The Greeneville Water Commission Board approved the water utility’s fiscal year 2027 budget during its meeting Tuesday morning.
The budget projects about $8 million in revenue from water sales and $6.4 million in expenses.
That is a marked changed from the previous two fiscal years for the utility as the Greeneville Water Commission has seen operating losses in its water division due to expense related to recovering from Hurricane Helene.
Many of those emergency expenses, related to emergency pumping operations and repairing the Water Commission’s intake facility on the banks of the Nolichucky River, are expected to be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. However, the Water Commission has not yet been reimbursed, and the reimbursement will likely take years. Final design decisions and the costs associated with with those decisions, including the possible addition of another level on top of the intake building and the costs associated with that, have still yet to be made by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. TEMA is the state level office of FEMA.
In fiscal year 2024-2025, the Water Commission saw an operating loss of $2.6 million, and is estimated to have a loss for fiscal year 2025-2026 of about $1.4 million due to flood recovery efforts and costs.
As the need to fund emergency pumping and repairs is expected to decline, the Water Commission is estimating a net operating gain in fiscal year 2026-2027 as over $1 million in budgeted disaster related expenses were not included in the upcoming fiscal year’s budget.
The budget for Greeneville Water Commission’s wastewater system projects about $5 million in revenue and $3.3 million in expenses.
The board also approved the utility’s capital projects budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
The capital improvements budget includes an estimated $4.7 million in improvements for the water system, however $4.1 million of that is planned for continued maintenance repairs at the water intake facility. Those repairs will be mostly reimbursed by FEMA.
Another $940,176 in capital improvements are planned for the sewer plant.
Over $3.2 million in capital improvements are budgeted for the Water Commission’s sewer system, including $2.6 million for sewer line rehabilitation projects. However, $1 million of that will be covered by a $1 million Appalachian Regional Commission grant. GWC has also requested an additional $1.5 million in grand funding from the state through leftover American Rescue Plan funds.
The capital projects budget is not final. Expenditures outlined in the capital improvement plan must still go before the Water Commission Board for consideration on an individual basis before funding is expended.
In other business Tuesday, the Water Commission Board approved for the firm Jackson-Thorton to conduct three cost of service studies at a total cost of $27,000. The studies are required by the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office prior to rate action being taken. The Greeneville Water Commission is in the third and final year of a planned rate increase series. The plan was approved the board and Greeneville City Council in 2024. Sewer and water rates will increase 5% in July, just as they did in July 2025 and July 2024. The sequence of increases is expected to total out to about a $5 increase on the average water bill once the final increase takes effect in July.
The Greeneville Water Commission is the direct water provider for most of the county’s utility districts. North Greene Utilities is not directly tied into Water Commission, but purchases some water from Mosheim which receives its water from the Water Commission. Every other county water district receives water directly from GWC.
The Water Commission Board also approved the purchase of a sewer pump truck for about $90,000. Greeneville Water Commission Superintendent Laura White said that crews recently used the truck to address a sewer issue on Baileyton Road that would have cost over $8,000 to contract out to address otherwise.
