Utility rates and billing

The City's budget books list across-the-board water and sewer increases in nine of the ten fiscal years from 2016/17 to 2025/26: 3%, 3%, 3%, 7%, 3%, 5%, 10%, 6% and 5%, with no across-the-board change in 2024/25. Compounded, that is about 55% (our calculation). The proposed 2026/27 budget adds 8%, and the Amarillo Tribune reported 11% with a debt-service increase. For the City's own example, a home on a 5/8-inch meter using 10,000 gallons a month with a 10,000-gallon winter average, the rate schedules give a water and sewer bill of $79.01 from October 2022 and $85.43 from October 2025 (our calculation); the proposed budget puts it at $92.26 at 8%.^1,2,11,3,4

Not from this month's water use. The City bills residential sewer on a winter average: the average of your water use in December, January and February, recalculated each March and used for the following year, so watering the yard in summer does not raise the sewer line. New residential accounts are billed at 8,000 gallons, the citywide average, until they have winter history. The City's audited report adds that a home is never charged for more than 20,000 gallons of sewage. Sewer is $21.69 a month for the first 3,000 gallons of that average plus $2.74 per 1,000 gallons above it, at the rates in effect since October 2025, so it tops out at $68.27 a month (our calculation). Commercial accounts are billed on each month's water use.^16,17,2,8

Working backward from the water line alone, at the rates in effect since October 2025 (our calculation): a $100 water charge means about 22,000 gallons that month; $250, about 46,000; $500, about 78,000; $1,000, about 140,000; and $6,000, about 768,000 gallons. A typical month for a household is closer to 8,000 to 10,000 gallons. The calculator on this page works it out for any amount.^2,16

The budget books give the reasons year by year: the 2016 five-year capital program (2016/17 to 2021/22), the smart-meter project (4% in 2019/20), inflation and new debt (10% in 2022/23), staff costs (2023/24) and capital improvements (2025/26 and the proposed 2026/27). The 2026 rate study presented by NewGen recommended a phased 8.37% adjustment toward about $1.8 billion in water and wastewater needs, including a planned wastewater plant; that figure was described as preliminary.^1,3,55,56

After the enQuesta billing system went live on March 31, 2026, more than 55,000 customers received larger-than-normal bills. The City has not named a single cause. The mayor said the internal review covered the meters, the computation that transmits meter data, the billing software and staff, and in September said the City had "identified several problems" but not "one consistent issue." The utility billing director told the council in September that the old meters, 10 to 15 years in the ground, were possibly not registering fully, and that August 2026 was much hotter than August 2025. On October 27, 2026 the City's billing reviewer, NewGen, attributed about $555,000 of the April-August rise to the October 2025 rate increase and about $2 million, within a wide range, to more watering in hot, dry weather. The longer first bill under enQuesta pushed some use into higher tiers. New meters recorded 1% to 2% more water than the old ones, and about 15% of the rise it could not explain.^{5,37,38,39,57}

On June 23, 2026 the council voted 4-0 to hire NewGen Strategies and Solutions, also the City's rate consultant, to review the billing system's data and processes for up to $85,000. NewGen presented on October 27, 2026. It said its review was not an audit and did not test meters in the field. It found that 99.78% of bills it checked were calculated correctly from the meter readings and that billed readings matched the smart-meter system's readings 99.4% of the time, and it found no problems in the data moved to enQuesta. It estimated about $39,000 in over-billings, found no written policy for billing credits, and said about 15% of the rise in bills was unexplained. A separate forensic audit, including the water and sewer fund, is being chosen by the council's audit committee.^6,57,14

NewsChannel10 reported in 2022 that the City was replacing more than 70,000 meters with Sensus iPERL smart meters that record use at intervals of an hour or less and report to the utility daily, with usage data and leak alerts for customers. The City's billing page says customers can see hourly and monthly use under Billed Usage in the PayAMA portal.^25,31

The installation contract with UtiliUse grew through four change orders to $28,771,862.79 by January 2026, paid from bonds the Texas Water Development Board bought at no interest ($28.5 million, maturing through 2040) plus a $1 million grant. Customers repay the bonds: the 2019/20 budget raised water and sewer rates 4% for the project. SL-serco's consulting contract reached $1,514,993.30.^{27,24,17,8,43}

In January 2024 the council adopted an ordinance amending Municipal Code Chapter 18-2 that gives residential customers an option to opt out of the transmitter on a residential digital water meter. The minutes do not state a fee.^58,30

enQuesta is the customer information and billing system the council bought from Systems & Software in August 2024 under a 10-year contract of up to $6,987,155, raised to $7,227,635 when go-live moved to March 2026. Systems & Software describes itself as a subsidiary of N. Harris Computer, part of Constellation Software. The customer portal is called PayAMA.^33,35,34,31

The City's billing page directs billing disputes, high-usage reviews and leak adjustment questions to the General Customer Service Request under the Forms tab of the PayAMA portal. A residential leak adjustment requires use more than 50,000 gallons above the 12-month average and proof of repair, once every two years. When a leak adjustment can't be applied, a high consumption adjustment may be considered, once a year for up to two billing periods. Utility Billing can be reached at (806) 378-3030.^31,16,36