Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Water Rates topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board approves Sonoma Water's fiscal year 2025'26 transmission budget and rates; contractors negotiated lower increase
Summary
The Board approved Sonoma Water's proposed $82 million budget and composite wholesale rates for fiscal year 2025'26 after staff described capital and operations needs for aging aqueducts and a collaborative negotiation that reduced an initial proposed 40% increase to about 10.8% for most aqueducts.
Sonoma County supervisors voted April 22 to approve Sonoma Water's fiscal-year 2025'26 water transmission system budget and the composite wholesale rates that fund operations, maintenance, capital improvements and debt service.
Sonoma Water General Manager Grant Davis and finance staff outlined an $82 million total budget across funds, offset in part by grants, use of fund balance and planned bond proceeds. Staff described the system's aging infrastructure ' three aqueducts built between 1959 and 1963 ' and a risk profile that includes earthquake vulnerability, flood and fire exposure, and rising maintenance and upgrade costs. Capital projects include hazard mitigation, a multiyear water-treatment modernization effort and cathodic protection for aqueducts. Operations and maintenance account for the majority of the budget.
Finance staff explained the restructured agreement for water supply requires a fully volumetric wholesale rate; that formula makes rates sensitive to delivered volumes. Low deliveries over recent years put upward pressure on per-acre-foot costs. Through a collaborative process with water contractors and an ad hoc budget subcommittee, Sonoma Water reduced an initial proposed rate increase to roughly 10.76% (with small variations by aqueduct) by deferring lower-priority maintenance and capital projects and applying grants and bond proceeds. The Petaluma aqueduct showed a slightly higher increase because contractors there set an additional capital charge.
Supervisor Rabbit, the board's Water Advisory Committee liaison, praised the extensive outreach to contractors; other supervisors thanked Sonoma Water for pursuing grants that lowered local rate impacts. No members of the public asked to comment.
The board moved, seconded and approved the budget and rates by voice vote with no recorded opposition.
Why it matters: The rates fund essential drinking-water transmission infrastructure used by about 600,000 customers in Sonoma and Marin counties. The fully volumetric rate structure means customer deliveries and conservation can materially affect the per-unit charge.
What happens next: Sonoma Water will issue planned revenue bonds to fund a multiyear capital program and continue contractor-level collaboration on a longer-term restructuring of the restructured agreement for water supply.
