Garden City homeowners are getting hit with hefty surprises in the mail, with several residents reporting that their monthly water bills are now nearly $100 higher than they were just months ago. The sharp jump is rattling household budgets and stirring anger as the city scrambles to refill a drained water and sewer fund.
Why Your Bill Jumped
City officials say this spike has been years in the making. After a long stretch of relatively modest rate hikes combined with big-ticket infrastructure spending, the water fund’s savings were slowly bled dry. In a statement to ClickOnDetroit, City Manager Tim Gibbons said the city drew roughly $9.1 million from Water Fund reserves while annual expenses climbed to about $12 million, compared with roughly $9 million in user revenues. He said the reserve was fully tapped out by June 2024. ClickOnDetroit also reports that the city’s website shows water and sewer rates moving toward about $7 and $8 per unit as current bills reflect that one-time correction.
How Garden City Used Its Reserves
A May 30, 2025 memo to the City Council spelled out just how deep the hole had become. The Water Fund needs more than $12.2 million a year to operate, but under the older rate structure it was only bringing in around $9.2 million, creating a structural deficit that had been covered by shrinking reserves, according to the City of Garden City. The memo notes the fund currently owes the general fund roughly $3 million and recommends a one-time rate correction to get the books back in balance and rebuild a basic reserve cushion. City leaders say meter replacements, equipment buys and capital projects pushed up spending in recent years, and they now hope this reset will close the gap without repeating such sudden jumps down the road.
Help and Next Steps
With residents feeling the pinch, the city and regional partners are steering qualifying households toward water affordability help. Garden City is pointing people to the Water Residential Assistance Program run by Wayne Metro and to regional supports coordinated by the Great Lakes Water Authority, where applicants can find eligibility rules, required documents and online forms. For customers who think something on their bill looks off, the city is urging them to contact Water Billing directly and to use the online calculators and payment tools that can help break down usage and set up payment plans.
On paper, the city’s current rate table lists the water commodity charge at $6.975 per unit and sewer at $7.709 per unit as of July 1, 2025, with one unit defined as 748 gallons, according to the City of Garden City. In practice, that correction is landing hard for some homeowners. One resident told ClickOnDetroit his bill shot up by nearly $100 and admitted that “sometimes I get nervous when I open that mailbox, and I see that the bill.”
