The time is now 4 57 p.m.

on Wednesday, May 7th on Thursday, May 7, 2026 in the City of San Antonio, May 8, 2026.

What is today's date?

The time is now 4 57 p.m.

on Thursday, May 7, 2026, and the City Council special session is called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Councilmember Corr.

Councilmember Viegran here.

Councilmember Mungia.

Councilmember Castillo here.

Councilmember Galvan.

Here.

Councilmember Alderete Gabito.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Councilmember Spears.

Councilmember White.

Mayor Jones.

Mayor Pro Tim McKee Rodriguez.

Present.

Mayor Pro Tim, we have quorum.

Thank you.

This meeting we will hear a briefing from SAOS on the proposed rate adjustment for fiscal year 2026 through 2029.

Ben, would you like to get us started?

Mayor Pro Tim.

Uh Council members, this is the first uh meeting of three.

Well, we'll begin the process of discussing the SAWS rate uh requests, and I'll turn it over in the interest of time to Robert Puente, President and CEO of SAWS.

Thank y'all for being here, and thank you all for your patience.

Well, thank you for your uh patience also for your uh, I appreciate the time that you're giving us.

Um Mayor Pro Tim, members of City Council, today we are presenting a capital program that is fundamentally about reliability growth and protecting San Antonio's future.

The investments proposed for 2026 through 2029 are the infrastructure commitments required to update our wastewater wastewater treatment plants, replace aging plants, reduce water loss, maintain regulatory compliance, strengthen system resiliency, and ensure we can continue to serve one of the fastest growing cities in our country.

We plan we plan ahead rather than to react to a crisis.

The rate adjustment before you is designed to responsibly fund these long-term investments while continuing to protect affordability and preserve our strong financial position that saves our ratepayers millions of dollars.

Simply put, this proposal is about making the future generations inherit a water system that is as dependable and resilient as our community depends on today.

If we look back six short years, 2020, and what happened since then, one thing that we always remember is COVID 19.

SAW successfully managed through COVID-19 pandemic during an unprecedented economic and operational disruptions.

We maintained uninterrupted service while learning to work in totally unfamiliar circumstances.

COVID-19 caused supply and inflation issues.

Like every major utility in the country, SAWs experienced significant inflationary pressures and supply chain supply chain distribution uh disruptions affecting chemicals, pipes, pumps, electrical equipment, and construction uh materials.

COVID also caused increased labor costs.

The labor market became much more competitive, especially for highly skilled and uh positions and utility positions.

Saws absorbed these increased labor costs while continuing to recruit and retain a workforce necessary to provide essential services.

Despite these increased costs originating from the onset of COVID, SARS did not seek a rate increase.

The very next year winter storm winter storm Uri hit, and this caused a $340 million mandate from the state of Texas.

Uh uh Storm Uri was costly in and of itself, and it resulted in these kinds of mandates coming from the state.

SARS responded by strengthening strengthening our system to for future extreme events and the resiliency required because of that.

EPA uh lead and copper mandates.

New federal led and copper regulations are creating substantial compliance obligations for utilities nationwide.

Sauce has proactively moved forward to meet these mandates while continuing to protect our water quality and public confidence.

Again, without a rate crease, uh, and these were demanded by federal governmental mandates uh like the state requirements also.

And then we have non-revenue water.

Addressing water loss and aging infrastructure has become an increasing priority for SAWS.

We expanded leak detection and increased repair crews, accelerated accelerated response times, and created a dedicated office of non-revenue water, all while absorbing these costs.

We also initiated a $200 million Connect H2O electronic meter program.

This was a major effort to modernize our system to be able to communicate very freely with our customers.

This investment improves customer service, leak detection, operational efficiency, and water stewardship.

Again, all within existing revenues.

All this happened during the worst drought of since the 1950s.

We are currently in the worst drought since the 1950s.

This wet spring that we have may be ending the drought, but we won't know for a good 12 to 36 months, and we need average rainfall during that time period to see if we have true relief.

In 2022, it is important and I hope our community appreciates that we met all of those men, all of those challenges, and yet we came before City Council in 2022 and asked for a rate decrease.

A rate decrease of 11.8% based on the findings of a recent cost of service study, an almost 12% decrease in our rates.

The proposed 2026 amended budget timeline started in January.

Over the last few months, we provided additional briefings to our board as well as B session briefing to council.

In April, we had our first public hearing, and later this month we will be seeking approval at the second public hearing in front of our board.

On May 20th, city staff will make a recommendation related to our rate adjustments and council will act on June 11th.

If approved, the new rates will go in effect in July, and we will start receiving those revenues in August.

Staff recommended to our board includes a proactive four-year capital program with a firm rate support for 2026 and 2027.

For 2028 and 2029, rates are to be validated by the public utilities office.

For 28 and 29, we are committed to looking for efficiencies as well as identifying any savings on debt service so we can stay below those rates.

This program includes the full 2026 budget and allows for a rate study with an anticipated implementation of new rates or structures in January of 2030.

The establishment of the Capital Projects Committee reflects our understanding that SAWS large capital budget needs may require different organizational posture and board input to ensure SAOS continues to effectively deliver on a capital plan.

This new committee that just met for the first time last this week will be chaired by Ed Bedmates.

He is a former assistant city manager and a former executive of CPS.

Establishment of the committee is a proactive approach to ensure we address the contractor availability, increasing community expectations on capital projects, and better coordinate with the city on your programs.

We're also focused on executing these critical projects as efficiently as possible, which is why we initiated at Councilman Mark White's request and outside analysis of our capital delivery program.

We received a draft of that efficiency study just recently, and we expect for it to be finalized soon.

This slide shows our 10-year capital program.

Over the last five years, we committed over 2.6 billion dollars to complete the federal consent decree, the AMI meter program, main replacements, and the state mandated pump generator project.

And that was 2.6 billion.

All of this was done without a rate increase.

However, the next five years totals $3.2 billion as the primary driver for our multi-year request.

We need to significantly invest in our infrastructure to proactively maintain our wastewater system to meet our water stewardship non revenue goal of 43 gallons per connection by 2035 to meet our annual water main replacement goal of 30 main brakes per 100 miles and to ensure we meet our our water supply needs.

To fund this five-year CIP of 3.2 billion, we still need to add to our existing debt service.

While we cash fund a certain portion of our capital program each year, roughly 30%, a majority of the program is still be must still be funded by debt and this is usually over a 30-year period.

The proposed debt for the five-year CIP is shown here.

By 2030, the additional debt service totals over $100 million, $150 million, and brings the total debt service to over $400 million.

These next four slides are major projects in the years that we're asking for a request.

For 2026, these three projects at a wastewater treatment recycling center total almost $339 million.

However, there are another 18 CIP projects for 2026 totaling over 200 million dollars.

At the Stephen M.

Klaus wastewater treatment plant, where certain upgrades are needed.

This plant was constructed in 1987.

It has still original biosolids equipment that are becoming obsolete and inefficient.

We are currently renting equipment to treat to meet treatment requirements that we would like to stop renting.

If we delay this project, we face environmental failure resulting in we face equipment failure resulting in environmental and regulatory violations.

This is a perfect example of it costing more to run inefficient equipment.

At the Leon Creek treatment plant constructed in 1965, we want to install new flow diversion structures and piping to increase capacity between clarifiers.

These improvements are needed to meet and process a two-hour peak flow.

Without these improvements, increased flows caused by growth and more intense rain events put us at risk for regulatory violations.

Back to the Stephen M.

Klaus facility, replacing pumps, boiler filters are all key components for the biological treatment process that is reaching its useful life.

In 2027, these are the major drivers.

Again, these total 230 million dollars, but again, we have at least 47 other smaller CIP projects that total 331 million dollars.

The Stephen M.

Klaus Treatment Expansion Package B is to construct new primary clarifiers, electrical and instrumental and control upgrades, and increased capacity of the plant to meet peak flows.

Salava Creek sewer main, replacing 40 and 50-year-old sewer mains identified in poor condition.

These are huge sewer mains that are at their at the maximum age of their lifespan.

A generator project installing generators across our water system to meet pressure requirements after a 24-hour outage.

The Leon Creek is our third wastewater plant.

A new diversion structure and improvements to flow equalization basins are needed, and this will allow increased flows into it during wet events.

In 2028, these projects total almost 276 million dollars, but yet another 331 million in other smaller CIP projects.

The first one is the expansion of our ASR treatment plant.

This is the underground storage of water.

We want to increase the plant capacity from 30 to 60 million gallons per day.

It'll provide much needed treatment capacity for all the water sources we have there and will help us during drought when we are limited from the Edwards Aqua.

An upgrade to a tank, Knights Cross tank.

This is a tank that has reached its useful life and we need to replace it.

Medial Creek, originally built in 1972 by Lackland City Water.

This project will replace aging ink equipment, including headworks, solids transfer, and disinfection equipment.

In 2029, the CIP drivers are Mitchell Lake, Stephen and Klaus again, the treatment plant, and the expansion of the local Carizo Aquifer.

In these, and this year, we will these projects total 202 million dollars.

Yet there's 40 other smaller CIP projects that we also are will undertake.

The Mitchell Lake Wetlands is a former treatment facility that's now permitted as a stormwater facility.

Approximately 80 acres of wetlands needs to be developed to improve water quality that exit that exits that lake.

At the Stephen and Klaus Center, a phosphate elimination program we want to put in place and better able to manage flow diversion structure and chemical feed facilities.

Also very important because we're such a growing city is expansion of the local Carizo water supply there, increasing our capacity to up to 14,000 acre feet.

Water stewardship.

SAWS is committed to securing and protecting and managing our most precious resource in a responsible and proactive manner.

Over the past 25 years, SAOS has successfully secured new water supplies from different from seven different sources.

To effectively effectively manage this diverse portfolio, SAUS has pioneered best in class water conservation programs and practices to help homes and businesses where every drop counts.

Rounding out the utilities water stewardship priorities is a renewed focus on reducing non-wevering non-revenue water, often referred to as water loss, to ensure SOS continues to deliver sustainable and affordable water services to San Antonio for generations to come.

SOS has an ongoing commitment to tackling this water loss issue.

