Haleyville Water Board gets good audit report

HALEYVILLE - Although raising water rates is not the popular choice with customers, the action is necessary in order to maintain an updated and safe water infrastructure, Haleyville Water Board members were informed while receiving their annual audit report.
At the water board’s Tuesday, July 28, meeting, Auditor Rick McCabe discussed with board members a successful financial picture of a water system that is being updated with improvement projects underway, which often points to the necessity of raising water rates in order to keep costs covered, he said.
The board’s latest project to replace any lead service lines in the areas of 25th Street, 14th Avenue and 5th Avenue, was officially started at that meeting by the board voting to award the project low bid to Robinson & Sons Construction Service Inc. at $668,743.48.
“We did have a very good year this year, one of our better years,” McCabe began. “There is a catch there, we are going to talk about in a few minutes.
“The board is very stable, financially speaking,” McCabe added. “This was a somewhat complicated year because we had a lot of grant projects going on.”
These included a water and sewer grant project, as well as a Community Development Block Grant the City of Haleyville received, which included water and sewer projects, McCabe explained.