Not your subdivision: El Paso Water ratepayers are financing capacity for homes they don't live in.

In short

El Paso Water is self-funded: it takes no property tax, so when the cost of serving new development is not covered by developers, there is no other pocket — it lands on the monthly bill of everyone already here. The typical residential bill rose $9.99 a month, about 12 percent, under the budget effective March 1, 2026, on a utility budget of about $1.2 billion with roughly $770 million in capital. Meanwhile the utility's own consultants calculated it should be collecting roughly $17.6 million a year in impact fees and is collecting about $2 million — a shortfall of about $15.6 million every year, roughly the entire increase just imposed on ratepayers. That money doesn't disappear; it gets borrowed and repaid by ratepayers with interest over twenty years — on the order of $156 million of growth capacity across a ten-year horizon, before interest. The 2024 fee update was a start, not a finish: Council adopted roughly a third of what the study supported in the Northeast. State law bars another increase before May 2027 — which is exactly why the next study should be commissioned now, so the new rate is ready the day the law allows it.