Fees & Charges - Gunbar Water

The main area of costs relates to asset renewal and the need to collect sufficient revenue to maintain an adequate sinking fund to cover replacement of outlet and pump station components with a useful life of less than 30 years. The costs relating to meters and farm outlet renewal is recovered through the outlet charge. The asset renewal costs associated with pump station, and flow regulating structures within the pipeline is recovered through the Delivery Entitlement charge.

In addition, the existing sinking fund established by GPWSB as an important contribution towards the cost of future asset recovery costs. This will help to reduce the annual costs to existing customers over future years.

The Board will report on the collection of funds and the progress of an Asset Renewal Fund as part of its Annual Financial reporting obligations.

It is proposed that the new pricing policy will come into force on I July annually.

The Pricing structure is based on the following key principles:

• The GPSWB operates as a cost recovery business.
  
• Pricing should be simple and transparent
  
• Pricing should relate to the level and type of service received by customers
• Pricing will comply with ACCC requirements.
  

Fixed Costs:

The greatest proportion of costs in GPWSB are fixed costs relating to administration, operation and maintenance and asset renewal and replacement. These costs will be recovered from customers of GPSWB customers through three main charges:

1. Administration Fee:

An administration fee will be charged to cover the cost of administering the business of GPWSB including compliance with government regulation, administration, legal, accounting, billing, and Board related costs (“in-office” costs).

2. Outlet Charge:

An outlet charge relates to the cost of being connected to GPWSB irrigation pipeline and covers operation, maintenance, and future replacement and installation of an outlet and meter.

An outlet fee will be a fixed annual charge based on each individual outlet.

3. Allocation Charge:

An allocation charge reflects the fixed cost component of operation, maintenance and asset replacement of the pipeline and associated infrastructure

Variable Costs / Usage charge:

The main variable cost of running the irrigation pipeline relates to electricity. The more water that is pumped and delivered through the pipeline the higher the cost of electricity.

The usage charge will be based leveed on each ML delivered at the farm meter.

Casual Usage Charge:

Casual usage relates to the costs of water delivery to customers who are not GPWSB Members

Termination Fee:

A termination fee equivalent to a maximum of ten times the DE charge will be leveed upon the termination of each Delivery Entitlement.

Additional Charges:

GPWSB continue to levy additional charges to cover the costs of other areas of service – for example processing water allocation transfers, or to cover the cost of higher levels of service delivery including receiving paper bills and placing manual orders. This will ensure that the costs to customers choosing to receive the base service levels are kept as low as possible.

It is intended that customers will pay for the level of service that they want and receive.