Understand
Your Bill

The UVSD sewer bill is a charge that falls within the guidelines of California Proposition 218. Thus, sewer rate increases are subject to customer written protest and rates cannot exceed the cost of providing the service to the customer. Sewer fees are broken down into various customer classes (Residential, Commercial, etc.) and fee components as reflected in the UVSD Ordinance No. 36 and Ordinance No. 40.

The revenue generated by your sewer bill is used for removing and treating wastewater from your home or business, maintaining and operating sewage infrastructure (such as pipelines and treatment plant), maintaining an administration, upgrading the current sewer system to meet state and local government guidelines, and addressing emergencies (such as broken pipes).

Your sewer bill consists of two parts: a base/monthly fee and a usage/consumption fee as described below:

  1. BASE/MONTHLY FEE
    This fee is a fixed minimum charge. All residential parcels have the same base fee and no commercial building will pay less than this fee. This fee is for every building regardless of occupancy; even vacant buildings must pay the base fee. The only way to stop being charged the base fee is to disconnect from the sewer system; but a connection fee will be required to reinstate your service.  Please review Ordinance No. 35 for current connection fees.

  2. USAGE/CONSUMPTION FEE
    This fee is based on the customer type and average amount of your water usage, and thus treated at the sewer plant. For residential, it is your average water use during the months of January, February, and March. The District’s goal is to use months that usually have the lowest irrigation in order to obtain the best approximation of the amount of water going from your kitchen and bathrooms to the sewer plant for treatment. The average of those months is used to calculate the usage rate that will be applied on your bill starting in July of that year.  If the property is vacant, then the usage fee is not applied.  Please notify the District if your property becomes vacant.