Mesa Council approves notice of intent to raise utility rates

The Mesa City Council on Monday approved a notice of intent to raise water, wastewater and solid waste fees, a monthly increase of about $6 for the average homeowner.

The city is also looking to increase rates for its electric and natural gas customers.

The notice, unanimously passed by the council, has started the clock on a 60-day public notice period.

The council will be holding a public hearing and acting on the proposed rate hikes for water, wastewater, solid waste, electricity and natural gas when it meets on Dec. 8.

“If council wanted to adopt a rate higher than what is in the notice, council would need to first adopt a new notice of intention for that rate,” Mayor Mark Freeman said. “In other words, this notice is the maximum potential rates that council could adopt at the Dec. 8 meeting, but we are not adopting any rates tonight.”

If the rate hikes are approved, the increases will become effective on Feb. 1.

For a typical household that uses 6,000 gallons of water per month, the increase in water, wastewater and solid waste rates would be $5.92. Mesa has a combined total of 162,330 residential and business water service connections.

Electric rates would increase by $3.66 and natural gas would go up by $2.35.

Mesa provides electricity to more than 18,000 residential and commercial customers in a 5.5-square-mile-area, including downtown Mesa, according to the city’s website.

The city provides natural gas service to more than 82,000 homes and businesses in Mesa and the Magma service area, a 235-square-mile system located in parts of Queen Creek, San Tan Valley and Pinal County.

The rate increases are only for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

“We want to be able to come back to council (and) make those slight adjustments year-over-year rather than waiting a couple of years and then coming back to council and making some significant changes,” Mesa’s Management and Budget Director Brian Ritschel told the council.

Last year, the council adopted a water and wastewater capacity fee, which is a one-time charge for new or upsized meters.

“One of our focuses was growth paying for growth. It took a significant burden of some of our growth projects, for instance, the Signal Butte water treatment plant expansion, off of this forecast and recording it separately and having those capacity fees pay for that growth. So that was a heavy burden off these rate payers,” Ritschel said.

Despite the proposed rate increases, the city pointed out in a statement that Mesa homeowners’ overall costs are still among the lowest in the Valley.

“The city’s FY 2026-27 comparison of property taxes, city sales tax, solid waste, water and wastewater costs ranks Mesa third lowest among the Valley cities compared,” according to the statement.

Only Scottsdale and Chandler rank lower.

Residents can learn more about the rate increases and provide input during the 60-day comment period by visiting mesaaz.gov.

Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.