District 9 Councilwoman Misty Spears sits on the dais. Credit: Facebook / Misty Spears

District 9 City Councilwoman Misty Spears said she’s digging in her heels against a proposed San Antonio Water System (SAWS) rate hike until the city-owned utility releases a financial and performance audit that it was expected to complete by June 30.

Word of the missing audit comes weeks after the board of trustees at SAWS voted for a second time this year to bring a rate hike proposal before council.

“The burden is on SAWS to justify any request for higher rates,” Spears said in an emailed statement. “Until the audit is released and outstanding financial questions are answered, residents should not be asked to shoulder a rate hike.”

In June, council, on a 6-5 vote, postponed discussion of a proposed 30% rate hike for SAWS residential customers until the fall. Spears and others on the dais said they wouldn’t approve an increase until the utility provided a financial and performance audit, which they requested to see by June 30.

Weeks after that deadline passed, though, Spears said SAWS is giving her the runaround on the status of the audit and why the utility is refusing to release its findings.

SAWS officials didn’t immediately respond to the Current’s request for comment about whether the audit was completed and why it hasn’t yet been released.

However, in an email sent to members of council on Tuesday, SAWS Board Chairwoman Jelynne LeBlanc Jamison argued that the utility has “expended considerable time, money, and resources to know what needs to be replaced and renewed in our overall system.”

“In spite of the condition of the infrastructure that needs to be renewed or replaced, our employees continue to perform to meet the expectations of our growing water and wastewater services for this community while meeting and exceeding industry-wide benchmarks,” Jamison wrote in the email obtained by the Current.

In a scathing email response to Jamison sent on Wednesday, Spears told the chairwoman that she wouldn’t vote in favor of a rate hike until the utility releases the results of the audit SAWS was expected to complete.

“This lack of a clear and timely response is becoming a serious concern,” Spears wrote. “SAWS is preparing to ask San Antonio families to pay more while declining to provide the financial review the Council requested before any such vote. Ratepayers should not be expected to approve a higher bill based on general assurances, descriptions of capital needs or an unfinished efficiency study.”

SAWS argues that it needs such a substantial rate hike, which amounts to $200 more annually for average residential customers, to fund a massive $3.2 billion capital improvement plan to repair long-neglected infrastructure.

Last year, the utilty reported losing more than 16 billion gallons of water due to leaky pipes.

However, some council members, including Spears and District 10’s Marc Whyte, are skeptical about whether SAWS CEO Robert Puente — who took home $700,000 last year in base pay and bonuses — is running the utility cost-effectively.

“I don’t believe the evidence is there to make any council member feel confident that the numbers have been crunched as they should have, that the money SAWS has spent in the past has been wisely spent, or that the revenue generated by a potential rate increase will be wisely spent in the future,” Whyte said during council’s June meeting on the issue.

Meanwhile, District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who described his interactions with Puente as “snippy,” took issue with the CEO’s past decision.

During council’s June meeting, McKee-Rodriguez said Puente’s move to cut off water service at apartment complexes whose owners were late on their bills affected hundreds of tenants.

“It made me incredibly angry at the time,” McKee-Rodriguez said. “It was not the only approach SAWS could have made, but it was the most convenient, though one of the most inhumane.”

City Council is set to vote on the proposed SAWS rate hike on Oct. 8.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...