Terre Haute water costs: Mayor explains $3 stormwater fee, wheel tax, CSO timeline
Mayor Brandon Sakbun says Terre Haute’s stormwater fee is $3/month for residents, while a 2030 sewer-rate increase is being explored to fund CSO fixes.
Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun says the city is working through federally driven cleanup requirements for combined-sewer overflows—while also outlining what residents can expect on monthly stormwater charges and how transportation policy (including a wheel tax) fits into broader infrastructure budgeting.
Mayor’s key points: $3 stormwater fee and 2030-rate planning
In an Indiana Public Media “Ask the Mayor” interview published July 8, 2026, Sakbun said the city’s stormwater fee is $3 a month for residential customers. He also said the city is exploring a sewage-rate increase in 2030, and emphasized that officials are trying to spread rate impacts over time rather than allow projects to “fall behind.”
Sakbun also discussed the customer-class context: he said the business community is expected to pay a rate ranging from $10 to $30 per month.
What “phase” work is supposed to accomplish
Combined-sewer overflows are part of Terre Haute’s long-term compliance picture. Sakbun said the city has 37 big overflows per year and the federal goal is to get that number down to seven—a process the mayor described as a remediation plan with 30 years to fix the problem, starting with work that began in 2019 and moving into “phase two.”
In the interview, he connected phase two to local trouble spots, including Ohio Street, North Fourth Street, and Locust Street from 13th to 25th, along with neighborhoods he named such as Lincolnshire, Woodshire, and Chamberlain.
Terre Haute’s CSO materials also describe how the targets are communicated across plan documents. The program-page framing describes a recommended approach to reduce CSO events in an average year from 37 to 6 (with related water-quality-hour reductions), while the city’s “approved LTCP” page highlights the 37 to 7 overflows-per-year reduction target.
Why the city talks decades, not months
One reason residents see decades-long timelines is that the LTCP isn’t a single construction project—it’s a compliance roadmap meant to be carried out in phases. Terre Haute’s CSO program page says the schedule divides recommended improvements into phases, and that the city develops a plan to phase in the needed sewer rate increases over the implementation period.
That’s also why the mayor’s “2030” reference is best read as a planning window for later parts of the compliance work—not an immediate, year-by-year bill change that is already locked in.
How the wheel tax fits into the same infrastructure conversation
In the same interview, Sakbun addressed transportation funding. He said state government told local governments they would receive less Community Crossing grant money for paving unless the locality has a wheel tax.
Because many counties already had wheel taxes, Sakbun described a policy problem in which city residents could end up paying two wheel taxes—what he called “double taxation.” He said legislation was adjusted so residents in city limits pay just one wheel tax, and he said Terre Haute is now implementing a wheel tax at the same rate as the counties.
Sakbun said wheel-tax money is intended for paving work (including “pothole crews or paving”), and he also linked infrastructure funding to local economic development income tax and casino gaming revenue used for projects.
What to watch next (and what could change after 2030)
For the CSO timeline, Terre Haute’s city page says the city has submitted a new proposed Long Term Control Plan (LTCP) to IDEM for review. Residents should watch for what IDEM does with that proposed plan and whether the city updates its financing approach as later phases progress.
On the money side, the clearest “next step” in the mayor’s remarks is the city’s indication that additional rate action is being considered around 2030. The practical questions for residents are likely to be: what phase milestones are being targeted by that window, and whether customer-class impacts (residential vs. business) change as the city moves further into later CSO work.
Where to find the official plan framing
If you want to connect the $3/month stormwater fee and the longer sewer-rate planning to the compliance roadmap, start with the city’s approved LTCP page and the Terre Haute Clean Water program page for its LTCP explanation. Those documents are where the targets and “phased” implementation concepts are spelled out.
Sources
- Indiana Public Media — Ask the Mayor (July 8, 2026)
- City of Terre Haute — Approved LTCP for Combined Sewer
- Terre Haute Clean Water — CSO LTCP program page
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