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 11th and August 24th 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 2nd and September 16th city council meetings. The budget and tax rate will officially be adopted at the September 16th meeting, prior to the beginning of the new fiscal year on October 1st.
“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.”
Do we have a list of those 10 cities to see who we are comparing ourselves to? Would be a good gauge to see what their budgets are like and any shortfalls they address.
Yes, we all knew this utility increase was coming. We need a citizen’s revolt like the January 6th run on Capitol Hill. They were good fine people with loving hearts! Citizens unite and let us throw a “Boston Tea Party”. Has history not taught the lowly working tax payer anything? Fisher, Tate and all of the cronies of city government DO NOT HAVE THE AVERAGE CITIZEN BEST INTERESTS AT HEART!
Inciting a riot is never the answer:..
Tell that to Trump! The GOP is STILL HOPEFUL that it will work! What exactly do you think the Boston Tea Party was!
Bottom line – Expenditures are growing faster than revenues because Fisher took it upon himself to approve a $5M project by lying about FEMA covering the funds. FEMA never indicated an approval for the $5M project once it came in $4M OVER-BUDGET. Yes, FEMA approved the initial project for approx $1.4M but never the increased bid amount. Without hesitation, Fisher approved the extremely high bid without seeking approval from the taxpayers, water fund customers, city council OR FEMA. Fisher will not be stopped no matter what. His tyyrannical reign needs to end soon. Let’s get an open records request to see the proof FEMA even indicated they would cover these expenses? Not there? FIRE FISHER… I hope your paying attention City Council…..
The one hope we have is that Mr. Kenjura and the rest of the newly elected officials will hopefully follow through on their election promises and make some changes at the top.
Voting obviously is meaningless as these people are all the same. What’s the point anymore? I think it may be time to start handling these things the old fashioned way. Political leaders have failed us across the board on all fronts. No one is on our side anymore. Are prices not high enough for you yet, Fisher? With inflation and food shortages coming along with gas prices increasing…, now this. The amount of damage being done to this town by these people is enough to finish this place off for good. Crime is up, prices are up, drug addiction is up. We need to get these people out. Fisher is a cancer.
P.S. I wonder how much of the 4 million dollar “Covid Relief Fund” will end up in our wonderful city council’s pockets?
Will someone in the media please do an open records request and investigation into the following on the Somerville intake repair: original bid, change orders approved by fisher without consulting with FEMA, and FEMAs refusal to provide funds originally promised because of Fisher’s gross mismanagement of requesting the funds and approval of change orders without proper consultation. He is a the single biggest contributor to this dilemma. He uses rainy day funds for unnecessary things and is concerned with his own self promotion. Not the city and it’s residents.
My grandparents never had to deal with the city planners reverse robin hood plan of taxing the medium income and giving to the rich. My uncle said he doesn’t build in the city anymore because it is too much time and money wasted at city hall. It just goes to show the average taxpayers that those benchwarmers at city hall are overpaid at the taxpayers expense. I agree, it looks like city council is only looking out for the city planner, city manager, paychecks and not for the citizens.
Yeah but how else are they going to fund their comfy retirements, along with those of the other family members and friends they’ve gotten jobs for?
I’m, having trouble paying my bill already.
I thought we just elected new officials to put a stop to this non sense????? Guess all lies like every other politician.
Revenue shortfall? So obviously power is being used somewhere that isnt being paid for and the citizens are gonna be forced to pay it. How about city buildings go solar? My property tax is already barely affordable thanks to an assessed value twice as much as the actual market value…tax, bill, and charge the working person right out of a home….
Enough is enough! So we are just going to raise our city utilities 60%!?! What are we doing here? Remember all of us who live in this town do not make $200,000 a year to mess this great small town up! I was born and raised here, so how can we let some out of town person come in here and mess our beloved town up? I would say lets fire Fisher, and send him back to the last town he messed up, but they would’ve have him. So let get smart fire him Not give him a raise come on folks. Fire Fisher and get him out of town! Then we can get someone who cares about Brenham to run this city! I am sure we can find must better help, and pay them a fraction of this money!
It’s a weighted average. Let’s say that you buy 100 items per month and the price of all of those items goes up by 2%. Your total household expenses did not triple. They only increased by 1%. If your current utilities bill is $30 (electricity) + $15 (gas) +$10 (water) = $55, these changes are 4%, 25%, and 27% respectively, which come to $31.20 + $18.75 + $12.70 = $62.65 total, a 14% increase. Your mileage will vary based on your utility usage.
This makes absolutely no sense.
Wow. Add up all it those percentages of increase. It is FORTY percent INCREASE. That is GREAT city planning. Wow. That planning development lady is doing a great job.
That is not how math works.
Take the average bill and multiply each of the components by each of the increases and then you can calculate the average cost. I’m thinking the average is going to Be around 6 to 8 percent but it’s still probably 4 to 6 percent higher than the raise I got.
Got my popcorn in the microwave because the Comments section is about to get interesting.
The city can give us any explanation they choose, except the truth. A few months ago the current Texas legislature made an arrangement with the electric wholesalers to cover their billions in losses from the winter storm. Knowing and also admitting that the bill would be passed on to the consumers. Those billions in pure profit filled the pockets of the energy traders who in turn have generously donated to said legislators. The power grid independence which was initiated under Rick Perry has caused hardship for all Texans and good fortune for the legislators who made it all possible.