NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Brian Clennan with the City of Hutchinson's Public Works department acknowledges that the input costs associated with some of the department's work have skyrocketed recently.
"Probably the biggest area that we've seen increases is our chemical costs, especially at our water treatment center," Clennan said. "We've seen about a 65% increase in the cost of things like caustic and chlorine and the cleaning solution for our RO membranes."
This is going to leave the budget tight for Public Works this year.
"I don't believe that we'll have to go to the council for an overage," Clennan said. "We are going to use pretty much all of the budget that we had allotted for chemicals, especially at the water treatment center. In 2021, we spent about $221,000 to $222,000 on chemicals. We're projecting this year to spend $366,000."
Clennan is trying to keep a positive attitude as he puts together that portion of next year's budget.
"I'm hopeful that the cost increases that we've seen will start to stabilize, but I guess there's no guarantee. One thing that we do, especially at the water treatment center is, we budget for a dry year. In a dry year, we're using a lot more water. That's why we have such high budget in our chemical costs. If we happen to have a super dry year combined with these types of price increases, then we will exceed our budget. Right now, we're projecting a fairly normal rainfall year. Assuming that we get the normal rainfall year, we should be fine."
The increases in input costs across budgets of all governing bodies due to inflation will make efficiency very difficult to achieve when the final numbers come out in August.