The San Antonio Water System plans to raise rates over the next five years to fund $3.2 billion in system improvements.
Exactly how much more will customers pay on their water bill? The city’s public utility doesn’t know yet.
San Antonio City Council will ultimately decide whether to raise water rates. At the same time, city leaders are considering electricity and property tax rates, which means San Antonio households may have to deal with multiple cost increases.
At a Wednesday council meeting, SAWS officials presented why they intend to raise rates, which included recommendations from a recent cost of service study conducted by Carollo, a water and rate consultant headquartered in California.
SAWS officials have said rates could increase from $60.41 to $65.17 for the average residential bill, climbing by an average of $4.77 a year to $79.47 by 2029.
“Carollo recommends a total of almost 30% increases in potable water rate revenue over the next five years, while recommending more than 35% in cumulative wastewater rate revenues during the period 2026 to 2030,” said Doug Evanson, SAWS chief financial officer. “These are not final rate recommendations, just a summary of the rate study findings.”
After listening to feedback from council members — and there was plenty of feedback — SAWS Chairwoman Jelynne LeBlanc-Jamison said staff would take another look at what needs to be funded to cover past and future changes to its budge.
SAWS last increased rates in 2020, she said. Since then, costs from Winter Storm Uri, COVID-19 billing changes and leakage prevention have impacted SAWS. The utility needs revenue to cover those changes, LeBlanc-Jamison said.
SAWS also wants to fund $3.2 billion for infrastructure improvements before 2030. Jamison said those improvements will prevent critical failures. The utility wants to replace 56 miles of water mains and 400 miles of sewer mains. In October, Evanson said a quarter of that money could be used on upgrades for treatment plants.
LeBlanc-Jamison said SAWS staff would review projects in the $3.2 billion plan to determine which ones are absolutely necessary to prevent system failures.
Council members asked for specifics on where the money would be spent, how SAWS could improve its services and how rates are structured.
San Antonio City Council members have scrutinized the utility’s record of leaks — SAWS lost over 20 billion gallons of water in 2023. Officials have increased staffing to stem the flows, but council members wanted assurances that SAWS could meet its goal, which is to cut lost water by half over the next 10 years.
“I’m not inherently opposed to rate increases, but they need to be warranted,” said Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7).
Council members also wanted more detail for how improvements would affect residents’ day-to-day lives.
“My district has a lot of older infrastructure. If a lot of work is not going to be done in our area of town, residents can say, ‘Why am I going to pay more to not really get a direct benefits in our general area,’” said Councilman Edward Mungia (D4).
“We are happy to give you the list of projects that fall in your council districts, but I would just ask all of you to remember that it’s part of a larger system, and the flexibility isn’t necessarily there that you have with moving those projects around because they are connected to the overall system,” LeBlanc-Jamison replied.
Council members also asked SAWS to look at its rate structure — Phyllis Viagran (D3) and Misty Spears (D9) were worried about high water use.
“If we have a home that is using more than 18,000 gallons, I’m ready to charge them more,” Viagran said.
A standard toilet flush uses about 1.6 gallons of water, while most showers use 2 gallons of water per minute, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Spears also asked about an operational review or audit of SAWS and wanted to see how much utility executives were being paid.
Meanwhile, Councilman Ric Galvan (D6) asked if SAWS would consider charging the commercial customers who use more water higher rates, particularly if they were using most of the space in the city’s pipes.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones joined council members who asked SAWS to look for additional revenue. Council members asked about connecting to potential customers who were still on septic systems or selling excess water wholesale outside the city.
Those kinds of changes could require building more pipes, LeBlanc-Jamison said, an additional expense.
SAWS also held up its recent history of stable rates, as well as its costs compared to other utilities, when making its case for changes.
The utility says it has not increased rates since 2019, although it did adjust rates in 2023 to increase rates for commercial and high usage customers while reducing rates for most residential customers, particularly low-income households using the lower rates of the Uplift Program. Evanson, the utility’s chief financial officer, said that meant 80% of customers have experienced lower costs since 2023.
While San Antonio has tried to keep rates stable, Evanson said, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston have increased their rates, on average, by 31% for customers using 6,000 gallons of water per month.
