The City is taking steps toward deciding what residents' water bills could look like after 2028.
On Wednesday, June 17, the City Council approved a $271,960 contract with Riverside-based Carollo Engineers to conduct a new water cost-of-service analysis and develop recommendations for future water rates.
City officials describe the study as a planning exercise rather than a rate increase proposal—though work approved at that meeting will help shape the recommendations behind the next several years of Riverside Public Utilities water rates once the current five-year plan expires.
According to the staff report, the analysis will examine how changing water demand, conservation trends, drought requirements and infrastructure costs affect the amount of revenue the utility needs to collect and how those costs should be distributed among customer groups.
City staff said the work will also include public outreach and modeling to estimate how different rate structures would affect customer bills under multiple usage scenarios.
RPU previously completed a water cost-of-service study in 2023 to support the city's current five-year rate plan. Officials say an update is needed now to prepare for decisions beyond the existing schedule of adjustments, which currently extends through January 2028.
Public comments submitted online before Tuesday's meeting called for a larger overhaul of the city's water rates.
Resident Malissa McKeith said a "much larger shakeup is needed."
"RPU needs an entire [overhaul] because the current fiscal model is unsustainable; management is poor; and there is no oversight at City Hall," she said. "Rate hikes are coming which is the one time the public pays attention. This is a serious problem that is going to explode in the council's face if nothing is done beforehand."
This comes after the Board of Public Utilities voted to send a proposal to hike water fees by 5.7 percent—due to inflation—to the City Council for a June 23 public hearing.
That proposal came after the council last month considered a separate Municipal Code change that would tie future annual fee increases to Consumer Price Index data automatically—but ultimately declined that proposal.
