Purcell Says No Water Increase

On the second day of Metro Nashville budget hearings yesterday, Mayor Bill Purcell told the water department not to increase their rates this year.

“People in this city are presently confronted with a wide variety of increases in a wide variety of necessities including specifically gasoline and their other own utility bills. And this water department is the one area in which the city of Nashville has the capacity to control a utility cost.”

The water department hasn’t had a rate increase in over ten years. Purcell says most departments have stayed within their budgets, except for gas costs. The Hospital Authority on the other hand, has not. Metro General requested an 8-million dollar line of credit from the city several months ago to fill this year’s deficit.

The state came up with 2-million of that and Metro agreed to cover 6, but Hospital Authority CEO Reginald Coopwood says only about 4-million of the city money will be needed.

“Part of it was built on what we would receive from the…cleaning up of old accounts receivable and as those come in, it just means we don’t have to draw down as much money as we thought.”

Coopwood hopes a study due out before the state-of-metro address at the end of the month, should provide insight into how the hospital can restructure to become more profitable.

Purcell is requesting all departments to show where they’d cut 10-percent of their budgets. While he won’t be requesting an across the board cut, Purcell isn’t sure yet which departments will see cuts.