CITY OF BRENHAM PROPOSING UTILITY RATE INCREASES

  

Brenham residents can expect some higher utility rates in the coming fiscal year.

In a budget workshop Wednesday with the Brenham City Council, officials discussed the city’s preparations to institute several rate increases to combat projected revenue shortfalls as a result of higher service costs.

City Manager James Fisher explained that expenditures are growing faster than revenues for electricity, gas and water services.  Speaking on electricity, he said the increases are meant to eliminate any deficits.

 

For electricity, the city expects a revenue shortfall of $429,101.  To offset this, the city is proposing a 9.5 percent rate increase for monthly customer and wires charges per kilowatt hour for all customer classes.  There will be no changes to the energy rate.  The proposed rate increase would add $593,156 in new electric consumption revenues.  As the rate increase only affects the distribution portion of a customer’s bill, not the charge to recover Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) power costs and transmission, an average resident’s bill would increase 3.8 percent.

When considering gas, the city is looking at a revenue shortfall of $214,783.  In response, the city is planning a 24.7 percent increase for monthly customer and distribution charges per one thousand cubic feet for all customer classes, except for industrial, which is capped at 10 percent.  There are no changes to the gas supply rate.  This increase would add $334,516 in gas consumption revenues.  Since the increase only pertains to distribution costs on a bill, not the charge to recover gas costs and transmission, the true effect on an average resident’s bill would be an increase of 13.4 percent.

Looking at water, the city expects a revenue shortfall of $896,037, largely due to it having to budget to pay for the Lake Somerville water intake structure repair project.  To compensate for this, the city is proposing a rate increase of 26.6 percent on monthly customer minimum and volumetric charges for all customer classes, except for commercial, which were initially proposed to cap at 10 percent.  The city would also add a monthly minimum charge of $11.35 on irrigation accounts for maintenance of meters.  This change would add $1 million in new water consumption revenues.  However, the true effect on a resident’s bill is still being determined, as councilmembers directed staff to look at ways to move the monthly irrigation charge away from residents and to commercial only.  They also told staff to consider increasing the 10 percent cap for commercial accounts to 12 percent to reduce the impact on residents.

Fisher said to keep in mind that Brenham is one of 10 cities in Texas that owns both electric and gas distribution systems, meaning the city provides a larger scale of services, leading to extra costs.

 

The city will hold a pair of town hall meetings next month to discuss the proposed budget.  Those meetings will be held August 11^th and August 24^th at 6 p.m. at the Nancy Carol Roberts Memorial Library.

Public hearings for the 2021-22 budget and tax rate will be held at the September 2^nd and September 16^th city council meetings.  The budget and tax rate will officially be adopted at the September 16^th meeting, prior to the beginning of the new fiscal year on October 1^st.