After residents at Town Meeting voted to cap the amount that Oakdale and Cromesett residents will pay for a sewer expansion project in those neighborhoods, town officials are left to figure out how to pay the difference between what residents will pay and what the project actually costs.

The "betterment fee" -- the amount that each property-owner must pay when the sewer system is expanded to a neighborhood -- is traditionally set by dividing the total cost of a sewer project by the total number of properties in the neighborhoods in the contract.

No property owners have ever previously successfully argued to cap a betterment rate, leaving the town's Selectmen with a dilemma.

Selectmen on Tuesday said they were unsure how to fill the gap, and thus decided not to take a vote to set the betterment rate. Though Town Meeting voters essentially “set” the rate by voting to cap what residents will pay, the Selectmen must still procedurally vote to set the rate.

Oakdale and Cromesett residents will pay $18,000 per property, but the total cost per resident would actually be $21,339 if the rate were not capped. The total difference is $915,132, and the Selectmen must figure out how to fill that gap.

The town does not have to come up with the money to fill the gap immediately, as the betterment fees are designed to repay a 20-year bond, and the money needs to be paid during that time.

“Can you set the betterment before you come up with a way to pay for the total project? The legal answer is 'yes,'” said town attorney Richard Bowen.

Wareham has until the end of the year to set the rate. Selectman Cara Winslow expressed concern about setting the rate on time and resolving any questions.

“We need to set a betterment rate and we need to do it before the end of the year,” said Winslow. “The matter is taking on some urgency.”

The sewer expansion was undertaken after the 2002 "Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan" identified seven “needs areas” that needed to be sewered in order to reduce pollution and protect Wareham’s waterways.

The Oakdale/Cromesett Betterment Association argued that if the total cost of the most recent sewer expansion project had been divided by the total number of properties sewered, rather than grouping the neighborhoods served into three separate “contracts,” the total betterment for every sewered property would have been approximately $18,000, and fair to everyone.

Instead, the betterment in the Parkwood Beach and Tempest Knob neighborhoods was a much lower $15,000, compared to the more than $21,000 fee the Oakdale and Cromesett residents would have paid without the cap.