Understanding your Ramsey Utility Bill

A plain-language guide to what you're paying for and why

The Basics

Every quarter (January, April, July, and October), the City of Ramsey sends out a utility bill. It's not one flat fee. It's actually several separate charges bundled together. Which charges you see depends on where you live and what services connect to your property.

The city doesn't handle the billing itself. That job is outsourced to a company called OPUS21, which manages the billing system, sends the invoices, and answers questions about your account (763-576-4343 or 1-888-228-2136).

Part 1: Charges Everyone Pays

No matter where you live in Ramsey, even if you're a tax-exempt nonprofit, you pay these three things:

1. Recycling

The city contracts with ACE Solid Waste to provide recycling pickup. You're billed for this every quarter, whether you use it that quarter or not (even if you're away on vacation or spend winters elsewhere).

2. Storm Drain (Storm Sewer) Fee

What it is: This pays for the system of pipes, ditches, and ponds that carry rainwater and melting snow away from streets, driveways, and yards, and help filter it before it reaches lakes and rivers. Think of it as the plumbing system for rain, separate from the sewer system for wastewater from your home.

Why everyone pays it: The city's reasoning is simple: if your property has a house and/or a driveway, it produces runoff. Everyone contributes to managing that runoff, regardless of whether you're on city water/sewer or a private well and septic system.

Cost: About $22.15 per quarter for a typical home.

3. Priority Street Lighting

What it is: This covers the streetlights the city maintains along main roads and key intersections. These are the "priority" lights that benefit the whole community, not just one neighborhood.

Cost: $1.37 per quarter per residential lot.

Note: some neighborhoods have their own additional streetlights that only benefit that area. If you live in one of those neighborhoods, you may see an extra streetlight charge on top of this one.

Why charge flat fees instead of adding it to property taxes?

The City Council decided that everyone benefits equally from stormwater management and street lighting, so everyone should pay an equal share, rather than a tiered amount based on home value like property taxes. This approach also means non-profit buildings, which are usually exempt from property taxes, still contribute their fair share.

Part 2: Charges Only for City Water & Sewer Customers

If your property is on city water and connected to city sewer, you pay two additional charges. If you have a private well and septic system, you skip these entirely.

Water

This is a metered charge based on how many gallons you actually use. It starts around $58.18 per quarter (covering up to 15,000 gallons), with additional usage billed on top. There's also a small state-mandated water testing fee (about $3.81 per connection) that comes along with water service.

Sanitary Sewer

This pays to move wastewater from your home through Ramsey's local sewer pipes: about 63 miles of them, plus 10 lift stations and over 1,500 manholes that the city maintains.

Here's the part most people don't know: Ramsey doesn't actually treat the wastewater itself. Once it leaves the city's local pipes, it gets handed off to a regional agency called the Metropolitan Council for treatment. More on that below.

Part 3: Where the Metropolitan Council Fits In

The Metropolitan Council (often called "Met Council") is a regional government agency that handles wastewater treatment for cities across the Twin Cities metro area, Ramsey included. It shows up in your bill in two ways:

1. It's baked into your regular sewer charge

Met Council treats wastewater for over 100 member cities, including Ramsey, and charges each city based on how much wastewater that city sends them. Ramsey then adds its own markup to cover the cost of maintaining its local pipes and lift stations, and bills that combined amount to you as your "sanitary sewer" charge.

In other words: part of your sewer bill is Ramsey passing along what it owes the Met Council for treatment, plus what it costs Ramsey to run its own local sewer system.

2. A one-time fee for new hookups (SAC)

When a new home or building connects to city sewer for the first time, Met Council charges the city a one-time fee called a Sewer Availability Charge (SAC), currently $2,485 per single-family home (this is the confirmed rate for both 2025 and 2026). This money helps pay for the extra capacity built into the regional system to serve future growth. Ramsey passes this fee, plus any of its own local connection fees, on to whoever is building or connecting the new property. This isn't something you'll see on a normal quarterly bill. It's a one-time charge when a property first hooks up to the system.