Washington could be in line to receive grant funding to help it inventory its water and sewer systems and document the conditions of the inventoried items.

The City Council, during its meeting Monday, will consider authorizing the mayor to request grant funding from the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Division of Water Infrastructure for an asset inventory assessment. The Asset Inventory and Assessment grants were created to help fund water and wastewater projects. Such a grant has a limit of $150,000 per application over three years.

The city plans to use the grand funds, if awarded, to conduct an asset inventory assessment of its wastewater system.

If approved for such a grant, the city would have to provide a “match” of 5 percent to 20 percent. Local government unit indicators such as poverty rate, median household income, unemployment rate and other factors determine the match percentage, according to a memorandum from Frankie Buck, the city’s public-works director, to the council and mayor.

The federal Clean Water Act (1987) and the North Carolina Water Infrastructure Act (2005) authorize the issuance of grants and loans to help local governments pay for water and wastewater projects.

In other business, the council is scheduled to begin a series of budget work sessions. Other sessions will be held Tuesday through Thursday, each session beginning at 5:30 p.m. Monday’s session will focus on the revenues and expenditures in the proposed $15 million general fund (day-to-day operations).

The council received City Manager Bobby Roberson’s proposed $75 million budget April 11. That budget includes an enterprise-fund budgets (water, sewer, stormwater, electric, airport and others) of $44 million. The electric-fund budget is $35 million.

The proposed budget, likely to be changed by the council, calls for increase the city’s property-tax rate by two cents, from 50 cents per $100 valuation to 52 cents per $100 valuation. It also recommends a half-percent increase in water rates and a 2-percent increase in sewer rates for the upcoming fiscal year. The increases are needed to provide for the operation and maintenance of those services, according to Roberson. Under the proposed budget, electric rates would not increase during the fiscal year. The city’s stormwater fees would increase by 50 cents monthly for each residential customer, with commercial customers seeing their monthly charges increase by 50 percent, according to the proposed budget. The increases in the stormwater fees would be used to pay for more drainage improvements in the city.

The council has final say on the budget.

The council meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday in the Council Chambers in the Municipal Building, 102 E. Second St. To view the council’s agenda for a specific meeting, visit the city’s web­site at www.washingtonnc.gov, click “Government” then “City Council” heading, then click “Meeting Agendas” on the menu to the right. Then click on the date for the appropriate agenda.