Hialeah promises lower water bills for some residents, businesses. Who’s paying for it?

Hialeah admin September 10, 2026 0 Comments

Hialeah promises lower water bills for some residents, businesses. Who’s paying for it?

Hialeah Mayor Bryan Calvo is promising lower water bills for more than half of the city’s water and sewer customers beginning next month, but his administration has yet to explain how it will pay for the reductions while the utility faces millions of dollars in higher costs.

Starting Oct. 1, Hialeah plans to reduce water and sewer rates by 25% for residential customers and small businesses using fewer than 10,000 gallons a month. The city projects about 30,000 families could benefit.

Residents 65 and older with household incomes below $38,000 who maintain an approved homestead exemption and senior exemption would receive an additional 25% reduction, for a total discount of 50%. Another 6,000 families could qualify.

“This is a necessity,” Calvo said at the City Council meeting Tuesday. “It isn’t a luxury, and it’s the job of the city to make sure that our residents have equitable access to that water.”

He said his administration has worked diligently over the past eight months to “put some money back into our residents’ pockets.”

Hialeah has about 62,000 water and sewer accounts, meaning about 36,000, or nearly 60%, could receive some form of relief.

The plan raises a key question: Who will pay for the cuts?

Asked by the Miami Herald who would cover the difference between what Hialeah pays Miami-Dade County for water and sewer services and what the city would collect after reducing customers’ bills by 25% or 50%, Calvo said there is no gap.

“Whoever consumes more will face an additional charge for that extra consumption,” Calvo said, without explaining how the reduced bills would be financed. “The city isn’t going to run a deficit or provide subsidies. The city isn’t subsidizing anything. It’s a self-sustaining system.”

Several council members who spoke with the Herald said they are concerned the cost could shift to customers with higher consumption, including hospitals, schools and other large businesses.

The city’s proposed annual budget is $514.4 million. The budget documents do not show that customers will pay more under the proposed rate reductions, but the administration has not provided a detailed breakdown showing how much revenue the cuts would cost the utility or where replacement money would come from.

The revenue question

Under the prior administration, Hialeah budgeted a $13 million general fund transfer to the water and sewer fund for fiscal 2026. Calvo’s proposed fiscal 2027 budget eliminates that transfer while proposing major rate reductions for water and sewer customers.

But the city projects substantially higher utility revenue.

Total water and sewer fund revenue is projected to rise from $120 million to $133.3 million, an increase of about 11%.

Water revenue is projected to increase by $8.4 million or 27%, from $31 million to $39.6 million.
Sewer revenue is projected to increase by $20.7 million or nearly 32%, from $65.5 million to $86 million.

The budget does not explain what specifically accounts for those increases. Calvo has said higher costs for water and sewer services from Miami-Dade County will add about $5 million to Hialeah’s expenses.

Miami-Dade County is also proposing a 6% increase in its retail water and wastewater rates beginning Oct. 1. That is not necessarily the same increase Hialeah will pay as a wholesale customer, but it illustrates the broader pressure on water and wastewater costs.

Calvo’s administration has not explained whether the fiscal 2027 revenue projections assume higher rates or charges for customers who use more than 10,000 gallons, or whether the increases are expected to come from higher consumption, improved collections, new customers or other sources.

Discrepancy behind the numbers

There is also a discrepancy in how the savings have been described.

Calvo said the typical bill would fall from about $78 to $62, a 21% reduction, not the 25% he promised. A 25% cut would bring the bill to $58.50.

The city’s proposed budget also describes a roughly 21% reduction for the sample household.

The difference matters because the proposed rate structure is designed to provide the largest reduction to customers in the lowest consumption tiers.

Miami-Dade County provides another point of comparison. The county said in July that average per-capita water use had fallen to 139 gallons per person per day. That translates to about 4,170 gallons per person in a 30-day month. A four-person household using that amount would consume roughly 16,680 gallons a month, more than three times the 5,250-gallon figure used in Hialeah’s proposal.

Where does the money come from?

Calvo said the reductions will come from better management of the Water Department and emphasized that the utility generates its own revenue.

But the budget leaves unanswered how the city can reduce rates for lower consumption customers, eliminate the $13 million general fund transfer and still collect substantially more in water and sewer revenue.

The concern for many is that lower bills for some customers could mean higher costs for others, creating different rates or a separate fee for the same service.