Anacortes water overcharges

I met with the mayor and the administrator of La Conner on Aug. 21. The purpose of the meeting was to see if the Town was going to contest the amount of money the Town of La Conner paid to the City of Anacortes for water for 2021 and 2022. The answer was “no.”

The agreement between the town and the city calls for arbitration if there is a disagreement, but the mayor and the administrator found no problem, no need to sit down with the mayor of Anacortes. This, in spite of the fact that Anacortes, by my calculation, owes us $46,858 for 2021 and 2022.

They did agree that the administrator would write a letter to Anacortes, in advance of the 2023 reconciliation, citing the need to recognize three flaws in the accounting: 1) Expenses for customer records should be allocated based on the number of accounts, not volume of water consumed. 2) Expenses for labor in the distribution of water should be allocated to retail. 3) Revenue from irrigation should be subtracted from the costs allocated to regional, which includes La Conner.

If Anacortes honors the changes in accounting, the Town of La Conner should receive a refund of $4,351 for 2023.

Dan O’Donnell

La Conner