After months of resident complaints and council deliberations, the Killeen City Council passed an ordinance that could save residents thousands in sewer line repairs.

KILLEEN, Texas — For years, the City of Killeen's sewer line repair policy had cost residents thousands of dollars.

The policy required citizens to take responsibility for the lateral sewer lines that go from homes to the main sewer line.

The problem was that the main sewer lines could be located on the other side of a city street, and residents unlucky enough to have a line break would be told they had to pay to dig up the city street up and fix the line.

The repair could cost more than $8,000.

"I thought it was absolutely ridiculous," Tony Stepan said after he was forced to get a quote to pay for the job himself. “That's a lot of money for anybody to pay."

For more than half a year, the City of Killeen had dismissed or put off the issue, but at the insistence of Councilwoman Shirley Fleming, it stayed in the council's conversation during budget talks. After backtracking a funding option in October, staff eventually came forward with a new solution.

On Tuesday, the council voted 6-1, with Councilwoman Nash-King in dissent, to amend Chapter 30 of the City’s Code of Ordinances and pay for maintenance responsibilities through a 50 cent increase to water bills for single-family, two-family, three-unit and four-unit residential properties.

The City will then outsource the maintenance to Utility Service Partners Private Label, Inc. for the maintenance of sewer service lines within the public right-of-way, which includes city streets.

The city will also inspect resident sewer lines for a $75 call-out fee. That fee will be waived if the issue is in the public right-of-way.

Council members debated multiple options before directing staff to hire a third party to complete the repairs.

The City could have taken sole responsibility and done the repairs in-house, but the cost increase to water bills was estimated to be up to $1.80 under that option.

Councilman Steve Harris said the city's current solution was not his preferred choice, but it is a good compromise.