Mishawaka Common Council to consider five year water rate increase plan for city residents

MISHAWAKA, Ind. -- If you live in Mishawaka, you could see a slight jump in one of your utility bills starting this summer.

Monday night, the Mishawaka Common Council is set to vote on an ordinance that would increase water rates for city residents for the next five years.

If the ordinance is passed Monday, residents would already see a slight increase on July’s water bill.

The average increase would be $2 for 2026, making the average bill about 17 cents higher.

Those slight increases would continue over the next five years, averaging an increase of $2.23 more on your bill each year.

City officials say the increase is needed to keep clean water pumping through the veins of Mishawaka.

“When people turn on the faucet, we want the water to be clean and available,” says Matthew Lentsch, Mishawaka Executive Director of Development & Governmental Affairs.

Lentsch says there needs to be sound infrastructure, and right now the Virgil Street Water Treatment Plant is on its last leg.

“Our folks have done a great job getting as much mileage as we can out of that plant, but we have to do a major infrastructure rebuild in order to keep it strong and pumping the water that we need,” Lentsch explains.

The Virgil Street plant serves water to the heart of Mishawaka, but Lentsch says it is aging.

Photos show the corrosion and 60-year-old filters that are beyond their useful life.

It would take about $30 million to complete necessary infrastructure improvements and make a permanent fix.

“We want to be proactive and do this before anything breaks because once something breaks, then it becomes an emergency,” Lentsch says.

That’s where water rates come into play.

The city is asking the Common Council to approve a five-year plan to increase water rates by approximately 5.90 percent a year, or a roughly $2.23 yearly increase for the next five years.

Lentsch says the need comes as inflation hikes the prices of parts like pipes and pumps, but also the effects of Senate Enrolled Act One, which reduced property tax income by 20 percent for city operations.

“Nobody likes to have an increase in anything right whether it’s rent, or mortgage, or taxes, but in order for us to keep Mishawaka Utilities and our water and our electric and our wastewater strong and doing what it needs to do, we have to invest money,” says Lentsch.

Though there is a chance of relief for residents who are feeling the burden of rising costs.

Along with the ordinance, the Common Council will consider a new Rate Assistance Program, where residents who qualify for the Indiana Energy Assistance Program through Real Services can see a five percent cut on each bill through Mishawaka Utilities: water, wastewater, electric, and sewer.

“We want to be sensitive to the fact that any increase is considered by some to be a little bit too much,” Lentsch says.

If the ordinance passes Monday, Lentsch says construction work would begin at the Virgil Street Plant likely in late fall.