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Consultant recommends modest water increase and electric rate restructuring to stabilize Goodland utility funds
Summary
A consultant told commissioners the water fund risks depleting reserves by 2029 unless revenue rises; he proposed ~2% targeted water revenue increases (meter-base adjustments and tier tweaks). For electric, staff proposed eliminating the monthly operating cost adjustment (OCA) and embedding that revenue into restructured base rates to stabilize monthly bills.
Ari (Speaker 7), a consultant with Waterworth, presented financial forecasts for Goodland’s water and electric utilities and recommended changes intended to preserve cash reserves while balancing affordability.
Water: The baseline model showed operating expenses and deposits to SURF/MRF pushing the water fund’s cash position downward, with the projection that cash could fall below zero by 2029 if rates are unchanged and current deposit patterns continue. To arrest the decline, Ari recommended a modest, staged adjustment targeted at approximately 2% additional revenue rather than a large, single increase. Specific proposals included raising small-meter base charges (for example, moving the smallest meter from $21 to $22 per month) and adjusting usage tiers to better reflect consumption and encourage conservation. Staff noted that 91% of customers use 0–4 CCF, 8% use 4–10 CCF and a small share account for a disproportionate amount of consumption during watering season.
Electric: The presentation explained Goodland’s operating cost adjustment (OCA), a monthly rider that recovers variable costs when monthly expenses breach a threshold. Because the OCA has appeared on many months’ bills recently and can swing month-to-month, Ari presented an option to eliminate the OCA and instead restructure base rates to capture that revenue more predictably. The restructuring scenarios discussed included an across-the-board revenue increase (which staff said would be modeled to avoid a 25% one-time bill shock) and a tiered redesign to distribute costs more equitably among user classes. Staff warned that ordinance language would need revision to change how the OCA is calculated and recommended a follow-up presentation after one year of billing under any new structure to evaluate effects.
Commissioners discussed the balance between affordability and sustainability and generally acknowledged the need to avoid depleting reserves; none of the proposed rate changes were adopted at this meeting — staff will prepare ordinance language and follow up with additional data and proposals.
