Great Lakes Water Authority votes to increase water, sewer rates

Detroit ― Dozens of residents from Flint, Detroit and other southeast Michigan communities pleaded with the Great Lakes Water Authority’s board on Wednesday to not raise water and sewer rates in the upcoming fiscal year as families face high water bills and other financial concerns, but the board still approved the increases.

After several hours of public comment, the board voted unanimously to hike both wholesale water and sewer rates for the 2027 fiscal year, though at slightly smaller increases than previously proposed. Water rates will go up an average of 5.8%, while sewer rates will increase 4.27% after an audit committee on Tuesday recommended reducing what was originally introduced.

“We worked to balance affordability concerns with system needs to replace pipes over 100 years old,” said Great Lakes Water Authority Board Member Brian Baker. “Including today’s charges, the average 10 year GLWA charge increase for water is 3% and less than 1.9% for sewer.”

Still, Wednesday’s vote followed dozens of comments against the proposed hikes. Flint resident Cynthia Hayes asked the board to “take the time and pray” about the matter and not increase rates.

“Raising water rates, it’s going to hurt communities,” Haynes, 56. “It’s going to hurt underserved communities. It’s going to hurt our children. It’s going to hurt families, because families are already broken and they’re already torn.”

The water authority serves 112 communities across eight counties in southeast Michigan. Earlier this year, it proposed a 6.83% rate hike for its water system and a 5.98% increase for its sewer system on average in fiscal year 2027, an almost 1 percentage point rise for water and a nearly 1.5 percentage point boost for sewers compared with last year’s increases.

But GLWA’s audit committee unanimously recommended to the authority’s Board of Directors on Tuesday to lower the proposed water increase by over 1% and sewer increase by 1.7%, making the average water rate hike be 5.8% and the average sewer hike be 4.27%, said Baker.

Suzanne Coffey, the chief executive officer of the Great Lakes Water Authority, told The News that aging infrastructure, inflationary increases and reduced investment income are driving the rate hikes this year.

But dozens of residents from across Metro Detroit, including many from Flint, and some city officials, urged the authority’s Board of Directors to not elevate the rates/

Nearly 30 people sat in the audience of the 5th Floor Board Room of the Water Board Building in Detroit, while 235 participants were on Zoom after 1:30 p.m. Some speakers said that water bills in their communities are already high, and some argued that the rate hikes fall on the backs of residents who are struggling.

Flint resident Rich Jones said in his city, some people had gathered in a meeting room to listen to the GLWA meeting.

“As a city, we stand against y’all raising our water rates,” he said.

GLWA explains the increases

Last year’s rate hikes marked the highest increases to rates in a decade. The authority proposed increasing its wholesale water rates by an average of 7.73% and 5.39% for sewer rates for the 2026 fiscal year, which began July 1. But GLWA’s board of directors bowed to public pressure at a late February meeting and reduced the increases, approving a 5.9% hike for water and a 4.5% rise for sewers.

Those approved rate hikes remained much higher than the approved increases of 3.25% for water and 3% for wastewater services from the year before. Water and sewer rate increases had been capped at 4% or under since the regional authority’s creation more than a decade ago, but the cap ended on June 30, 2025.

Coffey told The News that aging infrastructure is one of the factors driving this year’s increases.

“The age is showing, and it’s increasing in failures, and we’re seeing it more and more,” she said. “And so we have a lot of pressure on reliable service, high-level service.”

An unexpected failure of a weld on a 54-inch steel water main in February 2025 caused millions of dollars in damage in southwest Detroit. Water authority officials said last spring that they can’t inspect all 800 miles of their system, but they’re prioritizing specific areas based on a risk framework they use that weighs multiple factors.

“After we had the 54-inch break last year, we took a look at our prioritization – what goes into how it is that we decide which pipes get taken care of first – and we are going to continue and expand and make more robust that program,” Coffey said on Wednesday.

Reduced investment income is another factor. Coffey said that GLWA has an investment portfolio, and “whatever return on that investment we get” offsets its water and sewer charges. She said that as interest rates decrease at the federal level, they expect their investment income to go down.

asnabes@detroitnews.com