Item 08 - Water and Sewer Rate Adjustments

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3.3 Water Rate Design RDN proposes the following adjustments to customer water rate structures: • Adjusting rates annually by the recommended revenue adjustments of 9.0 percent in May 2026, followed by 9.0 percent annual adjustments July 2027 through July 2029, with a final adjustment of 8.0 percent in July 2030 • Combining all customers into a single customer class • Introducing monthly billing • Adjusting tier widths to reflect current water supply ratios The water rates currently have two components: 1) a fixed bi-monthly service charge and 2) volumetric rates. Customers must pay the fixed charge regardless of the water use. In addition, the customers pay volumetric rates based on the volume of water use. The proposed rates will include the following components: 1. Fixed monthly service charge: the rates are established based on the size of the meter at the property receiving water service and are calculated to recover a portion of the City's fixed costs, such as water facilities repairs and replacements, the capacity of that meter, meter reading, and customer service. 2. Variable rates: the rates are calculated based on the cost of water supplies, the cost of managing the City's water resources at regular levels and distributing water throughout the system to customers. The remaining fixed costs (base delivery) that are not recovered via fixed charges are also recovered from variable charges. These fixed costs are incurred based on the total volume of water used and include water storage, treatment, and engineering and maintenance of the transmission system. The variable rates are billed per hundred cubic feet based on two tiers. Together, the two components (fixed and variable) are calculated to recover the proportionate cost of providing water service attributable to each customer Monthly Fixed Charge All meter, delivery capacity, and public fire and some base delivery costs are divided by the number of equivalent meters using the AWWA ratio discussed in the Key Assumptions section to compute the unit cost for each cost component. Customer service costs are simply divided by the number of bills since the service requirements of this cost type are the same regardless of the meter size installed on a property. Table 52 and Table 53 show the total costs allocated to each cost category, the number of units for the City of Santa Ana - 2026 Water and Sewer Rate Study 39