It is a critical issue that saw an unfortunate uptick in 2023, mostly caused by drought and staffing challenges.

To address to address this, SAWS established the Office of Non Revenue Water, spearheaded efforts to reduce water loss and implement the best practices and strategic initiatives across the organization.

Okay, um this slide highlights our targets.

This key metric is the measure of our program's success.

Our board challenges to meet to set some goals and we set a goal of a 50% reduction by 2035.

And you'll see there in 2026 and the years prior to that, since the height of 2023, we have met those goals.

So let me go back to where we are.

So there's real loss strategies.

This is what we're doing.

There are some key strategies that we're implementing to reduce water loss.

Increased workloads, allowing for faster response and repair times, minimizing water loss, which minimizes water loss, enhancing leak detection staffing staffing, which means more resources are dedicated to identifying leaks early and preventing larger issues.

We are replacing aging mains, which are the root cause of these leaks.

Together the innovations, interventions perform a comprehensive approach to manage this water loss.

This slide shows the amount of breaks and leaks SAWs experienced from 2021 to 2025.

In 2021, 2021, we benefited from an unusually wet year, which kept leaks and breaks relatively low.

Beginning in 2022, as conditions turned drier, we saw a sharp increase in brake activity across our system.

That trend peaked in 2023 with more than 7,400 breaks and leaks.

While we stabilized in 2024 and 2025, they stayed at a high level of over 6,700 per year, nearly 2,000 more than in 2021.

In response, one of our key initiatives was reducing this water loss by improve how quickly we could respond to leaks.

This charge this charge this chart shows exactly that the impact of our initiatives and the response times for those leaks within our system.

As I mentioned, 2023 was a challenging year, and our response times was 14 days, 14 days to get to a leak.

We increased staffing to in full coverage.

We uh successfully reduced by successfully reducing response time.

So now in 2025, we are averaging two days to respond to these types of leaks.

So in those three years, we went from a 14-day response time to two days that it takes us today.

Achieving and sustaining long-term water loss reduction targets are dependent on identifying identifying hidden leaks or leaks that do not break the surface.

Leak detection plays a critical role in this space.

SAWS leak detection team has increased staffing from 6 to 16 over the last two years, allowing them to shift more time to be proactive as opposed to reactive to find those leaks.

As new technologies are piloted and tested, our processes are being fine-tuned.

The leak detection team will continue to grow in their sophistication and contribution in reducing water loss.

By walking the entire distribution system and using technology to pinpoint hidden leaks, SAUS has shifted from reactive to proactive.

More than 60% of our staff time is now spent on proactive finding hidden leaks.

Through the investments made in 2025, the leak detection has more than doubled their output in finding hidden leaks.

Okay.

So I talked about our rate decrease in 2022, but specifically, this is a good way to show it.

This slide shows the comparison of the 2020 2022 rates to the rates of today, 2026.

You will see that the average residential customer saw a rate reduction of $7.61, almost 12%.

This slide provides the average monthly residential bill impact for the four-year capital plan recommendation.

Our average usage is 6,705 gallons of water and 5,052 gallons of wastewater.

The blue column shows our current average bill.

In 2026, the residential bill would increase by $4.47 or 7.9%.

Even with the 2026 rate adjustment, the 2026 bill is still lower than the 2022 bill.

This slide shows the percentage of residential bills with usage less than the average of that 6,275 gallons of water.

Overall, 70% of our customers use less than the average, and therefore they will see a reduced rate impact.

The rate adjustment will actually be lower for 70% of your residents than the slide I just previously showed.

As a reminder, there will not be a rate increase for uplift customers.

They have a totally separate rate structure.

The proposed budget amendment will expand the uplift assistance program.

We will be able to expand eligible eligibility from 125% to 150% of the federal poverty level.

This has a potential of doubling the amount of families eligible for this program.

In addition, we'll be increasing the funding of other programs.

Project Iowa from 400,000 to 600,000, plumbers to people from 750,000 to 950,000, and laterals to people from 215,000 to 365,000.

The rate requests would also increase the average bill for general and irrigation customers for the four-year period.

Unlike residential class, these classes do not have an average bill since they include all sizes of commercial customers ranging from hospitals, hotels, schools, apartments, and other large industrial customers.

So we've provided an average rate impact as a whole from the cost of service study.

Please note that the rate impacts are based on what is necessary to recover the cost of each class and to ensure one class does not subsidize the cost from another class.

Therefore, based on state statute and AWD AWWA standards, these rates will ensure that each class pays their fair share.

In council, we are able to do this by having the lowest rates in the state of Texas of these major cities.

And you'll see that we are to the right of Dallas.

But with this proposed rate adjustment, we will go to the little bit to the left of Dallas.

Still a very affordable rate.

And their average will be $25.48.

The next steps include the board voting on the rate plan later this month, May 19th, and city staff taking the recommendations of our rate plan to you on May 20th.

On June 11th, we are scheduled for city council to vote on the rate plan.

If approved, the 2026 rates will be on the July bills, and SAWS will see those increased revenues in August of 2026.

Mayor, Council, this proposal reflects long-term planning, disciplined financial management, and responsible stewardship for critical public infrastructure.

The 2006, 2006 rate pair invested in the Aqua Storage and Recovery Program so that the 2026 residents of San Antonio could benefit from the most severe drought we've had, second most severe drought we've had in our sixty in our history.

The 2026 rate pair invested in the H2Oaks desalination plant so that the 2026 rate pair could benefit from the continued diversification away from reliance on the Edwards Aquifer.

This recommendation recommendation positions saw us to continue continue to deliver safe, reliable, and affordable service to one of the fastest growing cities in America while responsibly preparing for the challenges ahead.

Robert, thank you.

Um the uh SALS board chair is also with us.

I'll invite her to make a few comments if she'd like.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

I was in enjoying listening to Robert this afternoon, but I'd be happy to address the council.

You know, when the SAWs board began looking at all of the master plans that staff has recently completed for all of our business units, water, wastewater, it became very evident that we are dealing with infrastructure that dates back as far as 1905 when the very first water entity was created for this community.

And after several uh ownership changes, we eventually had the city water board in the 1920s, and they existed and provided water for this community for up until 1992.

And it was at that time the city of San Antonio took its wastewater department, which started its work in the 1920s in building what we live with as Klaus, it was the Dos Rios plan.

Our very first one was Leon Creek, built in 1965.

But in 1992, this council thought it was important to take the wastewater department with the City of San Antonio, the City Water Board, and a very early organization called ACRUD, which was the beginning of our recycle water system.

That name is terrible.

But they merged all three of those entities in the organization that we now know as the San Antonio Water System.

So we're talking about a system that is 34 years old, managing infrastructure that's over 121 years old.

And we've been living with all of the prior decisions of those ownership groups and prior boards and trying to come together and continue to provide this resource to our customers.

What we are presenting today is a capital program that will require rate support for four years so that we can transition from reacting to infrastructure that we've inherited over the years to be the proactive entity that continues to serve this community.

So we really appreciate your full consideration of this capital program to help us continue to deliver the return on investment for our owner, the city of San Antonio, and can continue to continue to provide an affordable, reliable resource for our customers.

So and I'd like to also recommend recognize Mr.

Ed Belmottis, who is here and chairs our newly created capital delivery committee for the board.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robert, for the uh for the presentation, and thank you to all of your team members that are here today that have done such put in so much hard work, frankly, to make sure that we have the information available to make the best decision for our for our community.

When I've looked at this budget, there's there's a couple of things that really stand out, especially when you look at the slides.

I always, given my background, always want to think about things in terms of risk.

And I appreciate what you all have laid out, which is the risk of failure of many of these very important infrastructure entities that would have significant public health and public safety consequences, as I understand many of these are frankly decades, decades past their life cycle.

So you know, this is not exactly the where we want to be in terms of the economic environment as well as some of the other challenges we're looking at our budget.

But when we're looking at risk to public health and public safety, I appreciate the way in which you all have articulated those so we fully understand what is what is before us.

I think what you've also done a good job uh is helping us understand those things that are frankly more expensive now to maintain than they would be if we just replaced them.

So we have to, I think, account for the making sure that we're being good stewards of the people's money, and and some of these things need to be replaced versus just continually maintained.

Um thank you for elaborating on those things that frankly had to be pushed out based on the unfunded state mandates.

Uh that's a critical piece of this, and um I know the chair of the IGR was with us earlier, but uh this will be a key point for our Austin uh legislative session, which are again those mandates that come to uh utilities that are unfunded and then um unfortunately push out other critical projects that we have in our in our community as you were articulating and as um as the chair did a good job of of giving us the history lesson of how we got here.

Um let's never forget that you know this is a uh utility, a water system that has the third highest amount of miles of water pipe infrastructure in the entire country.

Uh New York is six and a half times uh our size, they are the first.

Uh Los Angeles is three times as large as us, and they are the second, and then there's us.

And so I was surprised to to learn that and which has caused me to, during the discussions that we have on those requests for service agreements, uh, ask ask Robert and the team to help us, the board, better understand, you know, how we can review those to ensure that those requests are not requests made just because they know they'll get a yes, but rather because they're absolutely necessary.

Because as you point out, we have a lot of infrastructure, it's very expensive to maintain.

And we are also dealing with uh the impacts of climate change.

Um, as your team has done a really good job of laying out for for the board, the life cycle of some of this infrastructure is significantly shorter than originally expected based on procurement timelines, in part due to the impacts of uh extended droughts and and whatnot.

So as we are thinking about, of course, the own our own policies, but our other agendas that help in these other ways, it's important that we are considering that these things are are not, frankly, they're just not lasting as long as we as we thought they would.

The uh I know for many of us, right?

Just naturally, we're thinking about this also in the context of of CPS.

Um, you know, CPS's gap is 50 million.

Um, your gap though is the SAS our gap, our gap, right?

The Royal WES GAP, much more significant.

And so, um, I think a simple way of explaining, as I have shared with with residents, is that the four-year plan 26 and 27 you understand as as necessary, but I think just to put it a little more simply, 28 and 29 um are TBD based on kind of what debt looks like, but also the impact of the efficiencies that you all have invested in, AI, etc.

So we don't know exactly what that may need to be, but that would of course um come back for discussion to this uh to this body, but I think that's a kind of a simple way of of saying it.

Okay.

And I think just to just to clarify, because we've had a lot of conversations about the importance of the purple pipe infrastructure, uh, this uh um proposed plan does not call for an increase in that infrastructure, correct?

Correct.

Thank you for reiterating that.

Uh Councilman Aldertake of Vito.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the presentation, Robert.

Um, it's no surprise I've told y'all before my biggest concern is water leak and water leaks, and um, you know, in thinking about that, we we hold our residents accountable to conserving water, and we charge we find them when they don't do that.

And you know, I can't help but ask who's holding SAS accountable to all this water that we see on our streets.

Not only is the water on our streets, but again, it's also messing up our streets that we've that we've spent good city dollars on fixing.

So uh we know in 2023, as you mentioned, SAWs experienced over 21 billion gallons of total water loss.

More recently, we know that they've uh lost 16 and a half billion gallons, and that is a billion with a B.

And so I was curious on how to visualize this.

So my team and I did a little bit of math.

So 21 billion gallons equates to around 430 woodlawn lakes, and even 430 woodlawn lakes is very difficult to visualize.

That is a lot of water that is flowing down our streets that we're not capturing the value on.

Um, you know, I do um and you know, I know that I worked with your team to to see how much that costs us, and it equates to over 70 million dollars in lost revenue.

So I I have to think that had we prevented the water loss in the first place, that could have covered the replacement of nearly 47 miles of pipes, and so I do understand that SAS has implemented some of the changes that have been successful in reducing water loss, and and I am grateful for that, but it does feel like it's a little too late.

The proposed rate increase is a result of kicking the can down the road, and now it feels urgent, and as it was just mentioned, it feels urgent at a really tough time.

I mean, residents are dealing with high gas prices.

Yesterday we had uh a discussion about potential property tax increase.

We know CPS is gonna come with us at an increase for an increase, and so it we're we're we're having our residents have to pay that price.

Um, you know, folks are having to tighten their belts with with all of this stuff, and and all the while, and and I understand uh CEO's compensation, but the headlines don't look good about a six-figure bonus at the same time.

When I'm going to uh neighborhood meetings and talking about this potential SAWS rate increase, not only am I having to answer, sorry, Miss Martinez, I know that we're talking about a potential rate increase, even though you see water down your street.

But oh, by the way, here's the headline of that the SAWS board approved for for the CEO's bonus that's six figures.

It it's it's a lot, it is a lot for for residents to process.

You know, and in the past I have been supportive of utilities.

I understand investing in infrastructure to to the mayor's point to reducing risk.

I understand that.

But for me, I'm going to need to have full confidence in the plan moving forward and in Saw's leadership in order to be able to support this increase.

So I still do have some questions.

The presentation was good and thorough.

Thank you for that.

But four years of increases seems daunting.

Um what have y'all done any work to see what a potential two-year increase looks like and how that would impact us?

Residents, uh, yeah, but first, my my goal is um to get time with you to earn your trust back.

For every utility in the nation, non-revenue water is always an issue they have to address.

And we were addressing it.

But standing in front of you at prior council uh meetings, you brought that issue to the forefront.

And it's in especially in 2023, that was our Achilles heel.

And so uh along with uh the notice uh the notoriety that it got, our our board uh took the initiative to have some special meetings uh to create to be very educated on on it and to drive us to have certain goals.

And so those goals are the ones that I talked about there, and so we are we are addressing that.

And you're one of the reasons that have really you're one of the individuals, one of the reasons that have really made us uh concentrate on this.

So that's my goal is is to be um you said who who is gonna be accountable for where there's three entities that we're accountable to council, the board, and the public as a whole, and so we have to be very responsive to those three entities and move SAWs in a direction where uh we provide the service that we're supposed to, but we also uh gain their trust.

So our trust is there.

So your specific question about a two-year, yes, we have a we uh we have a two-year very obvious rate plan, but these projects are multiple years.

The const uh the construction of some of these projects are four years and more, and if you include the design part, they can be as much as uh 10 years, and so we need that certainty in these outer years to be able to say that the things that we need can be done.

For example, uh some of the projects in 2026 are construction projects, but some design dollars uh have already been spent in the two or three years preceding that.

So this four-year plan is a plan to get us to a point to where we can really address some of this aging infrastructure and get to a point where we reduce the risk of of environmental uh violations, permit violations.

Yeah, that makes sense, and and I do think that if we're your you all um, you and your leadership team are able to um justify that to residents to let them know, hey, there is some long-term investment.

You know, I know and I'm gonna get to this later.

We have uh the district seven community town hall, and I do think that we need to be open and flexible.

Is it is it a two-year rate increase that residents are gonna be digestible to uh that is gonna be digestible to residents?

It's gonna be four years, is it gonna be none?

You know, I I think that uh we we have to be open to that uh because again, four years does seem daunting, you know.

I think it's it's a 32% increase.

So by the end of four uh four years, there's spending around $19 a month additional to what they're spending now, and that's that's a that's a lot.

That is a lot, especially for our our senior citizens who are on fixed incomes and and and again when when they're getting pinched uh all over the place, and so and so we we just we we really need to take that into consideration on slide 28 when you're saying 77 miles of pipes are replaced, that's great, but how much of how much is needed for the total replacement?

Is it 78 miles?

Is it 500 miles or uh well uh slide 28 is different?

Um you're talking about this slide, correct?

It is 28 on my it is the printed version.

This one where it says planned uh water mean replacements.

This one where it says 77 miles.

I don't know what number it is.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm sorry, what was your question?

So 77 miles of pipe is great, but like how how how much pipe needs to be replaced on average a year?

Is it 78 miles?

Is it 500 miles?

Oh, that that's 77 miles over five years.

Um as the mayor mentioned, we have a very large system, over 7,000 miles.

So priority one are pipes that we've already identified that they're that they're in a in a group that needs to be changed out because of their condition and/or because of the soil condition that they're under.

And as we go down the group, it's a different type of uh necessity to get those done at that time.

Is that right, Andrew?

You're saying that right now around 77 miles today in our system, and I understand this is flexible, but today in our system around 77 miles need to be replaced at different priority.

Yes, over the next five years.

Uh thank you for that.

Uh so like I mentioned earlier, my office is holding a Sauz Town Hall on May 18th at the George Griffin Senior Center.

I want to thank uh Robert Puente for agreeing to be there with us to answer residents' questions and concerns.

And I look forward to hearing uh my residents' input to help guide my decision.

Thank you.

Robert, it may be helpful for other people's comments, and I'm sure others are gonna have the exact uh a similar a similar forum and and how a product then that helps people understand the risks associated uh with with failing to invest in these things may be um something that your team helps put together in frankly plain speak, right?

About about what a failure of one of these um wastewater systems would actually mean in our community.

Okay.

Councilman Galvan.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you, Robert, for the presentation today.

Um really appreciate the information and also appreciate the conversation we had, man, a week ago.

Goodness.

Um just time keeps moving.

Um, but really appreciate the questions.

Sorry, the answers you gave me for the questions I had.

Um just a couple different ones I had, um, largely related to the affordability component, and of course, understanding uh how this is gonna impact our our constituents uh more directly.

I think it was slide 35 had the kind of breakdown of all the districts and how they'd be affected.

Um I know it's you know we're looking at about, oh let me see.

Um it's the other one.

He has uh sorry, I know the extent of the 36.

Ah, okay, okay.

Well, whichever slide had the all the different districts listed out and the 70% of them that would uh be affected or have reduced rate impact.

Do we have um any more detailed information about what that would actually look like in terms of cost for the customer?

Because I know on the other slide we have the average cost.

It is slide 32 and what was recently sent, uh page 32.

You're talking about I have all that.

Yes.

And so in district um any district, well, just the first one, district th uh one, the remaining 27%, we do have information as to how that is divided up and what that rate would be.

Okay, but that would be the what that rate increase would be.

That'd be closer to the the full cost that you listed out earlier, right?

The kind of nineteen dollars ish or whatever.

Yes.

Okay, and so then I was asking for more.

So within the 70% for district six for 70%.

Uh do we have any detailed data on I don't know if it's by tier would be the best way to do I don't know what the best way to describe it would be, but I'm trying to get what I'm trying to get out of understanding what the difference in the cost is for the the gallons of use.

So based on the new rates.

Yes.

So in District 6, 27% of your residents use over the average.

Right.

We have information as to how far above the average they are.

Okay.

And what tiers they fall in.

Got it.

Yeah.

Um so we definitely look at all of the information.

Um, like you're saying, somebody who uses less than the 6275 on average, and we're looking at about 5,000 gallons.

Right.

It would be about a 5.8% increase compared to the 7.9% increase.

And the lower you go, um, again, you're not gonna get to a zero.

But um, you would get closer to that four and a half percent if it's very little to just using um about a thousand gallons.

And what and what's that number?

Like the actual uh dollar amount.

Oh, I will get you we we can get you all of those uh tier breakdowns and then the the bill amounts.

Thank you so much.

I'd really appreciate that.

I think that's helpful for for me to understand a bit more too, right?

How it directly impacts our residents.

Of course, understanding um or seeing that, right?

Uh most folks didn't see the full increase is helpful.

Um, but being able to understand the kind of where they would be at in this in the structure would be helpful too.

Um really appreciate that one.

And then on the uplift portion, uh, I may have asked one the last meeting we had, um, the last council briefing we had, uh, but I wanted to ask a little bit more about uplift overall.

That one, there's an application process for it, correct?

It's not an automatic enrollment program.

Yes, it's an application.

We're very proud of the fact that we go to all of your district offices, encamp there, and uh sign people up as they come in.

Yes, and I really do appreciate that.

Every third Wednesday of the month at our field office six, but I guess my my question for this one is uh is there a cap for how many people can be enrolled, how many people can be served by SAWs?

No.

Um that's the unique thing about that uh um structure, the rate structure is this this uh potential rate adjustment will allow us to go from 125 poverty level to 150.

Right.

We think that'll double the amount of families.

However, if we find out that it triples the amount of families, we don't stop there.

There's a um there's a way that we can still meet those requirements uh if so.

So, can you explain how that happens?

