Staff proposes tiered water‑rate changes; council asks for public hearing first

Peter, a staff member presenting the utility‑rate model, walked the council through revised scenarios and usage demographics, saying the city’s data showed roughly 85% of customers in the lower tiers and that staff proposed protecting those customers while increasing base and higher tiers to help fund water capital projects. “We talked about holding tier 1 harmless and keeping it at the dollar 43, and then we were essentially looking at increase in the other tiers at basically a commensurate rate about 12% for each one,” Peter said.

Peter illustrated modeled impacts with representative bills: a sample tier‑1 customer example equated to about a $1.69 monthly increase and higher usage tiers would see larger dollar changes. Using July billing as a test month, staff said the modeled structure would have resulted in an approximately 11% net revenue increase for that month and projected additional annual revenue on the order of hundreds of thousands to support planned water projects. Peter said staff had plugged multiple months into the model and estimated annual additional revenue in the mid‑hundred‑thousand range to back the city’s water capital plan.

Council members pressed staff on framing (dollars vs. percent) for public communications and emphasized protecting lower‑usage customers. One council member asked whether the change should be bundled with the fiscal‑year budget motion; staff and several members said a public hearing is required before adopting utility‑rate changes. The council directed staff to prepare a public‑hearing notice and deferred adding the utility rates into the budget motion that night.