Water & Sewer Information
Fairly Pricing Drinking Water, Recycled Water & Wastewater Service
Over 77,000 people rely on the City of Milpitas' drinking water, recycled water and sewer systems daily, using them for everyday tasks like cooking, bathing, and keeping their families healthy. The City is dedicated to supplying our community with high-quality and reliable water and sewer service.
The City follows best practices and hires independent financial consultants to evaluate the infrastructure, operations and maintenance needs for our drinking water, recycled water and sewer systems. This includes ensuring adequate reserve funds for the service provided by other regional utility agencies and accounting for inflation and how it impacts our budgets.
In 2022, we retained Raftelis to evaluate these factors and recommend rate adjustments for five years which are equitable to customers while ensuring the utilities remain financially healthy. The Raftelis studies demonstrated rate adjustments are necessary to fund more than $91 million in critical capital, operational, and maintenance costs to keep the City's utility infrastructure functioning well and in compliance with ever-stricter water quality, discharge and environmental regulations. Raftelis ensures adequate reserve funds and the impacts of inflation are included in their analysis.
The proposed rates are adjusted to be fair and equitable and reflect the characteristics of each customer classification. Together, the proposed rates are structured to proportionally recover the cost of providing drinking water, recycled water or sewer service among our various customer classifications. For the average single-family residential customer account, sewer rates are proposed to increase 4% and drinking water rates 6.4% each year on July 1 from July 1 2023 through and including July 1, 2027.
For More Information
For specific information about the proposed recycled water and drinking water and sewer rate adjustments visit the Sewer Rate Information and Water Rate information pages or see the official notice mailed to every property owner who receives service from the City of Milpitas.
The Proposition 218 Notice is also available in Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese languages.
We are here to help! Call or email Milpitas Public Works for more information.
Thousands of customers rely on the City of Milpitas' sewer and water systems every day. While they might seem functional now, as infrastructure ages, there is a higher probability for leaks and failures which threaten the reliability of both our sewer and water systems. The proposed rate increases will help us maintain our critical infrastructure and continue providing our community with safe and reliable services every day.
The proposed drinking water rate increase will allow us to:
- Collect adequate revenue to make payments for wholesale water purchases from Valley Water and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
- Replace or rehabilitate infrastructure such as aging pipelines, water tanks and pump stations
- Replace pipelines to improve the water system's flow, ultimately helping with fire suppression
The proposed sewer rate increases will allow us to:
- Keep up with current and projected costs for operations and maintenance, ensuring we provide reliable service
- Improve our infrastructure and update aging infrastructure that is no longer be useful
- Cover our share of the San Jose Regional Wastewater Facility's operations to ensure high quality wastewater treatment to prevent pollution in our environment
If the proposed rates are not approved, the City will:
- Lack the sustainable funds we need to meet our capital, operations and reserve requirements
- Face a higher chance of major emergency system repairs or system failures
- Likely pay higher rates than currently forecasted to pay for costly emergency and unplanned system maintenance
- Be in violation of municipal code if it cannot meet the requirements
- Put its credit at risk which will affect our ability to borrow, and in turn, update infrastructure and maintain our level of service to our community
If the rates are approved, we will phase in adjustments over 5 years, starting July 1, 2023 through and including July 1, 2027. The City will continue with bimonthly billing.
The City developed draft water and sewer master plans which include findings and recommendations for capital improvement program projects through 2040. The recommended master plan projects address:
- Improvements to help maintain existing service levels
- Future system requirements
- Findings from the risk and resiliency assessments through sustained improvements
The total recommended water and sewer capital projects during the next five years is approximately $167 million. Due to the cost and impact on rates in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023/2024, some projects programmed to start design and construction in FY 2023/2024 were pushed to FY 2025/2026.
The master plans are a key component of the funding needs assessment used by rate consulting firms. For more information, see the Water Master Plan (PDF) and Sewer Master Plan (PDF).
California law does not allow any water or wastewater utility to charge rates beyond what is required to provide service. We cannot use rate revenue for anything outside of the cost of providing service. No profit is allowed.
Before increasing rates, the City must notify and engage customers in a public process outlined in Proposition 218. Before a City Council vote, the City must:
- Mail every property owner a notice of the proposed rates
- Host a public hearing with information about the rate increases
- Provide an opportunity for property owners to state their objection to the proposed rates, known as a protest vote
Under California state law, all property owners and customers of record may submit a written protest about the proposed rate changes. Mailed protests must be received by March 21, 2023. Only one protest per parcel is permitted. All written protests will be verified. Letters should be sent to:
City of Milpitas City Clerk
455 E Calaveras Boulevard
Milpitas, CA 95035