One-Time Refund – Nov. 2022
On your next bill after November 21, 2022, you will soon see a one-time credit labeled “Drought Credit."
San Jose Water was authorized by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to allow for a one-time refund to be applied to all customer accounts (except recycled water and private fire services), eliminating the need to list multiple surcharge and credit line items — simplifying your bill.
The amount of the one-time refund is based on your meter size.
As part of our General Rate Case review by the CPUC, it was determined that there was an under-collection in three balancing and memorandum accounts, in addition to an over-collection in one memorandum account. Below are the details of the various balancing and memorandum accounts.
What are memorandum and balancing accounts? The water rate setting process is a forward-looking exercise where utilities estimate their future costs to deliver water service. Actual costs may vary from estimated costs because predicting the future is very difficult. That’s where memorandum and balancing accounts come in. They exist to align what was predicted versus what actually occurred. This can occur either way resulting in a surcharge (under collection) or credit (over collection).
Additional details can be found in Advice Letters 581 and 582.
The surcredit on your bills will appear beginning November 11, 2022.