So we are it it acts as a pass through, it's a fee that we charge to all non-uplift customers, but it's a true up, so we're able to true it up uh every year.

So at the end of every year, we'll determine as Mr.

Puente said, did 90,000 uh families um enroll.

We then see how much um in the difference between the residential rates versus the not the affordability rates, we determine the cost of that program, and then we do a true up at the end of the year, then we update um we update our residential uplift uh affordability program pass through fee.

Got it.

So adjusting the fee to help kind of compensate for correct okay, and the the opposite has happened over the last couple of years.

Sometimes we've had a reduction in the number of customers, and so we've we've been able to drop that up uplift assistance program uh past through fee.

So it goes both ways.

Got it.

Depending on the true up.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

And is there is there any way for SAS to make that an automatic enrollment program?

Any way to do what?

To make that program an automatic enrollment program.

I don't know if we are able to track the actual income and everything.

Yes, there is a way, okay.

Um, we have to learn how to do that, uh why to do that, and what the ramifications are.

Fair enough.

So we will find out and get back to you.

Okay, that'd be great.

Sure.

Thank you for that.

Um I think those are all my questions for now.

I really appreciate as I've spoken to you before about it.

I really appreciate the community outreach your team has been doing, not only within the uplift program, but overall on this uh this conversation in particular.

Um many of my neighbor associations, HOAs in the district six have uh had SAS representatives come by and kind of explain explain the um what we're looking at here, and I think overall a lot of our folks who I've talked to um within after those meetings have said, you know, I understand the risk is large, it's very tangible, right?

And that's really helpful for us to have the conversation, be honest about it versus kind of opaque uh improvements to a system, right?

We all understand we need uh significant improvements uh to our public facilities to make sure that they're staying well updated and well kept uh so that way we have clean water.

That's a very clear thing to see, right?

A wastewater treatment plant being damaged means all right, we're not gonna have clean water in some form.

So I've been really appreciative about that.

Um, and I I think it's it's resonating a lot of the residents.

Of course, there is still the concern about the the specific cost, and that's where my questions are coming from by understanding folks understanding.

Okay, let's make sure we're investing in it, but how much is it gonna pinch if it does?

Um, and being able to understand that's really helpful.

So anyway, thank you for the presentation today, and thank you for all the answers to my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Spears.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, thank you for your presentation and for the briefing before.

Um slide 26.

Are what are we doing that's different in addressing the water leaks that we haven't done in prior years?

One thing is simply staffing.

Uh we have repair crews, we increased our constru our repair crews to a point where we can get to the leak from 14 days to two days.

That in and of itself means that water's not flowing down the street for those multiple days.

So that's one thing.

The other very important thing is uh leak detection efforts, is being more proactive.

We also hired more people for this program, and so they're out there in the streets looking for hidden leaks, leaks that don't break the surface.

Um they call Stone Oak, Stone Oak for a reason.

Um it doesn't break ground.

So there's those leaks would we would never know about unless we send these teams out there to look for them.

So they have been out there since 2025.

They have doubled their output in finding hidden leaks.

And so we're able to address those much more quickly.

So the the on the on the existing leaks, it's more manpower.

On hidden on uh leak detection, it's manpower plus innovation and sophistication.

Uh you know, we have these listening devices, but there's so much new opportunities in how to find these hidden leaks that we're exploring.

Um, slide reports here.

Is there a possibility rates would need to go up after we evaluate the efficiencies?

Um that the rates would go up, yeah.

No, uh the the rates that we have are that we were requesting are the rates that we're going to have.

This you're talking about the efficiency study.

Um those will not cause the rates to go up, no.

So, what all are you doing in the rate?

What are you studying?

You're studying the effect of the efficiencies and if you're hitting the benchmarks, this particular study.

Uh, when Councilman White brought it up was an efficiency study to see how we deliver our capital program.

And so uh that as I mentioned is almost finished.

It's in a draft form.

We want to present it to the committee that Ed Ben Modis chairs now this newly created capital projects committee, have them uh look at it and assess it, and then hopefully have it ready uh by June 11th.

If I think I'm talking about the one in 28 and 29, the rate adjustments to fill any budget gaps would be equal to or less.

Okay, uh that is a every five years we do a rate study.

That rate study tells us uh what we should charge uh different classes of customers, whether they're apartments, whether they're residents, commercial, and uh the five-year cycle to do that is in 28 uh 20 27 28 time frame.

That'll tell us what the rates should be for 2030, not this period.

Okay.

That's okay.

Um so when we had our town hall last month in April, the residents were asking about incentive programs, and when you look at slide 35, you see that um district nine is at 51% under the average use.

So are you looking at any incentive programs to get them to they're just they were just asking for that?

Have you had any results or what are the plans for those kinds of things?

We used to do them all the time, you know, about um shrubs and and those sorts of things.

Yes, ma'am.

We have numerous programs, and what we do is we ask most residents if they can to get to the garden style SA.com site, and what we do is we push all of our conservation efforts as well as our rebate programs through those different uh webs that website, and so we'll also work with individual homeowners depending on what their needs are, so that we can try to customize rebase for them as well.

Okay, I'll share that with them.

So on, let me ask you this too.

In the fair housing subcommittee last year, there was talk of increasing the fee waiver waivers for affordable housing developments by a million per year for five years.

Was that increase approved?

Uh impact fee waivers?

Yes.

Uh no, it's at the same level that it's been.

In other words, we provide the city with three million dollars with a potential fee waivers, and there's a five million rollover.

You can roll over five million to the next year if you don't use it all.

Okay.

When would you start the CIP projects if this is approved in 2026?

In 2026.

Um these projects in 26 have been designed already.

Uh we're just waiting on the um solicitation of the bids, those aren't out yet, right?

Uh and then they would start work.

Have you done any other modeling at like Councilman Aldretica Vito was asking other kinds of modeling?

If we did uh two-year rate or maybe a lower rate or no rate, what that looks like to get these projects there and a prioritizing of these projects in some way.

Yeah, yes, we we go through all of that.

Um the first uh uh part of your question was um the the the two-year kind of uh rate increase and the modeling that we do for it.

So we did look at different models and what we found out is that if we have a two-year uh rate increase and then another two-year rate increase, that is actually more to the rate pair than one continuous four year program because of the way the math works.

So we did that modeling.

We also do modeling in the sense that uh these particular projects um what do they cost?

How do you prioritize them?

The master plans that we have in place, we have master plan for water, wastewater, recycled water, um chilled water, all these kinds of master plans.

Those tell tell us what projects are out there that need attention and they help prioritize them.

That prioritization sometimes falls off the table because of things that we can't expect.

COVID, uh winter storm Uri, the Fed the state mandate of um Senate Bill 3, the federal mandate of lead and copper.

So that pushes some of the um priorities out, and as the mayor mentioned on one of them, it's uh it's it's it's it's it's things that have been pushed out.

So one of the things that we're very proud of is that we at least have made them work and not fall apart through regular rigorous maintenance to get as much life out of these pro out of these out of this equipment as possible.

I guess that maybe I should have phrased it.

Is there a way you can share some of that modeling with us so we can see the different kinds of things you all have looked at?

Um, yes, think about how talking to residents and answering their questions about about this.

Um you mentioned the staffing piece, and I think that was in another slide.

Is this sustainable or once you finish these projects?

What do you do with once you uh they never will be finished?

Um, give you an example.

Um we will never find every hidden leak because another one will develop over here.

We will never fix every break because there's going to be another break over here, just like the city can never uh get ahead of the pot full pothole program.

You fix one here, there's two more created over there.

So the staffing is going to be permanent for these programs.

It is not something that we want to have less leak detection teams out there or less repair crews out there.

So to reward it, it's probably more of a staffing up to prevent any getting into this position again in the future.

And we did get in that because we were not staffed up correctly.

Understood.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Um Robert earlier was mentioned uh the the a twenty dollar um increase on the bill.

I want it for the folks that are watching, it's it's not actually it's um less than five dollars each year.

Um now you at the end of that um you're also sh below 20 dollars, but again, the incremental um is is less than five dollars each year.

Okay.

Councilman White.

Uh thanks, Mayor.

Robert, thank you for the presentation and for for you and your your entire team and and the work you've done here.

Uh just to pick up on the mayor's point, it is less than five dollars a year, but total we're looking at about nineteen dollars a month increase in people's water bills at the end of the year, at the end of the four years, which comes to about uh an additional two hundred and twenty-eight dollars um a year increase in cost at the end of these four years.

Um I did a uh a quick look on um average grocery bill for a family of four in San Antonio uh for a week's worth of food, and it's between two and three hundred dollars a year, so as to between two and three hundred dollars per per week.

Um so you know, we're talking about a week's worth of food here uh at the end of the the four-year period if if this four-year rate plan goes goes into effect.

That's significant.

And when you think about it in terms of potential property tax hikes, CPS energy rate hikes, telecom taxes, all the things we've already talked about this year.

This is this is a lot of money for folks.

And um, you know, you put the slide up about the average water rates for San Antonio compared to the other cities, but I guess what I want to ask is the same thing I asked of CPS Energy a couple years ago to to take a look at that analysis um in terms of our folks' average take home pay and what percentage of their take home pay are they paying towards uh towards our water bill.

Because when CPS did that analysis, you know, we saw that we were paying um more than other cities.

Our people were paying more than other cities in terms of percentage of their take-home pay towards energy bills.

And so I'm concerned about piling on to our residents yet again uh with additional costs to help our city government run.

And yes, I'm including SAWs and CPS energy and what we do here.

It's it's all one city to the residents of San Antonio, and this is a significant increase in cost if this plan were to go through.

So with that said, um we got to look at everything with a fine-tooth comb, in my opinion.

Um the operational audit, uh efficiency audit, you caught you called it.

Um thank you for for doing that.

Um I do hope that we have uh the results of that um by June 11th.

It is something that I've been a few of us have been asking about for for quite some time.

Um I remember again uh CPS Energy when councilwoman uh Adriana Rocha Garcia asked for that from CPS in 2021-22.

Um it came out that really helped I think new CEO Garza at the time, he was able to implement a bunch of the recommendations that came from that um that audit, and I think CPS is in a better place for it today.

Uh so my hope is that we'll we'll have the same from this one.

In terms of the staffing, it looks like a net of 37 new positions here.

Are those the leak detection folks or or what analysis was done uh that guided you all in saying we need these net 37 more positions?

Most of those positions are work crews uh pipeline pipeline repair crews, most of them there.

Uh leak detection I think was only six additional individuals.

Uh we did a um return on an return on investment uh scenario, and obviously the more uh work crews you can get out there to respond to leaks, the less water that is lost.

And if you can have a leak detection team that finds the leak that you otherwise would not see, uh again, more uh more um attention to that water potential water loss, and that's how we address that.

So, yes, there's a return on investment look at that uh to see where we are on that, how cost effective is it to do that type of attacking that problem versus a different type of an of a attack on it.

Okay.

Um let's move on then to um uncollected revenues.

Um tell me where SAWs is on uncollected revenue rate on an annual basis.

So we budget at 0.7%.

We're right now into at the end of 2025, we were at 0.8 percent, 0.82%, I believe.

Um, but prior to that with federal funding and with state funding, um, obviously coming through during COVID, winter storm Uri, um, we we actually didn't have to uh book uh we I think it was like 0.1 percent um in 2021 and 20 uh 23 and 24 during during winter storm um during COVID we had to book almost 2.9% and 3% um and then with all of the federal funding that came down uh so you'll see in 24 it was it was well below the 0.7 percent we're right now at that 0.85 percent uh so we are we are making um we are making strides we still have winter storm uh yeah and covet um balances that we're still working through with both residential customers uh that are on you know very large or very long uh payment arrangements and we also are working through with commercial customers that again had very large balances that were uh that we're working with them what is the total outstanding balance on um our outstanding balances for delinquencies in total it's about 27 million dollars um prior to COVID or let's just say at the the peak of COVID it was 55 million dollars uh so we brought that down considerably prior to COVID it was around 15 to 17 million so we don't believe we'll ever get back to that amount just because of the growth in customers that we've had in that period of time but we are trying to get it in the lower 20s at this point okay thank you I did want to let you know about the the and you asked about the median household income um and the comparison we we have provided that um I believe in the 400 page document but we also wanted to let you know that we've shared with our board um our our affordability uh metric um and according to the EPA the affordability metric is about four and a half percent um is a household uh income burden um so we we always want to be below that four and a half percent right now our affordability customers or uplift customers are at point seven four percent of their income is is is towards their water and wastewater bill um and our regular non-affordability our regular residential customers are at 1.1 percent with the 2026 rate increase or proposed rate increase it would go up to 1.18 percent um so that's where we're at right now thank you for that um on the 338 million in in major 2026 CIP projects um did did we look at repair versus uh replacement and any lower cost options yes um and we're at that point where it costs more to keep on trying to repair rent equipment than to do a wholesale uh rehabilitation or replacement and are we at the point right now where there's legitimate fear of one of these systems failing tomorrow executive session um uh tomorrow meaning in the near future yes I mean tomorrow meaning in the next six months uh yes at any time certain events can happen that will hasten a potential violation such as a very severe uh quick rainstorm in the right place at the right watershed where all of that water starts coming towards our wastewater treatment plant.

Well, it is certainly scary to me that that we're at such a such a point uh to where you know something like this could go wrong in the next six months, something like this fails that that could be um really problematic um for the community.

So um so I understand uh I guess there's urgency in regard with some of these systems.

Yes, um sounds like I'm being set up for something.

No I just that's just a statement.

Um the four-year rate plan um sunset provision or true up clauses here where if if revenues exceed projections, we could we could lower the rates.

Of course, one of the unique things is we have to go through a Ben Gorzell and his office to validate those numbers.

Uh and I had mentioned in there that one of the things that can possibly happen, again, this is things that are out of our control, but they tend to happen, is what are the interest rates?

And so, if we see an opportunity to uh pay off some of our other outstanding debt, well that opens that clears that and we can use that prior debt service on this debt service and not have to go as high as a rate as we did as we would otherwise for those two outer years.

Why doesn't it make sense to do a two-year plan rather than a four?

Um for us, it doesn't make sense because of these long-term capital projects.

As I mentioned, some of these construction projects are five, six years, uh, because of the nature of the type of project that we have.

Um, and if you add design two, it's another two or three years, and so we want that certainty to be able to prov to uh uh to get these things done that we know need to get done.

Um we don't want another um mandate coming from the state or the federal government that'll push these projects out again.

This way we have this the certainty that we have this um revenue uh to meet these demands that we uh we have identified.

Okay.

Thanks, Robert.

I mean, if I may, Robert, correct me, but um spreading the projects are the projects, right?

Based on risk of failure, based on also cost of um maintenance exceeding cost to replace and so um by spreading it out, what you do is also frankly lessen the burden on taxpayers as a result of spreading it over four years versus just that same amount of increase over just two years.

You're right, yeah.

We have to spread that out.

We know our community cannot take uh a huge rate increases back to back, to back to back.

Councilwoman Mesa Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, just want to acknowledge you know everything that we've done to get here in this uh place and the community engagement that uh you all have done in district eight.

I appreciate that.

And so just want to make sure that as we move forward we are grounded in a transparent uh cost of service and protecting our low-income residents and making sure that we're moving efficiently on those uh capital improvement projects.

And so um just a few questions on slide.

I got slide 13 on the staff recommendation for the four-year rate plan.

Um can you remind us of the rate options that you shared was it last after last B session, I believe?

Um, yes, council and our board asked for rate options.

Um, so we provided those to our board.

The first option was uh what's the lowest it can go, pretty much.

And so we had given we believe that to be our current approved budget of 258 million for our CIP plan, as well as our current ONM budget.

And so it's it's it's what it's already been approved for our 2026 with no additional CIP work, no additional ONM.

The next one actually deals with exactly what Mr.

Puente was talking about is adding just the two additional CIP projects um for Klaus, our CLOUS um water recycling center.

Um they they are about um 170 and 80 uh million dollars, so around 250 million that we'd be adding to uh our CIP project or to our to our C CIP budget, as well as uh we would be aligning with the cities uh with a three percent across the board, um I'm sorry, two percent across the board um uh increase for salaries.

So that was included in option two.

Option three is what you have before you right now uh with our four-year plan.

Each of the options included a four-year uh capital plan.

So it included all of the four years, and as the mayor stated, because of the differences in those uh rate plans, this was the only one that provided a smoothing impact in terms of rates for our customers.

If we if we didn't provide um, even though the second one you would have you would have imagined as um Councilman White would have said, you would have imagined that well it's it's a less um, you know, you're not putting everything into CIP and not putting everything into OM.

Unfortunately, because we then have to come in 27, 28, and 29, and we still need the projects, we we then needed an increase, um, so a significant increase in 27 compared to 26.

Um, so we would have seen that it wouldn't have been the smoothing impact or effect as we see them in this option.

So that's where our board was uh very focused in on this option.

Okay, thank you so much.

Uh and I appreciate the the four-year rate for 26, 27, and then uh 2029.

Uh, just want to clarify there's opportunities for us to continue to weigh in in those rate increases, right?

Yes.

Uh the board has ultimate authority and power over our rates.

Right.

Okay.

I mean, not the board uh council design.

I was like, well, that's you.

Okay, thank you.

And I th I wondered if there is a way that we could still because you know some of these are mandated by the state, and so if there's just an extra column we could put there to show which of these CIP projects are mandated by um what is it, SB3 or um other state mandates?

Yes, that would be helpful.

Um then I think my last question was on uh slide 34 uh on the general uh customer.

Is there a I guess how is that distributed across it includes commercial, apartment and industrial?

And so if there if do you have a tiered approach to soften that impact for the small businesses within that general class?

Yes.

I don't know if they asked this already, but oh yes.

Um, so we have for our general class and irrigation class, they still have a meter fee as well as uh an availability fee, like a tiered rate class for a volumetric.

Um so um it's just a little bit different than residential because residential, we base it on the gallons used, right?

So if you use a thousand gallons, you pay for a thousand gallons.

Similarly, with general class, we do a base excess model.

So your base is the first tier, and it's based on and it's calculated pretty much it's using 100% of your previous years uh usage divided by 12.

So if you stay within the same usage that you had in the previous year, you're gonna pay the lowest rates.

So as long as you're you utilizing very similar to the previous year, you're gonna pay the lowest rates.

Um whereas again, residential, if you use over 20,000 gallons, you're already paying our highest rates.

However, a general class customer, as you said, may use 20,000 gallons a month in the previous year, as long as they keep using 20,000 gallons, they would still pay the lowest rate.

It's still tiered in the in the fact that once you start using 125%, you're in the second tier.

When you use 150%, you're in the third tier, and then 175 and over is that last year.

So it's all based on your previous year's month uh average use.

So it's still tiered.

And is there a way that we can you can show the increase distributed across distributed excuse me across the business sizes?

Can you share that with us?

We can give you the number of customers that are in each.

Uh we'll give you, but based on tier.

Um, that would be helpful.

Thank you.

Um, well, uh, thank you again for the presentation.

It's been a long day, but you know, I think we all have uh we've seen on the news what's going on in corpus, um, and I don't think any of us want to be corpus.

I don't think we're near that, but um, I think kicking the can down the road is just not an option for us.

So, uh, thanks again for the presentation.

Thank you.

And if I may respond to corpus corpus, it's not so much about water as it is about lack of making decisions and leadership, uh, kicking the can down the road.

Right, right.

Whether it's water, power, garbage pickup, they just kept on kicking it down the road.

Councilman McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you for the presentation.

I want to, I was reading the Express News recently, and I wanted to read what city council was gonna say about the SAWS rate increase.

Um, and I want to convey a few things by the end of by the end of my comments.

I want to convey one, I appreciate the gravity and severity of the need, and so I I want to start there.

I appreciate a number of things about the approach of SAWs for a number of different issues, and I also want to convey still a challenge that I have that I'm navigating with regard to the rate increase.

And obviously, yesterday we were talking about a property tax, uh, we were talking about property tax rate increase.

We've all the ones that have been named recently: CPS, Saws, property tax, Viacom, the like.

Um, and so there's still challenges that I have that I want to better.

I don't know that trust is the word.

I do want to better trust SAS.

