SAN BENITO — Officials here are planning to boost the city’s water rate that stands as one of the Rio Grande Valley’s highest.
Earlier this week, city commissioners met in closed session with City Attorney Mark Sossi to review the ordinance setting the water rate.
“We talked to legal and we’ll wait to see what we can do,” Commissioner Rene Garcia said Wednesday.
Commissioners are reviewing CAPEX Consulting Group’s water rate study which commissioners called for last year to help determine whether they should consider boosting rates to help fund water and sewer operations.
“They’re recommending an increase,” Commissioner Pete Galvan said, referring to the Frisco-based consultants hired for $33,000 who were also expected to present officials with a long-range financial plan.
However, Galvan declined to disclose the amount by which the increase could hike water rates.
“How much does the base rate have to go up is the question,” he said.
“My biggest fear’s we have one of the highest water rates in the Valley,” Galvan said. “We can’t continue to put the burden on the citizens. There’s got to be another way to subsidize the (water and sewer) fund. We can’t put the city’s shortfalls on the consumer.”
Water rate hike delayed 12 years
For years, the city’s previous administrations have held back on the consultants’ recommendation to boost water rates, Galvan said.
In 2009, CAPEX recommended increasing the city’s water rate across five years, he said.
By 2010, the consultants were recommending officials boost customers’ water rates from 1 to 3 percent through 2014 to help offset a $1.6 million shortfall in the utility department while helping to pay off the $17 million water plant that had opened about a year before.
“They’ve been recommending an increase for years,” Galvan said.
However, he said, the city’s previous administrations held off.
“It’s something that has been procrastinated in years’ past,” he said.
Call for ‘self-sustaining’ utility system
In mid 2020, City Manager Manuel De La Rosa discussed boosting water rates after warning commissioners the water production fund had run an $800,000 shortfall.
“We need to have water service that is self-sustaining,” Garcia said. “We have to assure the revenue we generate is sufficient to fund the operation of our water and wastewater services. Do we have sufficient revenue or is there something we can do in the future to continue providing the service? I want to make sure our revenue goes right back into our water service.”
Background
For about three years, De La Rosa’s told commissioners he’s been considering boosting the water rate by 1 to 3 cents.
In late 2020, Don Gonzalez, the city’s financial advisor with Estrada Hinojosa & Company in San Antonio, recommended officials consider a water rate hike to help fund a $9 million bond issue largely aimed at overhauling the city’s sewer system to comply with a 2012 Texas Commission on Environmental Quality order requiring the city to meet a March 2023 deadline or face severe fines and corrective action.
“It has to be done strategically,” Galvan said Wednesday, referring to planning a water rate hike. “Raising any tax is always difficult.”
For years, residents here have complained one of the Valley’s highest water rates eats deeply into their pockets.
Now, San Benito’s base residential water rate stands at $20.59 for up to 2,000 gallons for homes with 5/8 inch meters while its sewer rate is $29.09 for up to 2,000 gallons.
