SAN BENITO — City commissioners are facing a consultant’s recommendation for a “modest” hike to one of the highest water rates in the Rio Grande Valley.
On Tuesday, they’re set meet in closed session with City Attorney Mark Sossi to review CAPEX Consulting Group’s recommended five-year series of rate increases.
“What I’m putting forward is a very modest set of rate increases,” Jeff Snowden, principal with the Frisco-based consulting firm, said Friday.
Snowden described the proposed rate increases as some of the most modest he’s recommended, “especially in the Valley.”
“I’m recommending a five-year series of adjustments,” he said, declining to disclose details behind his recommendation.
Last year, commissioners hired CAPEX for $33,000 to conduct a water rate study to help determine whether they should consider boosting rates to help fund water and sewer operations.
In mid 2020, City Manager Manuel De La Rosa proposed calling for the study while discussing boosting water rates after warning commissioners the water production fund had run an $800,000 shortfall.
“Something’s got to be done,” Mayor Rick Guerra said Friday. “Sometimes there’s no more kicking the can around.”
Mulling options
For years, residents here have complained one of the Valley’s highest water rates eats deeply into their pockets.
“We have to look at every option,” Guerra said. “Everything’s going up and if water rates go up again, when’s it going to end for the people? You think more business is going to come? All that has to get looked at.”
Meanwhile, Commissioner Rene Garcia said he wants the city’s utility system to pay for itself.
“I’m not for raising water rates,” he said. “I want to assure our water system is self-sustaining and operating as best as possible. There could be other ways to do that. Whatever revenues are collected must go back into water and wastewater.”
Garcia said he would review Snowden’s recommendation.
“If we find critical information that affects the city, we need to address that now,” he said. “We can’t continue putting off something that needs our attention. We need to continue to have good water quality for our residents for years to come.”
City’s last recommended rate increase
In 2009, CAPEX recommended increasing the city’s water rate across five years through 2014, Commissioner Pete Galvan said in an earlier interview.
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.
Like De La Rosa, Galvan said the city’s previous administration didn’t take Snowden’s recommendation to boost water rates more than 12 years ago.
However, Snowden said he believes the previous administration implemented his recommended series of rate hikes.
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 and 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.
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.
