Rowlett consultant: shifting costs to commercial meters could add hundreds monthly for larger businesses

Jason Gray presented meter-size examples to show how a restructured wastewater base charge would affect commercial accounts and noted the change would raise revenue for the utility while unevenly affecting larger meters.

Gray gave specific FY27 commercial base-charge examples: a 0.75-inch commercial base charge would be about $34.53 per month, a 1-inch meter about $57.67 per month (up from a current baseline of roughly $26.60), and larger meters scale up from there. He told the council that the meter-size approach would produce roughly $200,000 in additional revenue but warned that only a minority of commercial accounts (roughly 307 of ~800) hold larger meters and would shoulder most of the increase.

Several council members expressed concern about small businesses and multifamily housing bearing higher costs and asked staff for meter-size average-bill tables to illustrate how the changes would affect storefronts versus larger users. The council directed staff to produce those examples for public outreach and the FY27 proposed budget materials.