St. Pete residents’ water bills increased 6.25% – and 7.75% for wastewater – after City Council voted last September to raise the rates. Under the St. Pete Agile and Resistance (SPAR) program, that difference has been funding upgrades to aged and vulnerable water treatment facilities.
Those vulnerabilities were underscored last year when 1.5 million gallons of untreated wastewater flooded the streets after Hurricane Helene.
But even with the approved rate increase, some residents reported bills that far exceeded what the math should allow – exposing another underlying problem: faulty meters popped up like robbers skimming coin purses.
To address the issue and create more transparency, the city is exploring advanced metering infrastructure that would automate readings and more accurately track water usage. In tandem, council is entertaining Bryant Miller Olive (BMO) to play a supporting legal role and help streamline the process.
The reason the city is tapping BMO is that the bid received from Ameresco – a metering infrastructure company – was unsolicited, meaning the procurement falls under public-private partnership rules. For a project of this scale – affecting every public, commercial and residential property in the city – the statute has never been used before and was described by City Attorney Jacqueline Kovilaritch as “complex.”
During the Feb. 5 council meeting, Mike Harting raised concerns about the statute’s nuances, asking Kovilaritch from the dais: “Are we headed into uncharted territory?”
The statute has been used in other jurisdictions, Kovilaritch assured, but it is a new process for St. Pete’s law department. She added that “competing priorities” may slow the process or force the city to “bump other projects,” which is why bringing in outside expertise could speed things up.
In a follow-up interview, Councilmember Brandi Gabbard told the Catalyst that working with BMO will “help us understand how to properly and legally navigate the vendor selection process.”
And as for replacing the meters, the city has been lagging a little behind. Pinellas County began implementing automated readers in Spring 2023 – a four-year project – authorizing Pedal Valves, Inc. as the contractor for both commercial and residential drinking and reclaimed water.
“Automated metering has been something permeating our conversations for some time, especially after the hurricanes,” Gabbard said during the Feb. 5 meeting. “Whatever expediency looks like, I support it.”
And so did the entirety of City Council, who unanimously voted to approve the move.
Following the vote, Kovilaritch’s office will convene with BMO this week to review best practices and build a timeline for implementation.
“The city is long overdue for meter upgrades. But it’s costly and time-consuming,” Gabbard told the Catalyst. “So we’ve been struggling to do this in a comprehensive way – staffing and budget has only allowed us to do this a little at a time.”
“After the storms last year,” she added, “it would have been much easier to manage if we had an automated system.” Now, the long-overdue update is progressing.