On February 16, 2021, the council of the City of Kingston approved the 2021-2022 operating budgets and the 2021 capital budget additions for its municipally-owned utilities, which include water, wastewater and gas, and an appliance rental business.  

In addition, council approved the two-year rate schedules for natural gas local distribution rates, and appliance rentals. 

Natural gas 

Local distribution rates for natural gas increase by 2.7 per cent, effective March 1, 2021.  

Because the effective date of the increase is partway through the calendar year, customers will effectively pay 2.2 per cent more in local distribution costs for 2021. The local distribution costs will increase by an additional 2.0 per cent effective January 1, 2022.  

The 2021 increase in the portion of the natural gas bill that represents local distribution costs means that for a typical residential customer with 2300 m3 per year consumption, the total bill impact for March 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021 is $10.67, and for 2022 the yearly total bill impact is $12.45.  

Utilities Kingston provides gas services to approximately 14,000 homes and businesses in central Kingston.

A two-year operating budget for the municipal utilities was approved.  

The 2021 gross operating expenses for the four municipally-owned utility businesses are budgeted to increase 0.50 per cent, or $189,000, over 2020.  

For 2021, council approved total capital budget additions of $14.6 million: $4,721,650 for water and $9,908,000 for wastewater. 

In 2019, council approved four-year (2019-2022) capital budgets for utility infrastructure work. As we reached the halfway point of that four-year budget approval, more information for water and wastewater capital projects became available. Council subsequently approved additional funding to enable project initiation or completion. 

The additional approved budget will fund these projects:  

In accordance with proposed rate schedules, council approved the following: