In the future, the size of your water bill may depend less than it does today on how much water you use.
But an overhaul of the city’s water rate structure to that effect could still very well result in your bill going higher, regardless of your usage.
Tucsonans conserve so well that their usage — and Tucson Water’s revenue — has plummeted over the years, and that’s something the utility’s new director wants to fix. A specific proposal is a year away, but a new rate structure likely would reduce the utility’s dependence on revenue coming from monthly charges based on how much water a home or business uses. Under a scenario outlined by newly hired Tucson Water Director Timothy Thomure, a greater portion of customers’ bills would shift to the utility’s fixed charges, which stay the same regardless of how much water people use.
Another possibility would be to raise system development fees charged to homebuilders to cover the cost of water hookups for new homes, he said.
The idea behind a new rate structure would be to fix a longstanding problem in Tucson Water’s eyes. As total water use has dropped since 2002, first slowly and then more rapidly, the utility’s revenues have dropped accordingly. The utility’s rate structure that has been in place since 1976 has sought to encourage conservation by charging higher rates to use more — and it has worked.
Declining revenues along with higher costs for electricity and other things typically prompts Tucson Water to seek — and generally receive — annual rate increases from the City Council. That keeps the 496-employee utility whole, but it has made some homeowners feel penalized for conserving water.
Thomure is interested in starting to “decouple” water rates from use. That would make the utility’s financial health less dependent on how much water people use.
But the idea of decoupling rates from usage is itself controversial. It has stirred concerns among some conservationists and a City Council member that such a proposal could reduce customers’ incentive to conserve water and penalize poor people.
Councilman Steve Kozachik, a longtime Tucson Water critic, agrees proposals like Thomure’s would give the utility stability. But increasing fixed costs has a regressive effect, putting more burden on low and fixed-income families, he said. Charging a higher fixed rate no matter how much water you use also serves as a disincentive to conserve, he said.
Shifting the water rate burden to fixed charges can be done without raising a customer’s total water bill, Thomure said. But if the utility costs keep going up for electricity and other things, regular monthly rates would probably have to keep rising, too. That would mean a customer’s total water charge would keep going up, he said.
“The need for increasing total revenues is there,” he said, “because the ability to deliver water gets more expensive year after year.”
Kozachik takes a dim view in general of Thomure’s commitment to conservation, after having read the new director’s résumé, heard his interview comments second-hand from the Star and after one of his staffers attended a “meet and greet” that Thomure and two other director candidates had with the general public before City Manager Michael Ortega made his choice.
“They made it pretty clear they view the whole notion of conservation as verbal eye candy, not to be taken seriously, not as serious as I do, anyway,” Kozachik said of the three candidates. “When I read these guys’ resumes, I didn’t see the word conservation on any of them.”
Thomure says he’s very interested in conservation, particular with the need to conserve water to keep Lake Mead falling so much that shortages in Central Arizona Project water deliveries are declared. But he says he’s not alarmed by Lake Mead’s ongoing decline because he believes Tucson can handle future shortages.
Tucson Water is hardly alone in the West in facing declining revenues due to conservation, observed University of Arizona law professor Robert Glennon, who has written two books about water. In California, particularly, state-imposed conservation measures due to the 2015 drought have hit utilities hard.
“There was an enormous push across the state to use less water,” Glennon said. “Now that consequence is becoming painfully obvious.”
