Deer Park, Texas Development News

City Council Reviews Water and Wastewater Rate Plan Update

The City Council reviewed an update on the five-year water and wastewater rate plan presented by Matthew Garrett of Nugen Strategies. The plan, initiated last year, aims to fund approximately $56 million in projects by 2031. Year two of the plan involves rate adjustments, with projected year-over-year cost increases of about 3.5%. Specific rate increases for fiscal year 2027 are 0% for water and 3.75% for wastewater, followed by approximately 2% for water and 3.4% for wastewater in subsequent years. These adjustments are intended to maintain financial solvency, cover capital outlays including debt service, and ensure solid reserves, which is viewed favorably by rating agencies. For a typical resident using 5,000 gallons, bills are projected to increase from $79.20 in 2026 to $90.69 in five years, representing an overall change of about 3%. Commercial customers with larger meters will experience a higher rate of change due to the implementation of meter equivalency factors, with a 2-inch meter customer seeing a 6.28% increase or $21. The city aims to maintain its relative position compared to other municipalities regarding rate structures. [cite: 1, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96]