EAA’s proposed 2027 budget would raise the combined fee on authorized municipal and industrial groundwater from $97 to $104 per acre-foot, a 7.2% increase.
For Comal County, that is a $7 annual increase per authorized acre-foot—about 58 cents a month if spread evenly—paired with 2027 habitat and monitoring work at Comal Springs.
The 2026 combined fee was $97 per acre-foot; the 2027 proposal shifts the general fee from $62 to $70 while lowering the habitat-plan fee from $35 to $34.
A smaller budget with higher fees
The proposal includes $27.7 million in General Fund expenses and $13.8 million in Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan expenses.
The proposed budget projects using about $2.8 million in General Fund reserves and about $1.3 million in habitat-plan reserves. Total proposed spending is roughly $5.6 million below the authority’s $47.1 million amended 2026 budget, largely because proposed habitat-plan expenses fall from about $19.8 million to $13.8 million.
The proposed Comal Springs budget is $851,029, which is $178,879—or about 17.4%—below the $1,029,908 amended and estimated for 2026. The listed work includes aquatic-vegetation restoration, biological monitoring, invasive-species control, water-quality protection and flow-split management.
The authority attributes the higher combined fee to inflationary costs previously absorbed by reserves and an effort to rebuild financial capacity before a renewed habitat conservation plan expected in 2028. That is the agency’s explanation for the proposal, which is not yet a final rate.
Public review comes before adoption
The posted action item called for the committee to recommend releasing the proposal for public comment, with a public meeting proposed for Oct. 19 at 11 a.m.; any final adoption would require later board action.
Later utility budgets and rate filings can show whether affected permit holders absorb the increase or incorporate it into customer-rate proposals. Readers can inspect the line-by-line budget for fee, reserve and Comal Springs details, then follow the legislation record for the public-review and adoption stages.