By Mayor Bryan Nelson

As we head into the New Year, I wanted to give everyone an update on the progress we have made reducing the number of no-reads and estimated read water meters to help our residents with rising costs.  

By lowering both no-reads and estimates, we can reduce the price of water and sewer. We hired a contractor last year to help jump start our program to replace meters.  

Our city team began in earnest in August to focus on the larger commercial meters and making sure every meter had a flex-net, which is the device that transmits data to the tower and ultimately to the water billing department. Our staff finally has inventory of both meters and flex-nets, allowing us to replace the meters without waiting for parts.  

We now have the fourth transmission tower in the northwest quadrant operating, which helps pick up flex-net reads that the current towers couldn’t reach. We are also seeing additional revenue from the contractors who inadvertently damaged our water pipes — reclaimed or wastewater. 

Now for the results, which are remarkable. In calendar year 2024, the city was billing 34.85% less water than we produced at our water plants. To increase our revenue without impacting our current customers, we began implementing the following: reduce no-reads, estimated reads, and surcharged credit card purchases.   

In addition, we began to fine those who damaged our water and wastewater systems. Some of the things we can’t bill for include: water analysis, water quality flushing, fire department flow testing, storm/sewer cleaning and utility maintenance, which limits how low we can go on water loss.  

In 2024, we had 2,292,264,327 gallons of water that were unaccounted for. We are excited to announce that in 2025 we are down to 981,334,893 gallons of water that have not been billed, which is a remarkable 19% reduction in water loss.  

If you look at just the months of August through December, the numbers have drastically dropped with our percentage well under 10%, which is better than the state benchmark.  

Our teams at utility billing and public services have made a huge impact on lost water revenue and hopefully it will have an immediate impact on our water, wastewater and sewer rates.