Colleyville council approves volumetric water, wastewater rate increase

Colleyville City Council unanimously approved the volumetric water and wastewater rates imposed by the Trinity River Authority, or TRA, which provides water treatment for the city, at the Jan. 21 council meeting.

Colleyville officials lowered the water and wastewater rates since the first reading that occurred at the Jan. 6 council meeting.

“[The] TRA is still raising the rates that we pass through,” City Manager Jerry Ducay said. “We're just not passing on all of that rate increase because we think we can tighten the numbers a little bit for the residents.”

What’s happening?

The TRA volumetric rate will go into effect starting Feb. 1, Colleyville Finance Director Cassie Smith said.

The volumetric water rate, which is the rate imposed by the TRA based on how many gallons of water is used, will increase from $6.24 per 1,000 gallons to $6.46 per 1,000 gallons, which is a 3.53% increase.

The TRA volumetric wastewater rate will increase from $4.31 per 1,000 gallons to $4.65 per 1,000 gallons, which is a 7.76% increase.

“One of the challenges is that [the TRA’s] rate structure is based upon their operations cost and their debt cost and they, as an entity, determine from time to time that they need to invest in capital and take on debt and there are representatives from the area on their board making those decisions,” Ducay said. “Basically cities like the city of Colleyville [have] limited options as far as what we can do and so yes we do unfortunately accept those increases and have to pass those on to our customers.”

City officials were able to lower the volumetric rate for residents because the TRA tends to charge the city more than they actually need and pay back the difference, Ducay said.

“One of the things we talked about is [that] we should diminish our rate a little bit and not pass on the true cost increase to try to get closer to that margin,” he said.

Diving deeper

A customer's total bill will include the volumetric rate for water and wastewater, a water and wastewater base rate, which were approved by council in September, and a monthly capital improvement projects rate, which is a separate fixed rate used to fund capital projects with cash and avoid debt, according to city documents.

The water base rate for residential customers is $18.24 for 1-inch meters, which is a $0.60 increase from fiscal year 2024-25, per previous reporting. The water base rate for out-of-city customers is $22.24 for 1-inch meters.

The wastewater base rate for residential customers is $15.49 for 1-inch meters, which is a $1.07 increase from last fiscal year, according to city documents. For nonresidential customers, the base rate is $21.49 for 1-inch meters.

The capital projects rate is $5.83 per month for 1-inch meters for both in-city and out-of-city customers, per city documents.

The base rate for water and wastewater became effective Oct. 1, Smith said. Since the Trinity River Authority has a different fiscal year than the city, its new volumetric rates come in after the base rate is approved by council members.