The following information is not provided to address specific issues with each customer but is designed to provide a perspective on the direction of water & sewer rates over the past few years:
- Duncanville Water and Sewer Rate History:
- Duncanville increased rates in FY06
- Duncanville increased rates in FY11
- Duncanville increased rates in FY14
- Duncanville increased rates in FY15
- From FY06 to FY11, Dallas Water Utilities (DWU) and Trinity River Authority (TRA) combined, increased Duncanville’s cost to purchase water and treat wastewater 4.6%
- From FY11 to FY14 the combined increase in cost to purchase water and treat wastewater increased 11.3%
- In August 2014, a water and wastewater rate study was completed by Economist.com recommending rate increases for water and wastewater to prevent a forecasted negative fund balance (equivalent to bankruptcy) and to return the fund to a healthy 60 day fund balance
- In September 2014, the Duncanville City Council passed a 5 year rate plan specifying water and wastewater increases for the next 5 years
- In December 2014, all Duncanville residents were mailed a flyer notification and all water bills for December 2014 contained a flyer notification of the rate increase for January 2015
- The notice regarding water rate increase for January 2015 was also posted on our website and a town hall meeting was held on December 8, 2015 to discuss the rate increase with the public
- There are two components to the Dallas water rate contract (we purchase all our water from Dallas):
- Demand (fixed) charge that guarantees we receive up to a specified amount measured in MGD (million gallons in a day)
- Variable cost per thousand gallons purchased
- Duncanville negotiated a new 30 yr contract with Dallas Water Utilities in October 2014 that resulted in lowering our demand (fixed cost) from 11 MGD to 9.5MGD which was a savings of approximately $500,000 annually (this was achievable due to water conservation efforts by our citizens)
- DWU will increase the demand charge by 9% and the variable cost per thousand gallons by 27.3% for FY16. Dallas supplies water at these rates to Duncanville and 31 other metro cities
- The Water Utility Fund which is an enterprise fund (meaning the source of revenue is self-sustaining and paid by user fees) would go bankrupt if rates were not increased as our cost to purchase water and treat wastewater increases
- The majority of Duncanville wastewater is piped to TRA plants to be treated according to regulations specified by TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) and their costs continue to increase due to replacement and upgrading ageing equipment and infrastructure
- Water and wastewater funds dedicated to water and wastewater pipe replacement and other capital improvement projects is typically $2-3 million per year
- In FY16, water and wastewater line replacement is budgeted at $2.6 million dollars which replaces 3.03 miles of water and wastewater lines out of 408 total miles of existing lines or 0.7 % of the cities total.
- 31% of existing lines are over 50 years old and 93% of existing lines are over 30 years old
Thanks!
Patrick Harvey 