Rates - Manny Teodoro

Good, Bad, and Ugly 💻

Affordability in America, 2023 | Part 3 (Featured image above by Bruno Guerrero.)little known fact: the Dollars Trilogy films were utility management allegories Higher prices don’t necessarily create affordability problems. Across the United States, water

Pricing Predicament 💻

Affordability in America, 2023 | Part 2 How you distribute the load matters. An odd thing about water compared with most other things we buy is that residential water demand represents qualitatively different uses

Tariff Trends 💻

Affordability in America, 2023 | Part 1 Prices at Der Rathskeller are up, too It’s not your imagination—water and sewer service really are more expensive than they used to be. But figuring out how much more

TAP Dance 💻

Lessons from six years of income-based water assistance in Philadelphia Six years ago, to great fanfare, Philadelphia Water launched a new approach to bill assistance for low-income water and sewer customers: the Tiered Assistance

Variable Flow Gets Clawed Back 💻

Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome to Variable Flow.* coming for your COVID leftovers Congress giveth, Congress taketh away The debt ceiling drama that recently roiled D.C. culminated in

Towels, not tuxedos 💻

How much assistance should each customer get? When things get hot, coverage matters more than fit Customer assistance programs (CAPs) form the fourth pillar of affordability strategy. Previous posts described the first three pillars

Bill Assistance on Walden Pond 💻

The fourth pillar of affordability is income-qualified assistance Utility bills were very affordable in Thoreau's day! But then, he also died from tuberculosis. ...in which I lay out a framework for water utilities that

Of Bills and Balance Sheets 💻

The third pillar of affordability is Rate Design “Affordable” means different things in different contexts This post is the third in a series outlining five pillars of affordability strategy for water and sewer utilities.

The Donut Budget 💻

The second pillar of affordability is Efficiency One of these matters more than the other This post is the second in a series outlining five pillars of affordability strategy for water and sewer utilities. Together,

Defensive Spending 💻

The first pillar of affordability is Quality Gotta count the bottles and the bills So long as water and sewer services operate on a fee-for-service basis, ensuring that these critical services are affordable will

The Frame Game 💻

The science of talking about water rate increases It’s not about the water tower—it’s about what’s inside Strictly from a value standpoint, it’s hard to imagine anything that provides more bang for the buck

The Sweet Spot 💻

How much consolidation is enough? you know it when you hit the sweet spot There’s a growing consensus that there are way too many water utilities in the United States. America’s 50,000 community water

SNAP H2O 💻

Better federal water bill assistance with this one weird trick Click here to read my op-ed on this topic in Newsweek. When Congress created a new $638 million federal Low Income Household Water Assistance

(Un)taxing the Tap 💻

How to stop taxing water It’s hard to know exactly how much money Americans are paying in taxes at the tap, but it’s a lot. Last time I described the variety of ways that

Stop Taxing Tap Water 💻

Collecting tax revenue through water bills hurts affordability & turns utilities into coercive agents of government Can you find the tax? They may not realize it, but tens of millions of Americans pay taxes

Game Changer 💻

California utility regulators lead the way with comprehensive affordability assessment Wonderboy was the star of the movie, but Savoy Special won the game Between a global pandemic and a presidential election, you might have missed

Batting .400 💻

On the limits of means-tested assistance programs for water & sewer Red Sox legend Ted Williams was the last player to bat over .400... in 1941 **Warning: sports metaphor ahead** Like hitting a baseball,

Ready, Fire, Aim 💻

Managing the $638 million low-income water & sewer assistance in the federal COVID relief package Now what? As frequent readers of this page likely know, the COVID relief bill that Congress passed in December

Echoes of Vizzini 💻

No, EPA did not propose affordability guidelines for municipal utilities Late last week the EPA published in the Federal Register some proposed new guidelines for evaluating sewer utilities’ financial strength. In press releases and

Misoverestimickated 💻

About that water affordability study in The Guardian... Water is a ZILLION PERCENT unaffordable! Also, aliens. The Guardian recently published a big story on water utility affordability in the United States. The headline was shocking:

Two Cheers… or maybe just one 💻

for a federal low-income water bill assistance program All watery eyes are fixed on Washington The ink is barely dry on the $2 trillion coronavirus response law, but there are rumblings that a another

Rapid Relief 💻

How the federal government might end shutoffs & keep water flowing during the COVID-19 crisis Can’t do this if your water has been shut off. The COVID-19 crisis has escalated America’s water and sewer

New Normals? 💻

Lessons from California water conservation, 2019 Reservoirs aren't supposed to look like this. Tough water times may be back in California. After the Golden State suffered through a historically severe drought from 2012-2017, pleasantly

Introducing the Amy Poehler Index 💻

Understanding progressive & regressive water pricing By J. Antonio Teodoro & Manny Teodoro maybe she runs a dialysis clinic in the basement? How do utilities distribute the costs of drinking water systems to their

Squeeze Play 💻

U.S. water utilities are shifting costs to low-volume customers—good for revenue stability, but bad for affordability The squeeze bunt puts more pressure on the hitter than any other play in baseball. Utility financial managers

Water & Sewer Affordability in America, 2019 💻

An update on what low-income U.S. households must pay for essential service It's hard to come up with amusing images for this topic About a year ago I also published the results of a

The Plan 💻

A five-point proposal to transform the U.S. water sector As daunting as the challenges in the U.S. water sector are, solutions are possible and within our grasp. Thanks to legions of smart, creative scientists

The Bundle 💻

Important developments in California for utility affordability You probably need all three California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is working on establishing methods to measure affordability for utility service. The CPUC governs ratemaking for the