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Comprehensive Plan <br />Finance <br />Sanitary Sewer Sub -Element <br />Financially, the Indian River County Utilities Department is an enterprise system. That means <br />that there is no general tax money allocated for the construction or expansion of utility services. <br />Instead, the County Utilities Department's revenue comes from sources such as water sales, <br />meter installation charges, hydrant maintenance tax, sewer service charges, effluent reuse sales, <br />penalties, service charges, capacity charges, and other sources which make the utility department <br />financially self-sufficient. <br />According to County regulations, most parcels within 200 feet of a county sewer line must <br />connect to the county system. Upon connection, a customer incurs certain charges. Those <br />charges generally cover the costs of capacity producing facility capital improvements. Some <br />charges, however, can be incurred even before connection. Because unused capacity can be <br />reserved for future development, wastewater treatment plants are developed with excess <br />capacity. Since maintaining that excess capacity increases operation and maintenance costs, a <br />monthly base facility charge applies to capacity reserved for future development. <br />Other charges include the following: <br />• Waste water treatment charges <br />• volume charges <br />• customer charges <br />• connection charges <br />• meter re -reads and leak inspection charges <br />• delinquency charges <br />• general service call charges <br />• meter calibration charges <br />• damage repair charges <br />• engineering services charges <br />• deposits required upon opening <br />• charges for transferring or reconnecting a service <br />• additional charges for complex connections <br />Some charges, such as connection fees, vary based on meter size or type of commercial use. The <br />Utilities Department may use these revenues to expand facilities or to modify the existing <br />system. These funds can be used for either capital or operating needs. <br />Another source of revenue, which can be used only to offset a portion of the capital cost of <br />expanding system capacity, is the capacity charge. Capacity charges pay for certain necessary <br />improvements that must be made in order to provide added capacity to meet the needs of new <br />Community Development Department Indian River County 16 <br />