property rate the same, we property owners paid the Town of Farmville an additional $850,000. in property taxes for one year. That is quite a sum as a yearly increase to the Town funds! How has this money been spent?
I have heard of landlords increasing Farmville rents in order to pass along these rising costs. So, renters and property owners have faced significant rent or property tax increases, as well as rising utility bills. The cost of living in any city or town is often a key consideration for people deciding where they will move. It is extremely unwise for any municipality to use its Enterprise Funds (electric, water, sewer, etc.) to prop up its General Fund. In other words, it really hurts a town or city to overcharge consumers for utilities in order to pad the General Fund. I’m not suggesting that this is happening now, but this approach has been used at times in Farmville’s recent past.
Our water and sewer rates in the Town of Farmville have been comparably high for years. According to the latest figures on the UNC School of Government dashboard, if your household in the Town of Farmville used 5,000 gallons of water per month for 12 months, you will have paid $43.85 more per month or $526.20 more per year in water and sewer than households using 5,000 gallons per month from the Greenville Utilities Commission (GUC). Farmville’s $121.31 per 5,000 gallons is far above Greenville’s $77.46 and Winterville’s $80.49, and quite a bit more than the state median of $94.82.
This gap has widened dramatically since July 1, 2021, when the Farmville household paid $28.18 more per month for water and sewer for 5,000 gallons than a GUC household, or $338 more per year. Even then, the gap was significant.
Use this UNC School of Government dashboard to compare Farmville’s water and sewer rates to those of other municipalities around the state.
https://dashboards.efc.sog.unc.edu/nc
If your family is like ours, most months you have paid the Town of Farmville surprisingly more for your water and sewer than for your electricity.
In 2015 the Town of Farmville entered into an agreement to become a wholesale customer and to buy water from the Greenville Utilities Commission. The cost per 1,000 gallons would go up by 10 cents for four consecutive years. The starting rate was $1.61 per 1,000 gallons, then it went to $1.71, $1.81, $1.91 and $2.01 in the succeeding years. The agreement was that starting in 2020 there would be an annual rate analysis. The 10 cents per 1,000 gallon increase was large compared to following years. One year the cost went up by three cents per 1,000 gallons. The cost of the actual water we get is only portion of our residential water bill. The Town has to maintain infrastructure, run operations and pay personnel in the water department and in billing.
celiastone 