September 6, 2026
If you use 3,000 gallons of water from the Town of Farmville one month, your flat $10 increase for water and sewer will be 10.8%. If you use 4,000 gallons in a month, the $10 increase will be 9.7%, and an additional $10 for a 5,000-gallon monthly use represents an 8.3% elevation.
No one is questioning the need for a municipality to pass along cost increases to customers. These matters are extremely complex, and it is good for us all to understand as clearly as possible how we are being charged. Polite, vigorous questioning and critical thinking are how we improve any government. We can be friends and challenge each other’s thinking. Actually, we should.
Due to rules related to aquifer withdrawals, the Town of Farmville back in the early 2000s had to reduce its use of its own groundwater. Approximately half of the year the TOF is allowed to use its own well or groundwater, which is generally cheaper than buying water. The other half of the year we buy water from the Greenville Utilities Commission. Farmville started with paying $1.61 per 1,000 gallons in 2015, and this increased by ten cents per 1,000 gallons each year for four years. After that, an analysis determined the increase. One year it was as low as 2.7 cents, but other years the increase has been seven, or eight or 15 cents. Since the town only pays for water half of the year, we could and should consider the 15-cent increase, for example, as actually a 7.5-cents average increase spread across 12 months. (We TOF customers do not pay a different rate for water and sewer for half of the year.)
Today, the TOF pays GUC $2.716 per 1,000 gallons of water for approximately six months out of the year. The other six months our water is provided by nature. If your household uses 4,000 gallons of water one month, you pay a total of $112.60 for water and sewer. During the half of the year when we buy water from GUC, only $10.864 of that month’s $112.60 is paying for actual water. The other half of the year, the TOF pays nothing for actual water. Of course, the Town has built in calculations for maintaining infrastructure, paying staff, etc. This is what makes the accounting incredibly complex.
At the bottom of this post is a link to the UNC School of Government water and wastewater rates dashboard with an explanation I wrote about our relatively high water and sewer bills in Farmville.
ElectriCities passed along a 3.5% increase for electricity. All households and businesses will pay a flat $5 increase for electric use. The Meals on Wheels client will pay the same $5 that the Piggly Wiggly, Physician’s East, you, and I pay. If just the electricity portion of your bill is $140 or more, the $5 flat rate is fine for you.
Look on the TOF website to see the different rate structures for utilities. In my mind, it is a major loss to the Town to have only a $5/month increase for a grocery store with refrigerators and freezers running continually. There is absolutely no way the $5 increase for that business could cover the 3.5% increase passed along by ElectriCities. Why would the Town of Farmville lose out on that money? Those of us with a monthly electric bill of less than $140 are subsidizing the electricity for high-use customers. A commissioner told me this flat rate had nothing to do with serving as an incentive for businesses. We all also pay the same $10 increase for combined water and sewer – The Meals on Wheels client, the Piggly Wiggly, Physician’s East, you, and I.
The Town of Farmville increased our GFL Environmental rate exactly the amount of their increase. For us residential customers, that is 63 cents per month. Thank you, Town of Farmville! This is a clear-cut example of us paying the exact increase that we should.
Below is additional information from the UNC School of Government regarding Farmville’s water and sewer bills:
As of July 1, 2024, if your household in the Town of Farmville used 5,000 gallons of water per month for 12 months, you would 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 significantly more than the state median of $95.14.
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.
Use this UNC School of Government dashboard to compare Farmville’s water and sewer rates to those of other municipalities around the state.
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