Circle Of Blue | By: Brett Walton | GPE – September 08, 2017:
As rates rise, water authorities question longstanding affordability measurement.
Originally published August 24, 2017: Earlier this year, Manny Teodoro, a Texas A&M University associate professor, sat in a meeting with a committee that advises the Phoenix Water Department on rates to discuss the increasingly fraught relationship between household water bills and the ability of residents to pay for water service.
Teodoro, a scholar who evaluates the consequences of public policy, was developing a method to measure the financial burden of water bills on the poor. Phoenix officials wanted fresh insight they could perhaps incorporate in aid programs and rates.
At some point the conversation took a slight, but revealing, turn. Affordability is a comparative concept, the place where income and expenditures cross. Teodoro was talking about measuring that relationship. In the water utility industry few tasks are as perplexing or misunderstood as gauging which customers can afford to pay their water bills and how much they can pay.
The committee members, though, wanted a definition. Household incomes at the economic bottom have stagnated. How many people will not be able to pay?
“Are our rates affordable?” they asked, posing a question that has become a defining issue for U.S. water utilities in the second decade of the 21st century.
Teodoro, reflecting on his work, instead redirected the query. “It’s up to you, not me,” he replied. “I’m showing you how to measure it.”
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