SAN ANTONIO \u2014 It\u2019s been a while since San Antonio residents have seen their water bill climb.<\/p>\n
They could see a rate increase as early as July. The San Antonio Water System (SAWS) Board of Trustees voted to increase rates, but it still needs the City Council\u2019s approval for the rates to change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, we would be doing ourselves a disservice without asking for a rate increase because in the future our community needs things, needs infrastructure\u2026 needs infrastructure improvements,\u201d SAWS Chief Finanical Officer Cecilia Velasquez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Velasquez\u00a0says the rate increase would meet requirements from a Texas law passed in 2021, which requires utility companies to have backup generators at water pumps in case water is needed during a prolonged power outage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to fix what is broken and fix what needs repairing,\u201d Velasquez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those rate changes will increase by over 32% by 2029. SAWS hasn\u2019t increased rates since 2020, and they actually lowered rates in 2023. Velasquez said not addressing these issues could lead to hefty fines from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).<\/p>\n
\u201cFor whatever reason, we can\u2019t get a rate increase that actually would be unfavorable for SAWS in terms of our credit rating,\u201d Velasquez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The higher a utility system’s credit rating, the less expensive infrastructure loans can be for cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas cities like Corpus Christi, Houston and Dripping Springs have raised their rates this year to address water and wastewater infrastructure. San Antonio Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito says her constituents are completely against the rate increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it does not feel right to ask my residents, to look my residents in the eyes and ask them to pay more on their water bill,\u201d Gavito said. \u201cWhen water is literally running down our streets and messing up our streets in the process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gavito believes an audit of SAWS needs to be done before a decision is made.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s mind-boggling that we would approve a rate increase before we even have an audit, and they said the audit can\u2019t come until later on this summer,\u201d Gavito said. \u201cAwesome, so let\u2019s wait after an audit comes back and then we can have a conversation about a rate increase.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The City Council will vote on June 18 whether to raise rates on SAWS customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 It\u2019s been a while since San Antonio residents have seen their water bill climb. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1570,6294,1063,223,82,84,83,6293,27,1569,835],"class_list":["post-338873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-ctv","tag-jose-arredondo","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-san-antonio-what-you-need-to-know","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}