New Water Rates In Dublin, San Ramon Effective This Week

DUBLIN, CA — New water rates kicking in this week will bring mixed news for homeowners in Dublin and parts of San Ramon. Approved by directors of the Dublin-San Ramon Services District following a public hearing last month, changes in the rates it charges for providing potable (drinking) water to some 26,000 residential customers that became effective July 1 are expected to average about $3.40 per month.

Beginning with bi-monthly water bills mailed out in September, single-family homeowners in Dublin and the Dougherty Valley section of San Ramon will begin paying more, or less, depending upon how much water they consume and where they’re located.

Residential customers will see fixed water service charges drop 3.5 percent while power charges paid by customers located in areas where water must be pumped uphill to reservoirs will have those rates reduced by about 7 percent.

Small business and other commercial customers will enjoy substantial reductions in fixed service charges ranging from 21 percent to 42 percent.

However, the most significant change will be elimination of three-tiered billing for actual water usage. Until now residential customers paid between 57-cents and $1.60 per unit depending upon water usage during a billing period. Under the new rate structure DSRSD has consolidated residential tier-based and commercial season-based consumption rates into a flat charge of $1.30 per unit, bringing its rates into compliance with a court decision prohibiting tiered pricing. A unit of water is 100 cubic feet or 748 gallons.

Charges for DSRSD’s “cost of water,” which appear as a separate line item on bills, will vary depending upon price increases imposed by the District’s water wholesaler, the Livermore-based Zone 7 Water Agency. Those rates, currently set at $3.48 per unit, can be adjusted periodically, but DSRSD customers will receive a 30-day notice of any change.

Assuming no increase in wholesale water rates, DSRSD estimates a typical single-family residential customer consuming 18 units every two months will see an increase in their bi-monthly bills of about $6.81, or $40 annually.

Additional Impact in San Ramon

But the most obvious impact of DSRSD rate adjustments will show up on the property tax bills of homeowners in the Dougherty Valley section of San Ramon, generally encompassing the Gale Ranch and Windermere subdivisions.

Changing hats during their board meeting, DSRSD directors, who also serve in a dual role as directors of the Dougherty Valley Standby Charge District, approved an increase in the amount of “service fees” charged on the property tax bills of San Ramon water customers.

The Standby District was created in 2000 to provide drinking water to the developing Dougherty Valley and serves as the vehicle for collecting from San Ramon homeowners their proportionate share of Zone 7’s State Water Project costs.

In Alameda County, Zone 7 directly levies its charges based on the assessed value of individual parcels. Last year $21.4 million collected by the Agency from Alameda property owners went into its State Water Facilities Fund. An additional $1.6 million was paid by San Ramon homeowners, but was collected in a different manner.

Because Zone 7 can’t recover costs in Contra Costa County, DSRSD collects them on the water wholesaler’s behalf through a charge placed on the property tax bills of San Ramon homeowners by the Standby District with revenue given directly to Zone 7.

When the Standby District was created the total amount it could collect in San Ramon was capped at $1.56 million annually and since then homeowners receiving DSRSD water service have been paying a flat rate of $170.75 levied on county property tax bills sent to about 7,000 customers and identified in a non-consumer-friendly way as “DSRSD-DRTY VLY01-1.”

While the Standby District has been limited in the amount it can collect from San Ramon water customers, Zone 7’s share of state water costs and other expenses keeps rising, forcing an increase in the service fee, which will be separately identified on tax bills. The current $170.75 flat rate will continue to be collected, but the new, additional levy will increase annually over the next five years because it will be calculated actual wholesale water costs.

The full magnitude of the increases will depend on the accuracy of DSRSD’s long-term estimates of what Zone 7 costs will be and how much of those must be passed through to San Ramon customers.

If preliminary DSRSD estimates are accurate, San Ramon homeowners could potentially see a 665 percent increase in basic service fee rates between 2020 and 2024. DSRSD estimates the base service fee levy for the current fiscal year that began July 1 will be $2.55 per single-family residence and could reach $19.51 in 2024. While the levy will be reviewed annually, the impact on homeowners will be noticeable over time. The District says the actual amount of the additional charge on tax bills is calculated by multiplying the base rate by six, the number of bills a customer receives each year.

For property tax bills scheduled to be mailed out in September, the charge will be $15.30 appearing under the separate line item DSRSD-DRTY VLY SWP. If DSRSD estimates remain accurate for future years, by 2024 homeowners could see the new service fee levy reach $117.