NEW SHARON — A temporary 64% rate increase for New Sharon Water District customers went into effect Thursday, according to Kristina Winther, senior counsel for the Maine Office of the Public Advocate.

The rate hike comes three months after Treasurer Mercy Hanson, who retired earlier this year, said there was no money in the checking account and the district owed nearly $250,000 on loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Maine Municipal Bond Bank taken in July 2017. The loan payments are about $18,000 a year.

The district, which was formed in 1967, has about 100 customers who pay an average of $33 a month, she said then.

The increase, which the district and the Office of the Public Advocate do not dispute, is expected to bring in an additional $40,832 annually.

Customers have been notified of the increase, according to documents filed with the Maine Public Utilities Commission, and will notice it in their September bill.

The district has an “urgent need to cover impending lending obligations,” according to documents filed with the PUC. The last rate increase was eight years ago. The district has experienced rising operating costs along with rising funds needed to meet regulatory compliance standards.

District representatives explained to the Office of the Public Advocate during a July 24 initial case conference that it does not include preventative maintenance in its current rate request, and instead only what is immediately needed to achieve financial solvency. It is not expected that the 64% increase will be found too high when the case is closed, according to documents.

“Knowing of the mess our water district is in it’s no surprise that there’s going to be an increase but I thought 50% should be sufficient,” George “Joe” Bissonnette, a customer, wrote in an email Thursday.

The town plans to hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. Aug. 13 at the New Sharon Fire & Rescue building to ask voters to raise and appropriate $19,402 from taxation as an advance on the 2025 anticipated payment due for fire protection to the New Sharon Water District.

If approved, it will allow the district to replace the telemetry system for about $12,000, which is fully reimbursable by the state. It will further allow it to meet necessary debt obligations in the 2024 calendar year while they continue to provide fire protection and clean drinking water to residents, according to an explanation on the warrant for the town meeting.

The district had been struggling to keep five trustees over the past year and at one time all of them had quit.

Five new trustees were appointed by selectmen in May and June and a new treasurer was hired. The trustees will serve until March 2025.

Trustees recently approved a two-year contract with Maine Rural Water Association in Richmond for financial and administrative services to act on the behalf of the district, Treasurer and Trustee Shanelle Lake said in June.

The temporary increase could be become permanent, but for now the initial petition requesting the permanent increase has been suspended for up to one year, Winther said.

There was not enough time between submission of the district’s initial petition for a rate increase and when it was to go into effect Aug. 1 to gather all the pertinent information required for an increase.

“We don’t dispute the (temporary) increase,” she said. “Whether or not it will become permanent is still under review.”