Impact fees are a separate stream
NBU describes impact fees as one-time payments tied to new development. Its published Schedule E lists a maximum $25,692 combined water and wastewater impact fee for a 5/8-by-3/4-inch residential meter: $19,448 for water and $6,244 for wastewater. A maximum schedule does not establish what every new home pays.
NBU recorded $28.180 million in FY2025 impact fees. It budgets $22.976 million for FY2027 and $168.221 million across FY2027–FY2031. Dividing the FY2027 budget by the same 64,929 active electric meters gives about $354 per meter, a comparison of scale rather than a credit owed to existing customers.
Why NBU collects impact fees
NBU’s Impact Fee Policy says water and wastewater facilities available at reasonable cost encourage development and expand the ratepayer base. It says the policy aims to distribute growth-related capital costs fairly between development owners and ratepayers. Its listed per-service-unit facilities include storage tanks, water treatment, pump stations, wells, lift stations and wastewater treatment. The policy says the city’s original authorizing ordinance was No. 2000-48 and that the policy was formerly called the Capital Recovery Policy.
Texas Local Government Code Chapter 395 permits a local government to impose impact fees only under its requirements; the state statute does not itself require a fee. The local requirement comes from the City of New Braunfels ordinance: NBU’s policy says new development must be assessed impact fees before approval. Qualified professionals must prepare a capital improvements plan. The statute requires a credit for the share of utility revenue new service units will pay toward plan improvements, or an alternative credit equal to 50% of plan cost, so the fee calculation accounts for payments through future rates.
The statute caps the fee per service unit at eligible growth costs, less the required credit, divided by projected new service units. It restricts proceeds to improvements in the plan and eligible financing costs, bars spending them on operations, maintenance, administration or upgrades for existing development, and requires a separate account. It provides refunds with interest to the property’s record owner in specified cases, including service not provided within statutory deadlines or money unspent after 10 years. Land-use assumptions and the plan must be updated at least every five years, and an advisory committee with at least half its members from real estate, development or building industries must file semiannual progress reports. These restrictions direct the fee revenue to growth projects; any benefit to existing ratepayers is indirect, through costs that need not be placed in ordinary utility rates.
City Council adopted the current water and wastewater impact-fee ordinance by amending City Code Chapter 130, Article VI, Sections 130-336 through 130-410. City minutes record a 6-1 first-reading vote on Oct. 24, 2022, with Councilmember Jason Hurta opposed, and unanimous final approval by all seven members present on Nov. 14, 2022. Schedule E took effect Feb. 1, 2023.
The Nov. 14 minutes list Mayor Rusty Brockman and Councilmembers Andres Campos, Christopher Willis, Harry Bowers, Lawrence Spradley, Jason Hurta and James Blakey as present.
Where NBU buys water, and the Seguin question
No Seguin water has been delivered to NBU since July 2024, according to NBU. A Comal.News extraction of NBU’s purchased-water tables shows that its plans still budget $2.599 million a year for City of Seguin purchased water: in the FY2026 budget, the FY2027 budget and each forecast year through FY2031. That is about $13 million budgeted over FY2027–FY2031. What those budgeted payments cover while deliveries are stopped, including whether the agreement requires payment without delivery, is a question for the next contract and expenditure records. NBU says its City of Seguin agreement began in 2018 and remains in effect through 2038. Water arrived from 2019 through July 2024 through another provider’s existing infrastructure under a wheeling arrangement. NBU says deliveries ended when that arrangement ended in July 2024 and that it is evaluating contract, infrastructure and other options.
NBU’s FY2024 audited report describes a contract for 2,500 acre-feet a year of blended groundwater and surface water. It says delivery began in 2019 at 1,500 acre-feet a year, rose to 2,000 in October 2022 and 2,500 in 2023, with a possible additional 500 by mutual agreement. These are contracted annual amounts, not monthly delivery figures. The report describes the Weltner Road tank and pump station as a planned intake point for Seguin and GBRA supplies; NBU’s later supply account says actual Seguin deliveries used another provider’s infrastructure.
NBU’s FY2025 audited report says a separate GBRA Carrizo project brings water from wells in Gonzales and Caldwell counties through treatment in Gonzales County and a 40-mile pipeline to Weltner. It reports delivery beginning in mid-2024 and describes an 8,000-acre-foot annual supply. The FY2027 plan budgets $16.164 million for purchased water overall.
Underground storage remains in testing
NBU’s FY2022 audited report says it acquired land for its aquifer storage and recovery project in 2017 and completed its first well in 2018. It described a goal of about 14,000 acre-feet a year with up to nine wells, preliminary per-well rates of about 0.5 million gallons a day for injection and 1 million gallons a day for recovery, and a program cost of about $23 million. Those were goals and estimates, not measured recovery.
NBU’s FY2025 audited report says the demonstration well and four monitoring wells were in operation and the program was in Phase 4 cycle testing. It reports approximately 500 million gallons stored in the system. Cycle Two recovery paused in November 2022; deepening of Well D1 began in FY2025 so water could be injected into both the Upper and Lower Edwards Saline Zones. The report expected Cycle 3 testing to resume in fall 2025 and says testing results would support a request for a TCEQ operating permit.
NBU’s FY2025 audited report puts its supply inventory at about 54,575 acre-feet a year, says roughly half is subject to drought curtailment and estimates firm yield at about 38,123 acre-feet a year. Storage testing matters to customers because the project is intended to make stored water available during tighter supply conditions.
The next records to check
The next records to check are the Seguin wheeling agreement and why it ended, the identity of the other provider, NBU’s payments to Seguin since July 2024 and what the budgeted Seguin payments cover. ASR test reports and the TCEQ permit record can show recovered volumes, water quality and operating status. NBU’s city-transfer calculation and subsequent actual results can show how the FY2027 figure was derived and how it compares with spending. Readers can inspect the budgeted transfer, impact fees and purchased-water total in NBU’s financial plan.
