The Freeport Sewer District’s board of trustees has scheduled a public hearing regarding increases to the town’s sewer rates – the first in two years – on Thursday, Dec. 20, at 6 p.m. at the district’s offices, 43 South Freeport Road.

The board has proposed increasing rates 4 percent for 2013 and another 4 percent for 2014.

According to Leland Arris, the general manager of the Freeport Sewer District, the increases will mean that the average residential ratepayer will see a $5.40 quarterly increase next year, a total of 42 cents per week, and a $5.61 quarterly increase in 2014, a total of 43 cents a week.

Arris said the district was able to hold the line on increases in 2011 and 2012, after increases of 2 percent in 2009 and 3 percent in 2010.

“The Freeport Sewer District has worked hard, for several years, to ensure fair and equitable rates for its users, he said. “Consequently, the district has one of the lower sewer user rates in the greater Portland area.”

While it isn’t a normal procedure to announce increases for two years, Arris said, the board wanted to give residents as much advance notice of the increases as possible.

“We want people to be able to plan,” he said.

The reason for the increase after two years of holding rates steady is twofold, Arris said. First, the district needs to replace, in the next year, the centrifuge, a $350,000 piece of equipment used in the final stage of wastewater processing, and has no way to pay for it without raising sewer fees. Arris said the 2013 increase would go toward paying off the bond for this equipment.

Arris said the 2014 increase would go into a newly created emergency repair fund. He said that in 2012, the district was forced to undertake three emergency repairs on the lines along U.S. Route 1, which cost a total of about $100,000.

“With an annual operating budget of less than $1 million, these repairs alone were more than 10 percent of this year’s budget,” he said, adding that with no emergency repair fund, the district was forced to pay for that work out of its available fund.

The emergency repair fund, while totaling just about $40,000 with the money from the 2014 increase, would not pay for extensive repairs, but would give the district a leg up on any other emergency work needed in the future, Arris said.

The sewer district was established in 1948 to provide and maintain a sewer system for the collection, treatment and disposal of sewage. The district operates a treatment plant at 43 South Freeport Road.