By Camas Frank

On March 31 the City of SLO’s utility department got approval to move $1 million out of its reserve fund to make up for “water sales revenue loss” in the 2014-15 fiscal year.
As part of the measure the City Council voted unanimously to allow a delayed increase in charges for Tier 2 water users and to increase the base charge over three years.
It’s a bit of a “sticky wicket” (a term referring to unpredictable playing conditions on a drying out field) for the folks responsible for supplying water to City residents. Always eager to encourage conservation in severe drought, the City has none-the–less relied on volume-based sales to pay for maintenance of the water infrastructure.
In 2013 they foresaw this being an issue and got the Council to approve a new rate structure, instituting the 2-tier system now in use, as well as a $5 base fee for all users.
That second tier was seen as a way to curb usage amongst the highest volume users but still allow reasonable access for the majority of residents in Tier 1 billing, although they did see a more than 10-percent increase between 2013 and 2014.
What they asked for at the end of March was a to use the $1 million from the “rate stabilization fund” to keep Tier 1 rates level for now and to phase in a smaller increase in Tier 2 over the next two years. An increase in the base fee could take effect as soon as July.
That was all “in the works” two days before California Gov. Jerry Brown threw a press conference on a snowless meadow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where there would normally have been skiers and snowboarders on five feet of pack.
He unveiled an executive order mandating 25 percent reductions in consumer water use. Agriculture, which uses up about 80 percent of the State’s water, is not impacted directly by the order.
In any case, Utilities Services Manager, Ron Munds said, SLO is less impacted by the controversies than it might be. While the Central Valley is seeing an arms race of sorts to pump groundwater using approximately a fifth more from that source than a normal rainfall year, SLO only has one well. From it, he added, comes only two percent of the City’s total supply.
“The executive order shocked all water agencies, “he said. “The statewide goal doesn’t necessarily boil down to a San Luis Obispo goal though.”
On April 17, the State Water Resources Control Board is expected to release revised rules setting targets for each community, after taking into account comments from utility providers.
SWRCB takes into account individual conservation measures already in effect and how local areas stack up against the state averages.
By last week the number SLO was looking at a 20% target reduction, indeed lower than the 25% mandate, but not by much,.
Munds cited the City’s experience in the 1990s as an example of hard times that prove instructive in managing the resources.  Both, he said, in estimating the City’s surface water reserves, which are at a five-year supply, and in measuring how much residents are capable of cutting back.
“We haven’t been able to predict sales numbers recently,” he said, noting that while the drought and City funding are separate issues, one affects the other in terms of running the system. “We went through this in the 1990s. There’s a predictable pattern, a bounce back in the revenue, but we’re very cautious about having the rate structure maintained to preserve stability.”