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Consultant outlines $300M five‑year utility CIP and proposes phased rate increases
Summary
A consultant told Anna council the utility faces nearly $300,000,000 in capital needs over five years and proposed a 15.5% first‑year rate increase (phased down in later years) to maintain debt‑service coverage and avoid insolvency by 2029 absent action.
Terry Dobie, Anna's director of finance, introduced a rate‑model workshop on July 14 during which consultant Matthew Garrett of NewGen Strategies and Solutions said the city faces a major capital plan — "almost $300,000,000 of need over the 5 year horizon" — that will significantly affect utility rates. Garrett told council that debt service and wholesale charges together would account for roughly four‑fifths of the rate need and that without rate changes the utility would risk negative cash by 2029.
Garrett described a proposed phased rate plan that would begin with an initial increase of about 15.5% in 2027, with increases tapering to about 7% in years four and five as growth and new connections expand the revenue base. "We do, have proposed rates, that are increasing in the 1st year at 15 and 0.5 percent," he said. Staff and council spent extensive time on follow‑up questions about the relative impacts of NTMWD wholesale costs versus the city's own capital projects, the timeline for the Hurricane Creek wastewater treatment plant, grant applications to the Texas Water Development Board, and plans to budget operating staff once the plant is operational. No formal action was taken — the item was presented as a workshop; staff said rates would be brought back as part of the 2027 budget process for formal consideration.
