The Johnson Lake Sanitary Improvement District Board of Trustees met Wednesday for its regular monthly meeting and received the final cost of the new waste water collection and treatment project from Jim Olmsted, a project engineer. The $18.8 million price tag also comes with a break down of the costs according to their respective categories. Calculations by Olmsted placed the average cost at $12,178 dollars per average connected lot, but the numbers will vary for each individual homeowner based on several factors. SID Clerk Larry Ossenkop says the next step is to work on arriving at numbers that are meaningful to each, individual homeowner. The proposed individual assessment still must be approved by the board of trustees at its July 15th meeting. After that, the assessments will be mailed to each homeowner. Ossenkop says the next step will likely be a public hearing on or about August 12th, which will be the official levy date. Counties will then bill the assessments to the individual homeowners. Ossenkop says homeowners will have 50 days to pay the assessment or the option of spreading the payments over 15 years.

The cost of the project exceeded the original estimate because of abnormally cold winters, wet springs and court delays. But construction of the system was approximately $500-thousand under estimate.

The Johnson Lake SID was incorporated in February 2003 as a way to establish a tax mechanism to pay for construction of a sanitary sewer system at the lake southwest of Lexington, Nebraska. Ossenkop says the new system has been operating for approximately one-year.

Bob Brogan