Council directs refunds and moves to implement corrected fire-line fee as soon as legally possible

Public utilities and council staff briefed the council on a correction to the consolidated fee schedule (CFS) applying to private fire-service lines. Staff said the CFS lacked a per-inch label for the fee, which meant the FY26 charge had been incorrectly documented and should not have been collected as written since July 1.

Staff recommended the council request that Public Utilities credit customers for fire-line charges collected from July 1 until the adoption of corrected CFS language. Council members and legal staff discussed the statutory framework and best practice for crediting; the attorney's office indicated the city must comply with the adopted CFS language as written and that refunds should be limited to fees that were collected in excess of what the adopted schedule authorized.

Public utilities presented data on impacts: for most accounts the fire-line charge increases were under 1% of a customer's total utility bill, although some accounts showed higher changes; in a small number of cases increases on the fire-line component rose substantially when the per-inch charge changed (staff reported examples of very large percentage increases when a per-inch rate rose from $1/inch to roughly $8/inch for some pipe sizes). Council directed staff to credit affected customers for fees collected since July 1 through adoption of corrected CFS language, and following discussion a straw poll favored implementing the corrected FY26 fee as soon as legally permissible rather than a multi-year phase-in.

Council also asked public utilities to clarify communications about which charges are fire-line specific and to review related sewer and billing structures separately. The matter will be noticed for public hearing in January with additional staff work on communications and potential implementation options.