Agenda

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City Council Regular Meeting

Meeting Date:

03/08/2021

BACKGROUND

A disaster declaration was made beginning on February 13, 2021 due to the severe winter weather seen across Texas. The City saw freezing temperatures lasting many consecutive days, snow, persistent ice, and power outages. This level of winter weather is rare for our area and many were caught unprepared.

One common safety method to help prevent pipes from freezing and bursting is to leave faucets dripping inside the house. This method was encouraged during the event and many customers took heed. Due to this and other factors like pipe breaks, water consumption was 20.3 million gallons higher city wide, this 75% higher than normal.

Staff has been communicating with both the Cibolo Creek Municipal Authority (CCMA), which treats the majority of the city's wastewater, and the Schertz Seguin Local Government Corporation, which supplies the city's water. Both entities have agreed to charge Schertz the lower usage between January 2021 and February 2021 for services in February. This would be a savings to the City of Schertz and lower the expenditures the city would normally have to pay.

The ordinance today proposes to pass on those savings to the customer using this same method. If the customer used more water in February 2021 than January 2021, they will receive a credit equal to the difference. Essentially, their February bill would be the same as the one they received in January. If they used less water than January, they would receive no adjustment.

This method of conveying relief to citizens is the same as being used by other utilities such as the San Antonio Water System.

If passed this adjustment would be seen on the utility bills customers receive in March.

GOAL

To provide relief to customers that used the drip method to prevent their water pipes from freezing and bursting, potentially causing severe damage to their homes.

COMMUNITY BENEFIT

Customers that used more water during the winter event will be billed less if their usage was more in February than in January 2021.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDED ACTION

Staff recommends Council approve this ordinance, which will reduce utility bills for some customers and pass along savings realized by the City of Schertz from the water and sewer providers. Given the limited time between the severe weather event and the normal billing cycle, staff recommends that Council declares and emergency to approve this ordinance on one reading to allow staff to immediately begin adjusting bills.

FISCAL IMPACT

There would be minimal fiscal impact to the City of Schertz and its Utility Fund. This ordinance would be passing along expenditure savings to the customers.

RECOMMENDATION

Staff recommends approval of Ordinance 21-M-10

Attachments
Ordinance 21-M-10