CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Beeville residents could start seeing an increase in their utility bills as early as November.
Joseph Rugar is a resident has lived in Beeville for 11 years and he said it has not been easy when it comes to his utility bills. He said his bills are never guaranteed to be the same.
“We’re going to have to reduce it again. We’ve already cut back to the bare minimum now,” Rugar said.
Last year the city of Beeville increased rates but had to re-evaluate after there was a recent spike in prices for the parts needed to complete the repairs.
The city has informed residents that they can expect to see another increase on their next bill, this time, the reason being the spike in inflation and cost for materials needed to infrastructure.
“Our bills change every month because they have the smart meters here, so we can’t go out and check our own meters or what our actual usage is, so we don’t know. We’ve had problems with them shutting off at random,” he said.
The city said that the average water consumption residents use is 5,000 gallons per month. Residents who use that amount of water can expect to see their monthly bill increase by $16.27.
“Cut the bull crap, I want to see it done. They’ve said this before. It took them year to even get some of the water lines replaced,” Rugar said.
John Benson with the city of Beeville said that the city underestimated the amount of money needed during this year’s utility rating.
“Even though we did a utility rating study a year ago with projected cost for this coming year, for next year, those costs were underestimated due to unforeseen inflation or higher inflation cost,” Benson said.
Rugar said that he just wants answers to why their utilities rates keep increasing.
“There’s no stable on how these bills are being done,” Rugar said. “I know it is all done through a third party, utility rate company, so I don’t know if they are doing something or if it’s the city.”
The city reviews their utility rates every couple of years. They hope the next time that happens, inflation will be lower allowing them to lower their utility bills.
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