Metro Water Services presents 2026 operating budget increases, urges conversation on stormwater fees and long-term capital needs

Director Scott Potter, director of Metro Water Services, told the council that the utility’s proposed 2026 operating budget reflects rising commodity and service costs and that the only line the department can control directly is labor. “Labor and benefits account for 39% of our budget,” Potter said. He said other recurring costs — electricity, chemicals and repair — limit the utility’s flexibility and that staffing reductions would likely increase overtime in operating divisions.

Potter said the water side of the utility will treat and deliver about 9,000,000 gallons of drinking water over a 24-hour period, reclaim about 56,000,000 gallons of wastewater and produce about 100 tons of biosolids each day. He gave unit-cost examples: “for every gallon of drinking water that we deliver to a home, it costs our customers 0.006¢. So a hundred gallons of water is 60¢,” and “a gallon of wastewater treatment is 0.009¢.”

The budget request Potter presented includes an increase he described as $5,900,000 for commodities, electricity, chemicals and repair, plus an additional $8,000,000 tied to the pay plan, internal service fees, capital and insurance; he characterized the total operating increase for those two items as $13,900,000 and, with other debt-service and…