I want to when I serve at the pleasure of district two residents, I represent them whether I'm leading the charge for for an issue and guiding a decision to be to be made, whether I'm a swing vote or whether I'm a lone dissenter, and they expect that I am operating in their best interest, and so that at times means helping them understand the reality of circumstances and why a vote that they may not have wanted me to take uh I had to take, or it means voicing their strong opposition regardless of what the outcome is and fighting for some sort of a change, and so to me that could look like in this situation, it could look like a no tentatively come back several months, a year later, come back a year later.

It could be a yes then.

And what I'm really and what I really want to get at is I do appreciate that the structure that you have does not incentivize high water use, and so the large customers who are using tons and tons of water aren't paying a lower rate.

We're asking for something very similar from CPS leadership, and we haven't been able to get that yet.

So I do appreciate that about SAWs.

I appreciate that developers and the business community aren't getting everything that they want out of SAWs, and it that and a part of that is about making sure that the lowest of us are not subsidizing uh corporations and big businesses and uh those who are utilizing the most of our resources, and I appreciate that in you know this proposal, for example, those who are the most vulnerable are not gonna experience a rate increase.

So there's a few things I appreciate there.

What I also what I do struggle with is and I've conveyed it as a issue of leadership, and not necessarily by person or by it's not necessarily a personal thing or anything, it doesn't have to be, you know, Robert Pointe has to go, it doesn't have to be anything like that.

It's a paradigm shift.

And I would previously express, and nothing I say, I think is a shock because we just we just had a conversation a week or so ago.

Um as I just mentioned, in representing my constituents, I expect that you all are making if your job is to run a utility and it's to ensure that this body is comfortable with a rate increase at the time comes.

You have to make that job easier for us.

You have to be out there proactively explaining to our constituents, hey, this is the situation right now, here's what's happening in other communities, and if we don't want that to happen, this these are this is what it is this is the stakes of this decision right here.

And when you do that, there's certain things that have to take place, and I know Councilmember Alderete Carrito brought up the uh economic hardship and we're trying to convey the great need that SAWS has, they might not understand what does a uh the CEO's uh salary, what is that in relation to the overall budget or how is how minuscule that might that amount might be in the grand scheme of things to them it's they're not so they're not struggling that bad, and so in moments like that I would expect that, and I don't know if it's a PR thing, it was definitely a strategic, it was a strategic timing issue, and that coupled with some of the challenges that we've laid out the issue at Grayson Heights, that and less so the issue itself, but more so the squabbling and the back and forth and the conflict where everyone really just wants a resolution, and all they're getting is entities pointing their fingers back to each other.

It doesn't help for the city to be involved in that, it doesn't help for SAS to be involved in that, let the private entities do what they're gonna do.

We need to be working toward a solution as quickly as possible.

When we were discussing the apartment complexes, water being shut down, that becoming a big lawn drawn-out thing where there's conflict and there's people who feel like it doesn't matter if I'm paying my bit my rent, which is supposed to include utilities and my, you know, SAWs isn't gonna look out for me because they want to punish the apartment.

There's things that all build up to create this perception in this sense, and the the ultimately the context through which a rate increase uh is being asked, and so what I think I'm ultimately asking for is or stating is this may not be the right time.

I may get to the point where I could support a rate increase, but the conditions that have been laid out thus far make it extremely challenging, and it's not all on SAS.

Of course, I just named a bunch of other things going on.

There's of course wars going on, there's tariffs, there's cost of living.

Everything is happening all at once, and every entity is is struggling right now.

But I wanted to convey one.

If I hadn't previously, I do appreciate a lot of elements of SAW's approach, and I do appreciate some of the steps that y'all have taken thus far.

I appreciate where we've gotten on the issue of the apartments uh the water shutoffs and all that.

I I do appreciate that, and I want to convey that.

But I also want to explain if you want to hear a yes or no from me, I don't know that you're gonna get that at the moment.

I don't know where I'm at, but this is the balance I find myself with it.

Councilman, I feel like I need to address the timing issue for you.

So I appreciate your comments and recognizing the philosophy and the work that SAS is doing, but let me take a minute to address the timing of the evaluation of the CEO.

Um, and so I'm gonna own that.

Um, it is a schedule that we have created, we've been under that schedule for six years, and the way that works is the board is responsible for setting the annual goals for the CEO at the end of the year, our fiscal year and program year are calendar generated, so January to December.

Uh at the last quarter of our calendar year, we set those goals so that all of our employees, it cascades throughout the organization and they know the direction that we're all rowing in for the year.

Our other the calendar also dictates that we complete the evaluation of the CEO in the March-April time frame using that first quarter of our year to pull those performance metrics from the prior year.

But all of our employees are on that same schedule, and so if we had not conducted that evaluation.

Now, I mean, there's a lot of discussion on what we made public.

You know, we could have been quiet about it.

I have an ethical concern about having been quiet about it, but had I not implemented that schedule, all 2,000 employees would not have enjoyed their performance schedule.

And so I own that decision, I made that decision, so as not to impact the rest of the employees.

Um, so I I will take that beating for recognizing the earned performance.

It was the best performance year we have had in his history.

And so I will take that.

If you know, for I own it because I made that decision.

But I do appreciate your recognition of all of the other things we're doing.

And I do hear you when you talk about a change in the paradigm in terms of our customer response.

I am not happy about the Carson Street issue.

I had a conversation just today saying we need to resolve the source of that water.

If the owner is going to come to the table in a partnership with the city or andor SAWs, we need to determine the source.

So I hear you, and we need to do a better job in that respect.

The same work we're doing on our capital delivery.

We need to be a better partner in our in the delivery of governmental projects, and we need to be a better partner with our development projects and the overall projects that you're considering today.

So it's not lost.

I hear you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman, I also um appreciate your comments.

And I and you talk about trust.

I need and want uh and earn need to earn SAWs' trust, because I'm the head of this of SAWs and SAWs is a part of the city, owned by the city, and there's a lot of interaction between us.

But at the same time, I don't just want uh the trust of the city council.

I want Jalen to trust Robert, because if I can get to that point, I can get to the point where it's easier for the councilman to trust Sauce.

And so if you give me that opportunity, and you said it's a very challenging to get uh uh to do it by June 11th, but um you especially I want that trust because I grew up right off of South New Bronx.

I know what it's like to live in that neighborhood, I know what it's like to have $4.47 a month coming out of your pocket.

So uh thank you for the comments about SAWs.

We will work as hard as we can to continue to earn those comments.

Thank you, Councilmember Viegadon.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, in 20 in 2012, SAS took over the former Bear Met, uh Bear Metropolitan Water District, a utility the size of Corpus Christi without adding a single employee in recent years.

SAWS has benchmarked against similar cities, some similar city-owned utilities and consistently ranks in the top three nationwide.

The city continues to grow and expand.

Accountable fiscal policy must align with the needs and the continuous growth of the city.

As we have this conversation, for me, this is about what we will prioritize.

I remember the days uh being on the South Side where half of us were SAWs uh customers, half of us were bare met customers, and we'd get that news report where it said bear met customers must spoil their water.

So when I hear the conversation that we do about the the um the inflation and the costs of things rising, I get that.

But to me, what's important to my district is that we have a reliable water source, and we have a public utility in both our water and our electrical, and that's how I like it here in San Antonio, and that's most of how the residents like it here in San Antonio because if not, they would tell us so and the market would open for other uh utilities to come in and they have it.

Is a perfect uh example of when it does not work.

So, as we talk about this, uh I want to go back to 2022 because I was on the dais along with uh Councilman McKee Rodriguez and Councilman Castillo when you came to us and we talked about a rate rate uh adjustment the first time, and we talked about do we take it out to the customers, and we were hesitant then.

Why?

Because we're coming out of a pandemic, we're coming out of a pandemic, and you said we don't have to do this now.

When you told me that in 2022, I understood that we would eventually have to do this.

But of course, I didn't expect I didn't expect it to be this way under the conditions that we're currently in, which is you know, a conflict overseas, which is spending, you know, so much money that could take care of so many local infrastructure issues and nationwide infrastructure issues that we have here, i.e.

Mitchell Lake, but here we are, and what are we going to prioritize?

And so I think if we take this out to the community and we remind them that we could have come in 2022 with a 4% or 3%, like we did with um CPS because they had uh the debt that they had occured from uh pri uh from Uri, Storm Uri, we would still have to come back to them, and it may not be that 7%, but we waited and we're here with a four-year plan that tells them if you want, not just if you want the same quality of service that SAS gives you right now, but if you want to see the improvements and and if you want to see the technology grow, this is what we need.

I have the ability when I have a leak, SAWS lets me know I have a leak, and I have to go find where that leak is, whether it's a major under the house, whether it's a running a running toilet, what does that what does that happen?

And so we need to continue to move forward.

Water and sewage infrastructure needs in the southern sector have long been ignored.

When I get excited about the projects you say, because you you're telling me about, because I was like, will that help with the smell down by Salado Creek?

Will that will that make me get less phone calls about that?

And that's the southern sector.

And I'm just I'm very frustrated that the the hesitant comes from the northern sector because everything from them flows down to the southern sector.

We can we deal with the smell, we deal with the flooding, and to say we don't want to give that money or that this isn't a priority, this is a huge priority for my residents.

Water and electricity, if we don't have that functioning correctly, we do not how are we gonna get to the grocery store?

What are we gonna boil the spaghetti in if I have if I don't have my water coming in, or I can't count on my water source, or how big is my bill gonna be if I can't drink the water and I'm getting nothing but bottled water?

So I think I think we've got to go back and water is one of the things that city does the city does well.

Conservation, and I've said this since I got on the dais.

If there's one thing San Antonio needs to do, it is conserve, and that's what we've done with the water.

And I think as we look and we communicate and we get the message out there to the community, you don't want a higher bill, how can you conserve water?

What are the programs that can get me a better toilet that doesn't leak?

What where can I make the improvements in and around my home?

And that's what I'm gonna move towards as we talk about building wealth and we talk about owner home ownership and what it is to live in a hundred-year-old house on the south side of San Antonio.

But as we move forward, I do want uh to for you, you don't have to answer them now because I know you have it, but in terms of taking it out to the community about the new regulations being considered by TECQ regarding the CIP projects around Mitchell Lake, I'd like that uh information kind of said because everybody on my in my district and in the southern sector is gonna know Mitchell Lake, and then as soil conditions vary throughout the city with the drought, and now we're getting a lot of rain.

What does that what does that do to the pipes?

How do things shift?

Um, where where is that impacting the infrastructure?

How is that impacting your leaks?

Because I do think we do need to address the leaks that are happening, and how does that address the homeowners' leaks that are coming?

And then if we can get a heat map indicating um the um the city's areas that contain the septic tanks, because we've done that, and as development comes to the southern sector, and as we talk about bringing in new industries and and new uh production, and we know they're going to need water, can we get people off the septic tanks and what would that cost?

Uh you know, we had if we do not move, we are what we got, and we could we can do all the ordinances in the world, but then the state will uh uh you know upend us, and we will see more mud districts come in.

So we need to think big picture about what we do in terms of this investment and and how we we do the rates.

So um this I think we need to take it out to the community, what they see.

I I understand that we are financially all um you know it it's difficult right now, but water is a priority, and if we don't have water, we don't have business coming in, and my residents can't work or shower, and that's not acceptable.

So uh thank you for the presentation.

Please take those questions into consideration, and I look forward to hearing uh the next presentations in those in my district.

We will and we'll provide that information.

Thank you, Robert.

Thank you.

Council uh Councilmember Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll just take an opportunity because I always like to take the opportunity to thank um Cecilia and Terry from your team.

I've worked with them for many years, of course, uh, and they've always been so responsive to our resident needs.

Uh they're our go-to.

So that's why you don't really hear from me because we get it done through Cecilia.

So I just want to give them a shout out as always.

Yep.

So I got a lot of questioning.

Let's try to beat the clock and let's try to be fast.

Um, so 77 miles of pipe you can replace.

Um, I mentioned this last time, but I don't recall if you had it included.

Do you have a geographic map of that 77 miles that's a priority?

We do, and we'll provide it.

Thank you.

Um, so a while back when we were talking about elections here, a lot of folks here were concerned about cost of the elections to schools.

Uh so I'm assuming that this uh increase includes commercial, right, and not just residential?

Correct.

Okay.

Have you had any conversations with school districts on the increased cost that they would see with this proposed rate increase?

We have uh yes, we've done outreach to them, they know what's coming.

Uh we anticipate their uh accommodating their budget, okay.

Well, if they have any feedback that they gave you, I'd appreciate just knowing a little bit about that or what the financial impact might be to just a sampling of the school districts in Bear County.

Okay.

So you mentioned um that a few years ago you all lowered the rate.

Why why was that?

I'm sorry, why was that?

Uh the cost of study that was conducted showed that we were seeing a lot of revenue on the residential side, and that's basically because despite COVID, we were still growing very, very much.

And so the rates are based on cost of service.

It was uh costing we were giving more revenue in than it was costing us to provide that service.

So we came to council, asked for rates to be reduced uh water, and so we're 12%.

They were reduced by 12%.

11.8.

Okay.

And with the proposed rate increase, where are you based on that uh rate that you all before you reduced it?

Where is this rate looking like on top of that?

Uh 2026, the 2026 uh rate, uh the uh customer would pay would still be less than prior to 2022, not until 2027 does it start to even out, and then it really like the out years, the 10 years, I mean the four years, it's only like a ten dollar difference from prior to 2022.

Okay, so maybe not right now, but I appreciate some understanding on why instead of reducing that we didn't just start on some of these projects that you all are asking us to give more for right now.

Yes, so I just that's some good background for me to have.

Um, Cecilia.

I just wanted to make sure it was understood, it was a zero, zero um net impact for our from our revenue standpoint.

So when we do a rate study, um we come in with a cost of service and determine for each rate class, residential, general class, irrigation, as Mr.

Puente said, that the revenue should equal the cost of service of that class.

What we found is that we were over recovering from our residential, but we were under-recovering from general class.

So while we decreased rates for your residential class, we increased rates at that time for both general irrigation and wholesale customers, which it was a zero net impact to our revenue.

So unfortunately, we weren't able to we didn't get any additional revenues from that, nor did we lose any revenues from that.

So we weren't able to do any additional projects.

Okay, that makes a lot more sense.

Thank you.

Just real quick because I don't agree with this question, the statement that was brought up yesterday at our own budget meeting.

But I just want to ask you the question and allow the opportunity.

Why would it not be true that you all have a spending problem versus a revenue problem?

We truly believe that the spending that we are currently doing is for the essential services that we provide.

We do not have uh excess employees.

Uh we do not have an uh a travel budget that um anybody could look at that's outlandish, uh catering budget.

Um, it is not a spending problem.

Uh we need to reinvest in some of these facilities that we have.

Sure, okay, great.

Uh, and this comes down to a couple project-specific things here.

I recently found out that you all are your contract with a mulch company, and I believe that you all um use that company to help dispose of some sort of sewage.

Is that are you aware of that?

Um, specifically, well, I need more specifics.

I believe it's true composting on the south side.

Yes.

What can you talk to me about that real quick?

Well, are you talking about um the entity that comes into our treatment plant, picks up a lot of the biosolids and mixes it with their own um uh trees and branches that they collect and create mulch?

Yeah, so um Andre, are you familiar with that contract?

You and maybe you can follow up with me too.

Um, just sort of why you all have that contract.

Um, and I know this is the end result, is not your fault, but when we had the huge mulch fire on the south side of my district, it was that company that buys the biosolids from you, and the biosolids were on fire for several days, and people for miles could smell it uh in district four and district three, everywhere else.

So uh if you could provide me a little bit of background on that, why you all do that, uh, because I'd like to prevent that from happening in the future.

Okay.

We will.

Thank you.

Uh and currently you have a project in Valley High off of 410, Dartmouth, uh, and some of the other streets there.

I welcome some uh feedback on where you are on that project because as you drive by, it looks like maybe it was a lateral replacement or upgrade, but when you went back to fill the street, it doesn't look really good or of quality.

Uh, and that's another concern residents will have when you talk to them, right?

Well, saws came in, they fixed something, but the street's a mess.

And I understand that you're probably you are following the city's UDC standards for that, uh, but somehow it is not the same quality as a city repairs project.

So we'll we'll do two things.

Get you specific information, and if it's of a bad quality, we'll take care of it.

Great.

Well, I'm also looking for a system-wide conversation on that, and maybe that's with you in public works because that's not the first time that's happened, uh, and I've been told is hey, it sauces everything up to standards.

Uh, it is what it is, but when you go out there and take a look, it it actually looks much worse than what it did before.

So uh we'll talk to you about that.

Um, but yeah, I thank you all for for joining us uh in my district in June for a town hall.

As I told you before, I didn't want to be committed one way or another until my residents got the opportunity to ask you a lot of questions.

And I would also urge you if you haven't been invited by everybody yet, you should proactively go to a town hall district, do a town hall in a district, even where you're not invited just to do that.

Uh, I think it's important that you guys have town halls all across the city to talk about that and and be um have that direct ability to reach residents.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember Castillo.

Thank you, Robert, for the presentation as well as to your team, and of course, always be engaged in District 5.

Uh, I really value your team presenting to District five residents on the proposed rate adjustment.

Uh, and as I shared with you and your team, I want to do a second pass with my constituents to ensure that I heard them correctly.

And what I heard from District 5 residents when this was presented alongside a CPS conversation was hey CPS, how can you do what SAS is doing in terms of their rate adjustment and rate structure?

So I want to do another pass and ensure that I heard from my constituents correctly.

But just wanted to highlight that I have confidence that when I reach out for a resident uh in need of assistance, that uh Terry will be accessible to work with our constituent services team to find a resolution.

I have confidence if there's a tough case and we need a site visit, that Gavino and the team will go out on site with our team to address that issue.

I have confidence that if we have lateral issues in our community that we can collaborate with SAWS to co-create a solution to have greater impact in our communities.

But I know that takes a team, and I'm grateful for every employee over at SAWS.

Uh, whether you work in a lab or your uh fixing the pipes in our community, I really value the work of every SAS employee, because this is a conversation that we can't take lightly.

I know no one at your team on your team rather does.

This is talking about having safe, accessible to quality water for over two million individuals, right?

Uh and this is uh something that I I appreciate y'all's leadership and sharing information uh in terms of what my constituents may request.

Um, but I know and I also share the concern in terms of the leaks that we're seeing across the community.

I looked up on the map, uh, and I understand why it's a priority for one of my colleagues because she has uh some of the highest uh current uh leaks that are taking place right now.

Um, but I'm grateful to see um that you all intend to hire more individuals to go out and monitor so that where there's a quicker response time.

Uh I share the concern in terms of the aging infrastructure, but that's going to take investment, large-scale investment.

And I understand uh this is a very difficult conversation because we are having uh many parallel conversations around increases, but I think this is one that we really have to sit with.

Can we risk risking our water quality if we don't take this conversation seriously and do our due diligence in terms of this is something that we should or should delay.

Um again, we uh have a responsibility to not only be good stewards to the public in terms of increases, but ensuring that they have access to safe and quality water.

I share the sentiment with my council member from the south side.

Uh I was talking to a constituent, they're surprised, right?

That parts of district five, parts of district three, I'm sure other council districts are still on septic tanks and do not have water lateral access.

And how do we get those connections?

It's by investing in SAWS to ensure that we can have greater impact.

Um, this is a conversation in terms of the rate adjustment that I've had with my constituent services team.

And this is one where they've shared hey, you know, we have so many constituents, whether it's um for CPS andor SAWs that are in need of assistance, and what you're proposing is increasing the AMI for access to uplift, but also uh increasing support for that program.

Uh so again, um it would allow our team uh to have a greater impact in terms of connecting to resources and receiving assistance.

Um so I appreciate what you all proposed uh in terms of what the amended um how the amendment would expand the uplift program.

Uh, of course, increasing the funding for the different uplift programs.

And what's stands out in terms of uh that slide is the potential to double the number of customers eligible for the uplift program.

Um, you know, I would I I think it's important to highlight in terms of the rate structure how it's a fair rate structure.

You pay for what you use.

The less you pay, the lower the rate, uh, the more you use the higher.

And oftentimes we have conversations with our constituents where we put the, whether it's for an environmental impact for air quality or water usage, we put it on the constituent, right?

So again, we want to ensure that we're um incentivizing rather and encouraging water conservation, and I think with y'all's structure, um that's what we're encouraging in our community.

Um, again, I don't have many questions.

I appreciate the briefing that we did have and your team walking me through and helping me understand some of those complex pieces.

Um, but again, I think this is something that we need to continue to ensure that we don't kick that can further down the road where we impact our water quality.

Um again, just grateful for the work of your team, uh Gavino, Cecilia, uh Sarah Jean, and Terry for just their great work.

Uh and the last few months, right?

Uh I want to highlight that there's been SAWS team members presenting in District 5 neighborhood associations on the proposed rate adjustment.

And again, right, the feedback, I want to do another pass because the feedback has been okay.

Can we also now go on the tour?

How can we learn more?

Not more in terms of the rate adjustment, but they're interested in the work and the projects that are on the list for SAWs.

So just appreciate your work being in community and of course I have confidence that you all will respond and deliver for District 5 residents.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Corr.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm excited about Saturday.

We're doing our rain to drain tour, and we like sold out on tickets faster than we've ever sold out on anything in District 1 when I'm doing community engagement.

So I guess people really wanted to go see it on a Saturday afternoon.

So we will be there, 44 people strong from district one.

I took a note from Councilwoman Mesa Gonzalez because she told me a couple months ago she's done two now because of the demand in her district, and so we're trying it, we're doing an abridged version, and I'm excited to see what my constituents are excited to see.

But clearly there is interest in this.

So I just wanted to share that this is not something that our constituents uh this is something our constituents really value.

The other tricky part about it is when I have a complaint, when there's a complaint about SAWS, they're not calling Jalen or calling Ed, they're calling our office, right?

So I had a excuse me.

I had a constituent call yesterday, and her call was do we have any other options for utilities in the city?

Why are we a municipally owned utility city and what are the advantages to us?

Because she was feeling the she's a retired individual and she was feeling her rate her bills already without even these rate increases coming.

The second thing is we were talking yesterday about just like rate increases everywhere.

We're talking yesterday about potential property tax rate increase.

And we are the direct governing body of Eric, so all of us get to have an input on what the city staff is doing regarding cuts.

They're going to bring to us, these are all the areas where we're going to be able to cut our budget so that we're not putting undue burden on our residents.

So we're not going to take that decision lightly.

Unfortunately, we don't have as much insight into what's happening with SAS cuts.

So I know you all are thinking, I'm assuming you all are thinking about efficiencies and how you guys can make cuts as you see greater needs and infrastructure, etc., but we don't really see all of the details of that.

And I know the mayor's on the board, but the rest of us aren't.

And the rest of us are the ones that are getting hit up on a constant basis about issues that they're facing.

So I think that's why we always ask for more information, more information.

So I'm grateful that we're having three sessions leading up to the vote, but I'd like to better understand what is it that you guys are going into cutting next year because all of us are in that mindset, and so I want to better understand where are you guys finding efficiencies?

How many people are you, or like how are you being able to right size?

If we do need people to be able to better more quickly address leaks, which I 100% understand, where can we also find maybe some areas where you don't need as much human capital?

Because that is we discussed one of the biggest areas.

So I'd like to better understand that.

The second thing, and Councilman Castillo really leaned on this, and this is also where my focus is is making sure that our most underserved communities aren't feeling the burden, which is why we always ask about uplift.

So I understand that 73% of residents in District 1 are under that 67, 25 gallon rate.

I'd like to see what you talked about with Councilman Mesa Gonzalez, the 27% that aren't on that.

I want to see where they sit, and more importantly, where those residents are.

How much ever detail we can get so I can make sure those residents aren't in our most low-income zip code?

So I'd like to to better understand that component.

The second thing that I think I have us a couple more questions on is how do we is the change from going from 125% to 150% for folks that are eligible for uplift more impactful, or should we take those funds and really help the folks that are under the poverty line because I asked about this in our briefing what is truly the definition of energy burden and is that difference going to make a bigger is going to make a bigger difference for the person that's at 60% AMI or is it going to make a better bigger difference for the person that's 125%.

So I'd like to understand how we might shift those dollars to maybe even have really decrease the bills for some of the uplift ones because I understand this rate is not affecting anyone any folks on uplift right so just another way to look at the numbers to see if that's actually going to make a difference and then the last thing I also wanted to be able to know is how many folks are not on uplift that could be is there a way to find the data on that so I don't know if this is the same for SAS but I learned from CPS that you can't have more than 10% of people that are getting less than the that are paying less than what they should be paying.

I don't know if that's the same for SAS but I want to better understand how are there people on up that could be on uplift saving significant amounts of dollars but just haven't applied so if there's any data that you can provide about that I don't know Cecilia you look like you were going to stand up she's awesome by the way she she um has been really on top of responses today.

I don't know if you want to share anything.

So yes and I know Gavino's team as you all said Cecilia and company the other Cecilia she does a great job and the team does a great job but right now we have about 40% based on census data and the latest census data that we have is a 2024 census and and based on that about between 35 and 40% of anyone who is at currently at the 125% we are serving through our uplift program.

So we still but it's it's a matter of like you said they have to apply and they have to come in and they have to provide their income information and we know that that's a barrier and we're working through that but we understand that that's something that but it's we still have a a good ways to go and if we were to expand it we're assuming that at 30 to 35% as well once we get to the 150% of poverty to get to that 60 way where you track like these are all the based on census data this is what we think each zip code should look like this is where we're hitting our mark in the zip codes and this is where we're not yes we have it and we can we can provide that to you.

Okay.

And the only other thing I was going to mention is I just want to make sure the last time and I know Mr.

Puente explained this the last time we raised or that we increased rates was in 2020.

So I know you're asking for the efficiencies that we're going to do in the future but we have been working on efficiencies since 2020 with all of the additional projects that we've had to put into the CIP that were unplanned as well as the the ones that we did plan so we have been working and and making sure that we are right sized up to this point.

So we'll get you all of that information.

Thank you Cecilia and as far as CPS they budget a certain amount for their affordability program ours is a pass through so if the number of families quite go totally up it just goes through the pass through.

Okay thank you for that clarification.

The last thing I wanted to say and I mentioned this to you all previously was I'm curious about how the infrastructure budgeting differs.

So there's a lot of SAS projects in district one right now there was supposed to be one in Lavaca that was starting this summer thanks to the other Cecilia and team we were able to move that project to next summer so that it wasn't closing the street right in front of the school during the school year.

That was really helpful for us and it was great coordination.

How do we um know what is now getting replaced so what is we I'd like to know what the process is for what gets moved when our project gets delayed we'll provide that we have a schedule a lot of it is in coordination with the city city public works but we'll provide it.

Okay.

Yes.

And then the last thing is I think there is still and I know Councilman that the Govita talks about this a lot, but there is still a lot more work we could be doing on coordination.

We were going to put bike lanes, armadillos on Cincinnati Avenue and uh median right across Martinez Creek Park.

And my staff was the one that pointed out hey, there's a SAS project there this fall.

Is that going to disrupt what's happening on Cincinnati Avenue?

And then public works was like, oh, yeah, we should pause on the bike lane.

So unfortunately, that means we're not going to get the bike lanes till the after the SAS project, but I think there's still much more work that needs to be done around coordination and also what Jalen mentioned or Jalen mentioned around the partnership for infrastructure projects in general in terms of where we I know we signed that MOU for the 2022 bond projects, but I can't wait to see more of those projects being done efficiently because we're working together rather than trying to point the finger at each other.

I agree with you, and we're working on it.

Uh Andrea Beamer meets regularly with Mike Shannon and Art um Art.

And heart.

Yeah.

So coordination, we'll we'll work on it.

And I'll end my comments by saying in order for me to vote on this, and I know you talked a lot about trust when Councilmember McKee Rajigas is talking.

For me, and and Eric will tell you this.

I trust every single one of the city staff here.

But if you saw any of the presentations from earlier today, I'm a believer in trust but verify, and I need to know information to be able to make the right decision that I think is because my residents are going to come to me and ask me for details about why and why that they think this is the right thing and what is it?

What are how are they going to see district one benefits?

So I think the more information, the more educated that all of us can become, the better.

And I don't know what that timeline is, but that's for me at least.

It's it's less about trust in an individual and more about understanding whether decisions are being made with the best interest of our residents in mind.

Thanks, Mayor.

Okay.

Thank you again, Robert and the team for a great presentation and really um helping us understand where things are.

Um it did dawn on me a couple of things, um, and it came up in our in our board meeting, but really um one way to help folks understand that um this is the cheapest, the cheapest um way to do this.

Uh that the part about um it is more expensive to continue maintaining these projects than it is to replace it.

I think you again, you know, write the Mrs.

Martinez test.

How do you show on a graph, right?

If we don't address this, this is what this cost looks like.

And oh, by the way, that means actually higher rate increases in the future versus just going ahead and replacing it, right?

Like I think there just needs to be really need to think about uh those folks that are not tracking this as as closely and helping them understand um over time how rate increases uh maybe needed more if we don't take uh some of these replacement efforts uh underway currently.

You heard a lot, of course, about the concern about the um financial challenges and in the community.

Um, as I shared with you uh kind of Robert and and Rudy, I wanted you all to sync up on that data set uh that we have for um uh vulnerable residents that CPS has, and I ask that you all have a data sharing agreement uh to ensure that well, first and foremost, we're not buying the same set of data twice as a city.

Um, and so if there's a way uh if you haven't already, um actually have you have you exchanged uh are you able to access that data set to be able to target communications to those that would need uh potentially need that assistance?

Hello, Mayor Council.

Uh yes, we're in discussions with Shannon American with legal working out that agreement so that we can share that and make sure what the ramifications are on the contract that they bought that under to make sure that they can share it from a legal perspective.

But we're working through that right now.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

We certainly um have the same outcome, and I know that also that data set will be important uh for us at the uh the city as as well.

Um okay, thank you.

Uh, we look forward to uh continued engagements.

The time is now 6 58, and this meeting is adjourned.