Columbia’s water and sewer revenues for the first six months of the 2020 fiscal year were three percent behind the amount the board of aldermen anticipated when they adopted the budget last June, according to a report by town manager Rhett White.

Revenues stood at $324,870 on Jan. 6, 47% of the $677,834 budget for the 12 months ending next June 30.

Critical to utilities revenues for the next six months was the removal of all offenders from Tyrrell Prison Work Farm shortly before Christmas. The state was paying the town about $18,000 a month to dispose of the prison’s sewage before the closure.

The aldermen have budgeted less water and sewer revenues for the past two years, owing mainly to Whitecap Linen Service having closed its Columbia plant.

The prison shutdown with consequent reduction in sewage services payments to the town “represents a significant chunk of our budget, and we can’t piecemeal it away,” White told aldermen Jan. 6 after someone had suggested extending a sewer line to Full Circle Crab Co. and trying to persuade Willie Phillips to connect.

Knowing the prison revenue cutback was coming, White and the Utilities Department held expenditures during the first half to 34% of the $727,384 budgeted for the year.

However, huge payments will become due as June 30 approaches, White reported. These include management fee of $80,000, capital outlay of $25,000, sewer bond interest of $67,405, sewer bond principal of $34,000, USDA set aside of $10,176, and water loan principal of $12,199.

Mayor James Cahoon and the aldermen are searching for ways and means to offset the lost prison income, estimated at around $210,000 a year. The principal source seems to be a legislative bailout, which is by no means certain because two other prisons closed at the same time and may want state aid going forward, because specific aid to individual local governments is precedent-setting, and because 2020 is an election year.

If Columbia water and sewer services users wind up having to make up the loss, the rates would have to be increased by around 30%, raising the per-gallon water rate from $3.59 to $4.66, and the corresponding sewer rate from $7.37 to $9.58.

White is to submit his 2021 budget proposals to the aldermen in fewer than 120 days from now.