Local · Trusted · Free
The Morning Impact — your neighborhood's most important stories, delivered every morning.
Retail and wholesale Round Rock water customers will see higher bills over the next few years, after officials gave approval for a new three-year rate increase model Aug. 27.
The city’s retail rate model applies to both residential and commercial customers.
In a nutshell
Rates will progressively increase over the next three years, Public Works Director Michael Thane said.
While the city set rates for fiscal years 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27 in 2024, he said the city froze wholesale rates, such as those paid by municipal utility districts, due to a lawsuit, which was decided in the city’s favor.
However, during the rate freeze, Thane said retail water customers were “subsidizing” their wholesale counterparts.
The update to rates is a “reset,” he said, and increases are driven by higher raw water prices, salary increases for employees and debt for large regional infrastructure projects.
Additionally, Thane said an expiring electrical contract is resulting in the city paying near double—from from $0.038 to $0.063 per kilowatt hour—contributing to the increased rates.
"We're pumping water several times to move it around the system,” Thane said. “Electricity plays a big part in our rates."
The impact
The new retail rates maintain a five-tier structure, which he said is intended to encourage conservation.
Generally, water rates will increase each year by about 3%-5%, with the exception of a 6% increase to commercial rates in the first year.
Retail wastewater rates will increase each year by about 4%-5%.
Wholesale customers will see an average increase to water rates of about 10%, Thane said. Wastewater rates for these customers will increase by about 5% per year.
Sewer rates are also expected to increase by about 8% for the first year, followed by 5% increases in years two and three.
