Foothills County council is taking a step back on water and wastewater rates.

Reeve Delilah Miller says council wasn't able to come to a consensus on passing new rates at their last meeting after receiving an engineering report from Urban Systems.

"It's really unclear as to where our rates are and what facilities have to have their rates bumped up and what other ones don't and of course we operate all 17 water and wastewater facilities, so we've got to make it equitable across the board for residents."

Administration's been asked to clarify things like how much it costs to operate the facilities and how much grant money they get for running them before they set the new rates.

Miller says it's likely there will be increases however they hope to spread it out over five years so individual ratepayers don't take too hard a hit.