At the Tuesday, July 11 meeting of the Board of Directors of the Brown County Water Improvement District #1, a new budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year was adopted, as well as new water rates.  The total budget for the new fiscal year will be $4,468, 050, an increase of 11.49%.  District General Manager John Allen explained that there is quite a bit of equipment that needs to be acquired or replaced this year.  In the current year not much money was budgeted for equipment because of the large increase in water rates.  Some of the equipment items in the new budget are:  body armor for the Lake Patrol, diving equipment, new air conditioning units, replacing a John Deere Gator vehicle with a new Polaris vehicle, a chlorine analyzer, a portable analyzer, and replacing a tile floor at the treatment plant.

The new rate for treated water will be $2.1920 per thousand gallons, an increase of 6.218%.  The current rate of $2.0637 was an increase of 17.57% over the previous year, and it was necessitated by the large price increase of water treatment chemicals during the high inflation of 2022.  This year’s water rate increase reflects still high costs of treatment chemicals as well as the deferred equipment mentioned above.  Over the last five years the District has averaged water rate increases of 5.80% per year.  If you exclude the unusually high increase of last year, the four-year average is only 2.85% per year.

The new water rate will not necessarily translate into a 6.218% increase to retail customers.  The new rate is the price the Water District will charge the various cities and water systems that provide water to residents in the County, and they set their own rates.  The new wholesale water price from the District will go into effect September 1, while most cities and water systems set their new budgets to begin October 1.  The 2024 rate for irrigation water will be set in December.

In other action District Manager Allen reported that the Texas Council on Environmental Quality is requiring some upgrades to the lake dam, which are estimated to cost about $50,000.  The Board authorized up to $55,000 for the upgrades.  Allen also reported that Lake Brownwood is currently at level 1419.77, which is 5.3 feet below full.  That represents 73.3% of the lake’s capacity.  Last year at this time the lake was at 75.2% capacity, and statewide lakes are averaging 75.5% of capacity.

Lake Patrol Chief Mark Davis reported that over the 4th of July holiday weekend there were 1,183 boats on Lake Brownwood with an estimated 3,100 visitors.