 City of Tucson Hearing Statement
6/17/2025 Council Meeting
TUCSON, ARIZONA- June 18, 2025 –Tucson Water receives the lion’s share of our residential and industrial allocation of Central Arizona Project water. The reason for that is because the utility set a service area many years ago that ranges from Corona de Tucson to Catalina. A third of its ratepayers live in the unincorporated county. Most of these folks have been Tucson Water customers for decades. While it is true that municipal utilities around the state sometimes charge higher rates to those who live outside city limits, it would be unprecedented for those higher rates to be levied on longtime ratepayers representing such a sizable chunk of the customer base.
Let me use the composition of District 1 to point out the inherently unfair and illogical nature of this proposal. The people I represent live mostly in portions of the unincorporated county, but my district also includes parts of Marana, Tucson and all of Oro Valley. If a holistic study of the costs of delivering water and maintaining the utility’s infrastructure were done, it would likely be found that it would cost more to serve some of the customers in those incorporated areas than it does to serve those in the unincorporated areas. However, customers in all incorporated areas are exempt from these higher rates.
Tucson Water’s proposed rate hike is not based on a comprehensive cost of service study. Instead, there was an end in mind: raising rates solely on their customers in the unincorporated county. With that goal, they put together a methodology to justify their end. It may ultimately pass legal muster, which, I imagine, is why both the City Attorney’s office and paid consultants worked on it, but that doesn’t make it right.
The ratepayers in the unincorporated county have been referred to as “non-owners” of the utility because they live outside the boundaries of the city. I do not feel that is a term that should be applied to a third of the utility’s ratepayers, who have been helping it to grow and prosper for decades.
I value the county’s relationship with the city. We work together as partners in so many ways and there will doubtless be many more opportunities for collaboration. I also honor each of you for your commitment to public service, but adopting this proposal would be unfair to a sizable part of Tucson Water’s customers. I would ask that you instead do a comprehensive cost of service study of the entire system so that all ratepayers, regardless of their address, are treated in an objective, unbiased manner.
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